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Events- Renegade Craft Fair LA 1/2 table

Hey, here are a few photos from my visit to Renegade Craft Fair in Los Angeles. I was booth mates with Queenie from Dear Mello who sells plush bunnies Go check her out. Her and her husband were super sweet and this photo was taken by her hubby James Giovanni Pan.

This year was the first time in a while that I shared a booth so I worked on my booth a bit before I took off and coordinated w/ my booth mate.

Once the time came I got my stuff ready, packed up the whip, and headed to LA.

I got down there to this wide open field at LA Historic Park outdoors and lugged my stuff up to my spot with countless other artisans, lots of working class folks trying to earn a living.

Craft shows are work. You make the work, the art, you produce original or reprinted or manufactured versions of your work. You carry it to the venue and you set it up in a way that shows off your stuff and hopefully invites folks to become a fan, and ultimately buy this work.

I got to my booth where Queenie was beginning to arrive and we got to work.

Folks started to file in, some just passerbys and many loyal followers of Renegade Craft Fair which I’ve attended or participated in up in the Bay and Seattle. The show went pretty good for a spring show, I’d hoped to make more but I keep tweaking my set u, trying out different events and cities. The event was well organized and promoted for sure.

While I was there my friend and author Danielle Davis came by and snapped some cool photos of me. Thank you Danielle! I also met Tori Drew it who was cranking out drawings, Story artist Anson Jew, artsy couple Aishwarya Chandramohan & Brandon Liu, jewelry maker Aracheli Studio. That’s it for this show. After all was said and done I got some ice cream around the UCLA campus and headed back to the Bay.

Dig this? Check out my table set up for San JoseMade or Craneway Craft Fair.

June 11, 2026
in Business Resources, Events
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2000 Sales on Etsy!

Got damn, I just crossed the 2000 number mark on Etsy. To celebrate here’s a discount code (GREATEST7) for 15% off anything in the shop that will be valid until May 22nd. Hella appreciate the support whether you’ve bought something from my shop once or 3 times.

History: I’ve sold on We Buy Black, My own wordpress site (new store coming), Faire, and a few other sites here and there. But My Etsy has been the most consistent for the past decade. I remember the first time at a class at Parsons in NYC a rep from the company came to a class . I think Trey Hoyumpat’s class (2008). He broke it down, I started a shop but didn’t think much about it. I sold zines, handmade light switch covers, original art with affirmations on it, and that was it from 2008-2014.

Fast forward to 2016, I’d been sending out my postcards to art directors in the kid lit world since 2008 and after getting little to no response I launched my own kickstarter for Furqan’s First Flat Top and then distributed the book myself. That book and those that followed it reignited my imagination. I began to sell prints from the book and decided to go beyond those and illustrate kids of color relating to literacy, identity, and self respect. That really started to kick things off, it felt like it was serving a need for folks and myself, it inspired me, and it was affordable.

Although I’d sold original art before this lead to a series of events as a seller. Local events like the Malcolm X Jazz Fest, then later my first large events like the SF Etsy Emporium where the focus was on the artists, nothing else. Here’s a photo of my first time selling at Malcolm X Jazz Fest with authors Jill Guerra and Gualikuya Mariposa fka Melissa Reyes. And then at a holiday market in Richmond with my wife.

This was my set up at the 2024 West Coast Craft Fair, my how things have changed. Anyways, this is just a short walk down memory lane. I plan to release a pdf on how I got to 2000 sales. In the meantime….

If you dig this, check out this post I made about getting to 1000 sales on Etsy five years ago.Or this post about my table set up.

May 9, 2026
in Business Resources
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Call your reps re: HR 7661

Urgent, call your reps to tell them : Vote NO on HR 7661! This is a dangerous bill targeting Queer and Trans kids, families, and books, read the images and go to this link #authorsagainstbookbans

Confused? See my previous post about book banning and how it went from 1-200 a year to over 4000!

Dig this? Check out the film The Librarians which features librarians harrassed, threatened, and fired for stocking diverse books about Queer/ Trans identity or Race/ Criticism of White Supremacy.

March 18, 2026
in Educational Resources
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Black Is Beautiful 2026 – Combahee River Collective

This is a crew of bad ass women who’s statements echo today and whose voices are still strong. The Combahee River Collective (1974-1980) is a crew, clique, or family founded by Black women out in the Boston area. They are Black, they are women, Queer, and Radical in their politics. “The name”Combahee” refers to the river in South Carolina that Harriet Tubman used to free over 700 enslaved Black folks. In the 60s and 70s we had a lot of movements for civil rights, independence, and social change happening but in separate silos. Meaning some knew their issue, but not others. So, these sisters came from different groups and formed their own. They wrote a statement that gave analysis to movements happening and how they “connected”. This definition was ground breaking back then and is still used by scholars, students, and activists today. Before the term intersectionality, there was Combahee. Celebrating , not ignoring their many identities and helping folks get that oppression is coming for all of us so we better stand with each other, rather than apart. As a group these women who were activists, artists, teachers, writers, etc worked on campaigns to support abortion rights, they stood against sterilization, against domestic violence and attacks against women, they stood up for their Queer and trans family, they were anti-war, anti establishment, and they advocated for solidarity between people fighting oppression. Members included: Gloria Akasha-Hill, Cheryl Clarke, Demita Frazier, Audre Lorde, Chirlane McCray, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Sharon Page-Ritchie, Beverly and Barbara Smith, Helen Stewart, and Mercedes Tompkins.

Why is this important? There are some folks within the Black Power, Feminist, Queer rights, or Social justice movement who pretend like one of the others ain’t shit. You may have seen it. But, I think some would agree, we’re stronger together (w/ hard discussions & principled struggle or disagreements). That means letting go of a lot of EGO and petty shit.

Sources: Black Women Radicals, Democracy Now, BLK History in 2 minutes or so, Wikipedia

Dig this? Check out my piece on Olive Morris, Claudia Jones, or Margaret Sloan.

February 13, 2026
in Black is Beautiful, Educational Resources, General, Ilustration
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Black Is Beautiful 2026 – Freedom House Ambulance

Its been three years since I did one of these for Black History Month! From 2016-2023 I drew and painted so many people, places, and groups from Black history that we dont hear enough about. And here’s one more:

The Freedom House Ambulance service was founded in 1967 in Pittsburg, PA by Phil Hallen (former ambulance driver) and Dr Peter Safar (Pioneering Dr @ Univ of Pittsburgh) in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, a predominantly Black neighborhood. EMT, Paramedics, and modern ambulances in the US owe a great deal to the Black men and women of Freedom House Ambulance. Around this time there were no ambulances for most working class folks in big cities, you called the police and they threw you in the back of a cop car or a police wagon. Being that there was rampant police brutality, profiling, harassment, and murder at the hands of police there was a contentious relationship when it came to emergency medical service. The majority of officers had no medical training and Black folks were at their wim when it came to being “sick enough” to warrant emergency medical services. As a result so many died from treatable things.

Enter Freedom House, a community based organization that got funding to not only create a hood based ambulance service, but to hire Black men; many of which were unemployed, did not graduate college, or had been in the system. Pioneering Dr Safar and several others gave them 12 months of medical training learning anatomy, physiology, resuscitation, etc. In addition to hundreds of hours in classroom settings , they spent time in the emergency and operating rooms, as well as the morgue before hitting the streets. And when they hit the streets they responded to six thousand calls in the first year or 16 emergency calls daily. Coming from the neighborhoods they were serving they understood when people were having a medical emergency relating to overdose, sickle cell anemia, diabetes, etc. In fact they were among the first paramedics to pioneer techniques using narcan for overdose, electric shock for heart attacks, intubating patients, CPR, and IV‘s. They were a mobile emergency hospital because they stabilized patients, saving thousands of lives.

Fast forward to the mid 70s, word got around that wealthier more white neighborhoods were not receiving the same level of expertise; the mayor and white establishment got jealous; and they intentionally pulled funding and support for the program. The city began randomly testing Freedom House medics, ruling out anyone who had been locked up, and using them to train white EMT’s who got better promotions. Eventually everyone was pushed out and only a select few were able to find employment with the city. But their work went on to help save lives nationwide and is still being used today.

Sources: WQED Pittsburg, Film: Heroes on Call, Wikipedia, and Sage Journals

Dig this? Check out my piece about these medical professionals: Dr Muriel Petioni, Dr Dorothy Brown, or Alice Augusta Ball

February 6, 2026
in Black is Beautiful, Educational Resources, General, Ilustration
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Must See Film: The Librarians

I saw this film last year in a fully packed room of librarians, authors, teachers, and activists and I’m still processing it. What I hope you get from watching the trailer is a sense of the depth of what authoritarian actors are going to in order to stop the flow of information, understanding, and empathy. It is not about what is age appropriate , it is about removing public access to knowledge.

Side note: I have had two books I’ve worked on as an illustrator banned and I know dozens of fellow authors or illustrators who’ve experienced the same and it relates directly to this documentary film.

More information about the doc HERE

Dig this? Check out this post about Authors Against Book Bans

January 22, 2026
in Educational Resources
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Open Space Authority- Coloring Book

Photo by my wifey

Hey yall, This is a photo of me holding a coloring book I illustrated for a south Bay organization called the Open Space Authority of Santa Clara. They are a an organization that stewards and protects over 30k acres of land in Santa Clara County from being bulldozed and turned into malls. The land includes hills, valleys, trees, wetlands, and lots of animals and critters.

Check out some of the land they protect even in the heart of silicon valley. Its a vast area! Thank goodness for organizations that do this kind of advocacy for all to appreciate nature and wildlife.

Here’s a bit of process of drawing one of the spreads from the book. This is the first spread from the coloring book. I also did the hand lettered typography for the title below.

Here’s the cover for the book which features coloring pages, puzzles, and some other observant activities for children to do. It’s a cool way to introduce them to the Santa Clara Valley.

Here are some screen shots from Open Source’s Instagram account where they took the books to a local hospital and made them available for kids in the pediatric waiting area. Visit Open Space Authority of Santa Clara here. If you wanna watch their video about this coloring book check it out here.

Dig this? check out some art I did for the AFYA Center for Health Equity or the cover of The Public Eye magazine

December 26, 2025
in Educational Resources, General, Ilustration, Lettering/ Typography
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Picture Book Recommendation- Jenny Mei is Sad

Heres a recent picture book review of a newish book called “Jenny Mei is Sad” which I LOVE by Tracy Subisak who is an author and illustrator. Its about friendship, big feelings, sadness, and its gorgeous. Never heard of it? Watch the video.

What is this? I have been working as a picture book illustrator/ writer since 2013 officially and I’ve been reading picture books since I became a young dad in 2004. In that time I’ve read nearly 700 picture books. Some trash, some ok, but with these videos I’m sharing my favorites! Watch all of them here. My last book is Fresh Juice.

Dig this? Check out the last review of “Perfect Harmony” by Charles R. Smith Jr.

December 8, 2025
in Creative Resources, Educational Resources
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Social Justice Children’s Book AWARD

So this is new for the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair, for the first time we’re giving away an award to 3 authors the night before the fair. Check out the awardees.

These are the three writers!

  • Raquel Donoso
  • Mona Damluji
  • Maya Gonzalez

RSVP for the event here whether you’ve been coming to the fair for years, you’re new, or you really support the kid lit world. Also, come check out the 9th annual Social Justice Children’s Book Fair.

Dig this? Check out this article from Oaklandside

November 27, 2025
in Creative Resources, Educational Resources, Events
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