Last time I wrote to you, I shared some thoughts about finding value in unexpected places, and how artists price their work. I talked about how delight itself can be a gift, and how sometimes that gift is returned with money. All of these gifts in turn feed my family, my creative spirit, and my art.

Some silly tiny paintings I'm doing for a market on Saturday. 

Today, I get to share another kind of gift: the very first physical copy of the Ask The Cats Oracle Deck has arrived! 🐾✨

My sample of the Ask the Cats Oracle Deck in all its shiny glory! (I will take better pictures, I swear)

It feels incredible to hold this deck in my hands. It came out perfectly. I love it. 

It’s already bossing me around with business advice (!!) And I want to bring it to you with the care and attention it deserves. 

My sample of the Ask the Cats Oracle Deck in all its shiny glory! (I will take better pictures, I swear)

Let's goooooo!

Not so fast. 

Here’s where big ideas meet real-world business—the work it takes to make a project like this sustainable.

• My sample deck cost me about $50—to print just one. Obviously, I can’t ask you to pay more than that.

• To offer the deck for a fair retail price (under $50), I need my production cost to be about ¼ of retail. That way, I can also offer decks wholesale to retailers without putting myself in the red.

• Packaging matters: the tin I tried is adorable but expensive (and barcode-unfriendly), so I’ll be switching to tuck boxes to make the deck more accessible.

The first reading I did with the deck - it basically told me to be ready for challenges and beware of draining my resources.

What now?

The tradeoff of getting the price right is that I’ll need to order at least 100 decks at once. That lowers the cost per deck but raises my up-front investment by a lot. It’s more than I can risk on my own right now.

Print-on-demand can be a great option for some artists, but for me it feels too transactional. What I love is sharing a joyful moment—even if you don’t buy anything.

So here’s the plan: I’m planning a crowdfunding campaign, and I've applied for Kickstarter's “Make 100” campaign in January. 

Together, we’ll raise the funds for the first print run. This means the decks won’t be in hand for the holidays—but it also means we can launch thoughtfully, with enough momentum to carry forward into reprints, markets, and retailers.

A sketch of a falcon that I did live on Twitch! I was super proud of it... until I realized the falcon has a comically small head.

Want to see the deck?

I’m back to streaming on Twitch (!!) and I’ll be hosting an official deck reveal soon. I’ll flip through the cards, chat about the process, and answer your questions live. I might even do a few readings!

📅 Tuesday, October 7th - 1 PM Eastern
📺 www.twitch.tv/AngryGatoArt

Come hang out and celebrate this milestone with me.

Thank you for sharing this journey (and these gifts of joy and curiosity) with me. 

💌 Lindsey
Angry Gato Designs

silly art for serious joy

An unexpected part of my creative practice lately has been making zines. Most of the zines I've made so far have been sent along to my Stampfans subscribers, which I credit with giving me the push to create something new and different each month.

This month's zine is a reflection on the summer from the liminal space called September. It calls forth memory, lessons learned, and gifts received.

I found a gift at the local supermarket yesterday - boxes of strawberries. Not the plastic clamshells from Mexico, but berries that looked fresh from the patch - in September, no less!

I ate them all within the span of a day.

I've been listening to Robin Wall Kimmerer's masterwork Braiding Sweetgrass. I picked up a copy of The Serviceberry on a quick weekend trip out of town. 

If you're unfamiliar with her work, these two books center around the idea of abundance, gifts, and reciprocity in the natural world.

Roskva, one of the Keepers of the Seeds at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. I felt so many feelings there!

You might not know this about me, but I went to school for sustainable agriculture and I can be an insufferable plant nerd. To me, ecology seemed as relevant to people and relationships as it was to the natural world. 

When I stepped into the world of Angry Gato in 2020, I did it mostly because I was making and donating cloth face masks. Some folks would see my masks and ask if they could have one. Some had special requests for patterns or themes. 

So, I decided that I would sell them and the proceeds quickly ended up back into fabric and supplies for the masks I'd donate. 

This was the fabric I used to make my very first mask. If we had to wear these uncomfortable things, I thought, why not make it silly and fun?

Artists struggle a lot with pricing the products of their labor. 

When I eventually moved beyond masks and offered my own art for sale, I wanted to hold firm in the belief that my labor had value. 

If people buy my stuff and the profit margin is acceptable for me, then the market appropriately values my work. To this day I think a lot about whether a product is cost- and labor-efficient. 

We all have bills to pay, after all.

Our booth space at last weekend's Mystics, Makers, and Magick market before the event started.

Angry Gato mainly pays its own bills, and not much more. That's okay. But I often struggle with the idea of this container for my creative expression to be so dependent upon making sales.

Putting forth more "stuff" into the world. Being told that I have to be on social media, so I can just shout into the algorithmic void and hope someone hears me.

Scarcity, scarcity, scarcity.

I've been thinking about The Serviceberry and Braiding Sweetgrass, and about reciprocity, particularly in the context of my art and my business. I think I'm beginning to see beyond the shadows, to what might be.

This weekend, I vended at a local market called Mystics, Makers, and Magick. It was a swampy, steamy morning with enough breeze to make it barely tolerable. We got rained out at 2:30 and a bunch of my zines got ruined.

But that's not what I remember most about the event.

This sticker was made by my friend Made By Max. He lives in North Carolina now, but I found one of his stickers back up in New Hampshire.

I remember seeing many friends, some of which were fellow vendors. I helped Haley, a friend new to outdoor markets with their tent weights, lending some bungee cords and wrapping the heavy concrete filled pipes around their tent legs.

I remember my friend Cass, when I went to their booth and selected a print, telling me they didn't want my money because I've supported them on Patreon for years. So I insisted on bringing over zines to give instead.

I remember seeing many many other friends and familiar faces. I remember feeling the abundance of connection with the market-goers as they laughed at my stickers and told stories about their cats.

(People always do this.)

I remember showing some folks the prototype for my Ask the Cats oracle deck, sharing it like a secret, not caring if they bought anything.

I remember someone saying that their best sales tactic was genuine enthusiasm.

Another example of abundance and reciprocity in action - recently I helped harvest tulsi (holy basil) at a local farm, and got to bring some home!

This, to me, is what abundance and reciprocity can look like in our world. It's a reminder that another way is possible.

The delight of seeing weird, funny illustrations in my booth is a gift, freely given. Some will share their money in exchange for holding onto that delight for a little while longer. 

That exchange feeds me, my family, and my creative spirit. That day, it got us some ice cream on our way home.

And that is more than enough.

Thanks for being here, for walking with me on this meandering garden path of a message, and for sharing in abundance with me.

💌 Lindsey
Angry Gato Designs

silly art for serious joy

This Saturday is Market Square Day in Portsmouth, NH — and all signs point to a whole lot of rain.

It’s easy to feel defeated when you see a soggy forecast. Events like this take so much effort already, and the idea of your lovingly displayed art under plastic sheets… it can feel like a bummer.

But here’s the thing:

We still show up.

On a night hike in Costa Rica, we got absolutely drenched. Soaked to the bone.

Rain jackets? Futile. Shoes? Wet for days.

And yet — it was still amazing.

We laughed, we squished, we found frogs and glowing mushrooms in the forest. We were there.

Rain doesn’t have to ruin everything. Sometimes it makes the memories more vivid.

This week, I went to a birthday picnic held under drippy trees and twilight mist — a little chilly, but somehow cozy and enchanted.

Sometimes the story is the storm.

And after the storm, after standing all day with damp socks and a grin that says “I’m fine, really”…
there’s this.

A blanket. A cat. A soft, earned kind of exhale.

So if you’re nearby and feeling brave — come say hi under the tent.

And if you’re curled up at home with tea and a cat of your own? You can still be part of it.

I've updated my online shop with a few things for the weekend, including some that don't typically make it to market — tees, mugs, art-tile-coasters, and a few original pieces, too! 

If you're so inclined to celebrate the rain with us, use code YAYRAIN at checkout for a little bonus thank you - valid through Monday.

Thanks for being here, rain or shine.

With soggy love,

— Lindsey

Angry Gato Designs
silly art for serious joy

I just got back from Costa Rica, where I spent time in the actual jungle—lush, tangled, and loud with life.

I always thought of the jungle as a place where everything blooms. And it is. But during a drive to the coast, as we wove through layers of cloud forest and birdsong, our guide casually mentioned that the word jungle actually comes from a term meaning something closer to tangle.

That stuck with me.

(Me, ziplining through the jungle of my mind.)

My mind’s always been a bit of a jungle, tangled with ideas, to-do lists, memories, and the occasional howler monkey yelling about things I forgot to do.

But something about being in the jungle—real vines, real howler monkeys—quieted all that noise.

(We were told that howler monkeys are actually the chill monkeys.)

Since coming back, I've wanted to hold onto that quiet. But I’ve also been sloooowly stretching back into studio life.

Like a sloth slooooowly reaching for a leaf snack.

(That's some quality Pura Vida right there.)

And wouldn’t you know it—some of those jungle thoughts have already started to sprout.

The Tiny Beasts I’ve been dreaming up are officially out in the world (find them here!), complete with their very own classified backstory.

If you missed the memo (or just want to see what kind of mischief they’re up to), I made a free digital zine packed with creature lore, cozy chaos, and a peek at what’s coming next.

You can grab it here:

Thanks for being here, even when things get a little tangled. I’m learning to trust that everything grows in its own time. 🌿

Sending you something green and alive,

— Lindsey

Angry Gato Designs
silly art for serious joy

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of vending at a HUGE event in our area. Part of my elevator pitch includes the fact that I draw all of my art on my iPad. This often leads to delightful conversations with budding artists about their own journeys. One in particular mentioned that they would be vending at their first event soon which is SO EXCITING! 

This moment also made me reflect on where we started, and what I've learned along the way.

On the left is our very first market setup. This was back in 2020, and I was mostly selling handmade masks along with a few other random crafts. We had no tent and no tablecloth, which is SHOCKING to most seasoned market vendors. Our little earring display kept getting knocked over by the slightest breeze, and 15 minutes into the event I ended up removing the earrings and packing away the stand.

On the right is our booth from yesterday. So much has changed, and I've gone from making handmade masks to putting my art on products to sell. Our branding is different, we have a tent that weighs a million pounds, and we've got our car-packing-Tetris game on lock. I get excited about collapsible hand-trucks! 😅 (I'm also ridiculously proud of how wind-resistant our setup is - anyone who's set up a booth outside knows what I'm talking about!)

So much of our progress can be attributed to a few simple things - repetition and iteration. We experiment with something, see how things go, and change as necessary. We like to think of quality over quantity, but I'm a firm believer that if you don't start with quantity, you won't be able to figure out what quality looks like *for you*.

This is also my biggest piece of advice to young creators! Focus on repeating, observing, and iterating. Make art, even if it's bad! Focus on quantity over quality, because if you pay attention you'll see that quality will come over time.

Start somewhere, anywhere - and the less perfect it is, the more you'll be able to see how far you've come.