Skate Comp Comps

Here's one of the hats I donated to a skate contest at Nine Star in L.A. to be part of a prize. I haven't named it yet. Maybe...Navy Seal.

Oh and here's the other one--there's more info a few posts down too. I'm psyched about my new series comin up, more like Dave Mata's hat below...

My Hat log: "The Incredible Hulk"

This is Dave Mata. Outside his Impala gallery, and at the Double Door in Chicago. He's an amazing soul DJ, he co-runs Soul Summit, one of the most kick-ass dance monthly parties in town.

TITLE: "The Incredible Hulk"
MATERIALS: Acrylic paint, gloss
COLLECTION OF: Dave Mata

My Hat Hits L.A.

So I took off to L.A. for a fashion show (and a wedding), and I decided to take four hats along--and slapped this one on a show model. Yowza. Now that's a hot mess, but in a very good Kiss-ish kind of way.

And here's another unsuspecting model I snagged at the Bootleg Theater. For some reason this all happened in the bathroom. Want to buy one of these? Email me at myhat09@gmail.com.

My Hat log: "Coffee Drip, Damn"

TITLE: "Coffee Drip, Damn"
MATERIALS: acrylic paint
COLLECTION OF: TBD (I donated this to Nine Star Skate/Snow/Surf/BMX in LA as part of a prize for a skate competition, we'll see if the winner e-mails me)

My Hat log: "Red Denizen"

TITLE: "Red Denizen"
MATERIALS: pen, Sharpie, acrylic
COLLECTION OF: Spencer Montgomery

My Hat log: "Bling Blong Black"

So I peeled back some of the grip-tape pieces that were being funky, filled some gaps in with Sharpie, did some outlining and re-gluing and ta-da. I almost want to keep this for myself.

TITLE: "Bling Blong Black"
MATERIALS: spraypaint, Sharpie, pen, grip tape
COLLECTION OF: TBD
ON SALE AT: myhat09@gmail.com
PRICE: $50

Hat Swap-Out at Wolfbait

Well I haven't been really publicizing that I have hats for sale at that boutique Wolfbait--I was kind of apprehensive about some of the designs I think, have been short on time, and it being my first (retail) time and blah... so I was gonna take them out and re-evaluate, maybe do some tweaking and try another outlet...then Jenny at the store was like, Oh but there's the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Fest this weekend in Logan Square and there will be good traffic and a lot of guys have been looking at the hats and...

I do realize that the majority of my hats--unconsciously on my part--have kind of a more girl aesthetic. So I decided to take out "The Wet Brown Elephant," "Characters" and "Bling Blong, The Wicked Witch Is Dead" (leaving "Black Gold"), and swap in three that were a little more "duosex," and more refined too.

I ended up toying with Bling Blong, The Wicked Witch Is Dead" (morphing it into "Bling Blong Black"), brought in a brown one I'd finished awhile ago (which I named "Coffee Drip, Damn"), and put the finishing touched on a new one, "Red Denizen." Read more about them above.

My Hat log: "Characters"

I painted some crude squares using black nail polish, then layered in some red marker, and it's been so Asian-esque ever since.
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TITLE: "Characters"
MATERIALS: nail polish, marker, highlighter
COLLECTION OF: TBD
ON SALE AT: myhat09@gmail.com
PRICE: $40

My Hat log: "Bling Blong, The Wicked Witch Is Dead"

The hat in the picture below has just slivers of grip tape in the text, but this one is full-grip action—doused with a good dose of gold spray paint.

I shall call it... Goldylocks. No. Blinglocks? Bling-Blong? (The Wicked Witch Is Dead). Ha! I just saw this teensy-bopper production of The Wizard of Oz, I'd never seen so many hipped-out baby Munchkins.
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TITLE: "Bling Blong, The Wicked Witch Is Dead"
MATERIALS: grip tape. spray paint

My Hat log: "Black Gold"

I've always wanted to be one of those people who help brainstorm like, a name for a new car model. When I was a magazine editor, it was a trip sitting around trying to come up with names for a new section, it was spew-out-eriffic.

So I'll indulge my Inner Creative Marketer and present some kind of name for each hat. I thought about numbering, but shoot—they were all worked on and completed in various stages—and hell, I'll still whip out my Sharpie and tweak a hat at the boutique.

So here's my first attempt to name a hat for sale at a store... My Hatma Gandhi? OMG, no. Maybe later. For some charity hat auction.

How about... maybe "My Hat" should be in the title, since it's kind of a "title track" if you will. Oh, there it is—"Title Track." We'll call the first one "Title Track: Bleedy-Red Protoype."

For this one, what about—"Title Track: Black Gold." I like that, yeah. Okay, no. Too wordy. Just "Black Gold."
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TITLE: "Black Gold"
MATERIALS: spraypaint, Sharpie, pen, grip tape
COLLECTION OF: TBD
ON SALE AT: myhat09@gmail.com
PRICE: $40

My Tags... and the "LP" Thing

So at that warehouse in Madison where this venture began, I started writing what became my tag of sorts. I did it on this one wall, in a small section, there were some others there. 

Colleagues had been calling me "LP"—my initials—at the time, and I think when I was initialing something once, I realized that the capital "L" and "P" together read like "UP"—as they kind of bled together into one unit. "UP." I liked that. Sometimes I'd take colored eye pencils and write that tag on mirrors in bathrooms, one time in a backstage dressing room. For a long time, when I was struggling with just life, especially in college, I wrote "Forward" on a lot on things. Both words kind of have that positive connotation. Always looking ahead, staying optimistic.

One day I cut out the label inside one hat, took a paint pen and wrote "LP." So when it came to naming these designs... I guess the hats themselves are a My Hat design, by LP. But with a logo that looks kind of like the tag above—one of the retail tags I made for the hats (ha, I like the dual-meaning-usage of that). Inside the tag I listed this blog and the Facebook page. I wrote that if people send me their name, I'll add it to the caption of the hat's picture that I've posted here, and on Facebook too. As it'll be "Their Hat" and all. Collection of. Cause each hat is unique.

In Stores Now—Well, In One Store

So...you know how you keep waiting "for the right time" to move forward on a project—but really, you should just frickin' do it already? Yeah, so, this summer 2009, I sat in my apartment looking around at the hats that I'd dusted off from the secluded Chicago winter—and decided to take them to a shop. Right then.

I headed up to Wolfbait & B-girls in Logan Square (in Chicago) with about eight. Shirley Novak the Wonderful briskly picked out four, gave me the rundown on their consignment policy—and later suggested that I throw a hat on a mannequin that co-owner Jenny Stadler and an intern were dressing for the window. I threw on this hat--styled with gold spray paint, black Sharpie, pen and grip tape. She looked good. I was pleased, unexpectedly, nicely. Jenny said, "She looks like a badass." Sometimes just putting yourself out there when you're not totally ready (you think) is good because the feedback process—the real feedback process, not just your friends and family—has to start sometime, somewhere. Especially so you can start processing the details that need to be improved.

Anyways, so there's four My Hat designs by LP at Wolfbait & B-girls now. At $25 each.