Author: ellen

Jake and I are collaborating on a huge art installation for the Seattle Erotic Art Festival! It’s called Love Note, and it’s about writing, giving, and receiving love notes, something we are very fond of. Our piece will be one of the first things you’ll see from the entrance, at the end of the red carpet.

We’ve been honored with support from Western Bridge, the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and SEAF (this is their first year awarding grants for interactive installations).

Today’s SEAF newsletter has an article about Love Note, by Clea Hersperger:

Love notes are a little-explored area in the context of erotic art. As part of the 2010 Festival, Ellen Forney and her partner Jacob Peter Fennell are creating an interactive installation about love notes, a literary form the long-distance lovers know well. Love Note’s participants write, give, and receive a love note via writing stations, an enormous bed with a variety of pillows, and notes left and found under the pillows.

Love notes can encompass a great variety of emotional expressions – sweet, raunchy, romantic, silly. What note awaits you? What will you write? Indulge!

They also posted a sweet interview which I am copying below because I heart it so much!

The Seattle Erotic Art Festival is April 30 – May 2 at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. Tix here. Come! It’s really fun. (And we’ve been working our asses off!)

Continue reading “Everyone Loves a Love Note”

After much pain and inconvenience*, I have a NEW CAR! She is ADORABLE! Yesterday was a gorgeous day, and Jake and I zipped around the curvy hills of Portland with our sunglasses on and our hair blowing, catching glimpses of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood. Life is good!

Some things don’t change much. (Sometimes that’s good!)

(*Need to write that document soon, in re: the demise of the BMW. Sigh.)

Here is “Kick at Home” as it appears in I Love Led Zeppelin, and as it appears in the new Czech translation. One snag in the translation: my turkey drawing for the “cold turkey” panel. The Czech translation for “cold turkey” is more like “clean cut,” and Jarka and I went back and forth on how to deal with that (her first solution was a hand with the fingers cut off -!?). We eventually settled on a jack-knife cutting the panel border.

In I Love Led Zeppelin:

In Czech:

From the Czech translator:

I believe that czech readers will be pleased that
czech edition of your comics has something special, something “only for
czech” added by the author, i. e. U!
we would like to place some note about it on the cover.

thank U very much for help – I will send U the cartoon to authorize.

translating of your work really was little bit “hard-core” 😉 but also
it was soooo funny! So many good jokes – RESPECT!

greetings,
jarka

First off, everyone’s okay – but the BMW is totaled. Fie on that 19-year-old in the yellow Aveo! (“Can we just exchange information? This is my sister’s car and she’s gonna kill me!”) The 2002 had a starring role in Wheels, a two-page comic I did for the Seattle P.I. (R.I.P. also!) in August, 2007.

Jillian passes me the torch (the keys and a Bic) in “Wheels”

May, 2007: Off to the DMV. Excited!

Goodbye, sweet 2002.

The first Blitz of 2010 is tomorrow! Map for the arts walk, show deets, and more info on the Blitz site.

I did the promo materials for February through May. Looking forward to seeing these around the neighborhood!

Jake and I took this footage a week ago, and edited over hot chocolate and Bailey’s today. Happy season for you!

Best wishes for many seasons of good lovin’! You can get your own copy of Lust through Fantagraphics Online, the Fantagraphics bookstore, Powell’s Books, or your local independent bookseller! Or Amazon, if you must.

Photo thanks to Sin in Linen – you rock, Sandy!

I’ll be signing books and shmingling at the Fantagraphics Bookstore’s 3rd anniversary party tonight:

The list of luminaries featured at the Third Anniversary gala at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Saturday, December 12 continues to lengthen as celebrity cartoonist Ellen Forney confirms her presence. Ellen does more than light up a room. Her collaboration with Sherman Alexie on The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian won the National Book Award in 2007. She’ll be available to sign copies of I LOVE LED ZEPPELIN, LUST, and her sexy contributions to BEST EROTIC COMICS 2008 and 2009. The event will also include music, performances, and signings by an international array of cartoonists!

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
Third Anniversary Celebration
Saturday, December 12, 6:00 – 9:00 PM
1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport Way S.)
206.658.0110

I adore Michael Wells, the owner of Bailey/Coy Books. He’s the one who nominated me for the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce; he’s the one who introduced me to Barbara Luecke, the Public Art Administrator for Sound Transit, which ended in my getting hired to do two enormous murals in the upcoming light rail station; he commissioned me to do a portrait for one of his best friends. He’s a doll, he’s smart, fun, generous.

When he told me that Bailey/Coy was closing, it was hard to believe. And when he told me there was going to be a benefit auction, I knew immediately that I wanted to donate something big: one of the Big Fuckin’ Hands paintings. This is “J-O” – 2′ x 2′, acrylic on Sintra:

You know you want it! Or you know you want something. Come right to the store this Thursday 12/3 at 6pm, or buy tickets in advance here.

For 26 years, Bailey/Coy Books served as Capitol Hill’s literary hub, providing the community with a place to be amongst books, talk about literature and meet their favorite authors.

On Thursday, December 3, we’re holding a wake for the store, in memory of all those years, and celebrating the customers who’ve walked through the doors, the authors we’ve hosted, the generations of books we’ve sold and the staff who have served us so well. We’ll also hold an auction of the memorabilia we’ve collected over the years. We want to say good-bye in style – and raise some cash to help the store.

Auctioneer Laura Michalek will oversee bidding on a pair of white boxer shorts signed by David Sedaris, original cartoons out of our guestbook by Matt Groening and Lynda Barry, a poster signed by Annie Leibovitz, an original painting from the Big Fucking Hands series by Ellen Forney, signed first editions and other very special and very odd items. We’ll also auction off dates with two of Capitol Hill’s celebrity politicians, State Senator Ed Murray and City Councilmember Sally Clark.

Entertainment will be provided by Fuschia Foxxx and the magnificent Dina Martina. Food and champagne will be served, all provided by local Capitol Hill eateries such as Poppy, Table 219, Charlie’s and High Five Pie. Tickets are $40. We will pop the champagne open at 6 PM—the entertainment, and the auction, will begin promptly at 7. Tickets are available at BrownPaperTickets.com or at the door.

Slog posted that “How to Smoke Pot and Stay Out of Jail” was the No. 1 hit on Digg yesterday afternoon. It has over 2000 diggs right now. Cool!

The posts on Reddit and Digg only have the first of two pages, unfortunately, omitting the page on civil rights and how to deal with police. Here’s the full comic, including the two weeks of fabulous, fiery “Letters to the Editor” in the Stranger.