A month or so ago, Brianne from Tender Loving Empire contacted me about selling my zines in her shop. I clicked on the link she provided and I was so excited to find out that not only was Tender Loving Empire pretty amazing, but they were located only 10 minutes away in the Pearl District. Sweet!

TLE (Tender Loving Empire) is a retail store, but it is also a media and arts collective, a record label, a publishing company, a gallery, a concert production house and a custom screenprinter. WHEW!

They just finished organizing a TLE Music Showcase this past friday for the big Musicfest Northwest AND they opened a new show in their gallery this past Thursday featuring the work of Aidan Koch, Amelia Harnas and Jennifer Lee. Did I say WHEW! already?


So let's talk about the goods, shall we?
I had a hard time just picking one item to purchase and ended up with eight choice items instead. Zoinks!
Entering the store I was immediately drawn to the spinner rack of zines and since zines are my guilt free purchase of choice, I bought five of them.

Chuck Cheese Please came into my hands at an excellent time because I have been a tad obsessed with the history of Chuck E. Cheese ...more specifically, Showbiz Pizza...more specifically The Rock-afire Explosion which was the restaurant's animatronic band. Words can't express how excited I am about the upcoming documentary about the The Rock-afire Explosion. I digress. Chuck Cheese Please is filled with history, drawings and ACTUAL tokens and toys from Chuck E. Cheese. Swoon.

For my new office at school, I purchased an Unlovable Tammy Pierce Poster also by Esther Pearl Watson. I have a bunch of Tammy zines and I also have a tremendous soft spot for all things freak and geek (because I was one/ am one).

My last purchases were two shirts. One shirt printed by TLE that features a drawing by Mike Bertino depicting boy in a bear suit and the words "stop rock and roll" printed on my favorite AA Tri-blend shirt. The other shirt was printed by Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction based out of Philadelphia. The shirt was a win/win for me seeing that I like super long shirts and I like wearing Walter Benjamin book titles on myself.
I chose the Art In the Age...shirt to draw for my daily purchase drawing.

OKAY! Today's shopping trip is over. For more TLE in your life, please browse through the slide show posted below. If you are in Portland, please stop by Tender Loving Empire and check out all they have going on. If you are not in Portland, go and visit their site, their store and their flickr. Heck, visit those links even if you DO live in Portland. Support TLE!
Post by Kate Bingaman-Burt
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
obsessiveconsumption.com / site
whatdidyoubuytoday.com / blog
kateconsumption.etsy.com / shop
publicdesigncenter.org / non profit
crapdetector.com / teaching
5 comments:
I loved reading this post, only just recently I've been following Esther Pearl Watson (when I read Martha Rich and her were going on a road trip) - and Mark Todd has been a favorite for a long time.
What a fun post.
Makes me want to get in the car and head down to Portland.
zines!!! oh i miss hearing that word so much. i used to do them in the mid/late 90s and still think about doing another now and then-- but mostly it feels like a silly thing to do now at this age-- until i read posts like this!
AMAZING post! i cannot wait to visit :)
and because this post was so darn tootin' good i think you're pretty much done for the week! In reality you could post 25 more rad posts...easy
thanks all! yay! thanks for reading!
Post a Comment