One of our goals for 2010 was to be more consistent with this newsblog – posting updates weekly. We stood ground for most of the year and didn’t really ever fall off course. However, I noticed that if I didn’t post a blog today, we’d have gone 3 weeks without one. Yikes. Couldn’t allow that to happen. I think we got some explainin’ to do. Alright here goes. Remember all those doc visits and bed-rest we noted in previous posts last month? Well, here’s the story: Malathip and I are expecting a child! For some, this may have been obvious, but rather than keep the rest of our wonderful fans and supporters in the dark, I’d like to alleviate all concerns and worries and give you all a bit of good news. With that said, we are super thrilled and bracing ourselves for the challenges of running a business and raising an awesome kid.

Still, there is a bunch going on. We will be making a cameo at the Crafts in Chelsea next weekend and we submitted a bid for BUST’s 2010 Holiday Craftacular. We may be expecting, but we are not dormant. Malathip has been toiling away, sketching out new pieces and she even started painting a new one (albeit much more methodically since her back hasn’t necessarily cooperated). She has also been mentioned in a nice little write-up in Victoria Klein’s Blog (thanks Victoria!). And last but certainly not least, her Owl Painting “Do You Think Spring Is Here?” is now featured on a Free Owl-Lover downloadable calendar courtesy of My Owl Barn! Get yours today.

While our esteemed founder has been reluctantly resting (per doctor’s orders) and besides working my usual husbandly care and duties, I’ve also been tweaking the website as it is evolving over time. So I want to take this moment to illustrate what I’ve been doing under the hood and what our awesome supporters and friends can expect in the coming months as we sneak into Fall and Winter and the close of a nice 2010 season.

First off, I’ve been reorganizing our online store. If you haven’t noticed, there is now a product filter at the top of all shop pages to help you better navigate our extensive catalogue. I will be moving the checkout and policies text to the store as well and out of our primary navigation in the next week. Also, a big change that is coming this holiday season: we will be offering bundled sets of notecards that you can create yourself in place of the individual card sales. An exciting and neat feature we’re hoping to roll out after a little bit of testing and QA making sure I don’t mess up the coding of the cart. These tweaks will certainly keep me busy this fall as we get closer and closer to holiday season. I’m also happy to annouce that we’ve placed some strategic advertising on crafty sites to keep spreading the word and raising awareness about endangered animals. In all – busy busy.

I’d also like to open up the floor to take any suggestions or requests that you’d like to see on our website to help us improve the entire experience. What would you like to see added? Changed? Send us a note as we’d love to hear your ideas!

Yesterday, CNN ran a feature article on the battle to preserve Nigeria’s rainforest. The startling figure they posted was that less than 10% of the forests are still standing there.Deforestation due to logging has been a focal concern in the plight of many endangered animals that we’ve covered over the years in EcoPatterns, and there is no doubt in our minds that the current situation in Nigeria is negatively affecting countless populations of animals at risk. Of course, the primary issue is overpopulation and the growing need for land in areas. Since we cannot possibly stunt the growth of our species in any ethical manner, we must think of ways to solve this problem so we don’t dramatically wipe out the very resources and life this planet thrives on.

Famous comedian George Carlin once said there exists an abundance of land that is currently wasted on nonsense – cemeteries and golf courses. Rather than dig up a bunch of rainforests that are the heart and lifeblood of this planet – we should focus our attention and resources and get creative on how to solve overpopulation issues. Failure to do so will inevitably lead to the slow, painful extinction of another species much more familiar – ourselves.

Although it is a deeply ingrained part of some national cultures worldwide, Bullfighting is also a very sad sport that generally concludes with the killing of the bull, and sometimes of the matador. Last week, I saw a news clip of a bull jumping into the stands in Spain and attacking fans further demonstrating the very dangerous, brutal aspect of the spectacle. Now, I am not launching into an animal rights monologue or extended preaching, but honestly – get it together, people! We are living in the 21st century, yet folks are still mired in ritualistic recreations. If it were critical to the advancement or survival, health of our species, I wouldn’t be writing this. But, it’s not.

Despite our objective being focused on endangered animals, we do like to spotlight the ill-intent of human behaviour. Because we are invariably responsible for not only the continuity of our species, but the conservation of the natural world. Yes, it’s a big responsibility to shoulder. But we are an intelligent species, with high capabilities, with rapidly advancing technology and science. We can split atoms and send messages outside of our solar system – yet we still have a man in colorful regalia and dress cape, taunting, stressing and ultimately killing a defenseless animal that has no choice but to be thrust into the action. We must stop this primitive, ritualistic nonsense.

Hello all, Rich here – taking the reigns of blogging duties and all things web from my wife so she can get some long needed rest and relaxation. In the midst of this rest, she is still sketching out new ideas and working on new paintings so we’re not expecting any significant down period. We are going through a pretty challenging chapter of our lives but we are not allowing this to stunt the development and growth of our business. And as she said, I’m picking up where she’s leaving off for the time being. It is our responsibility to our loyal customers, friends and most importantly to our overall mission.

With the birth of Ecopatterns, we took on the responsibility of utilizing art and social media to raise and spread awareness about animals most folks won’t know are endangered, and to back it up with factual information. This may seem like a modest responsibility to shoulder, but we feel it is critical for the future of the planet. We feel it would be particularly sad if elephants, giraffes and even little monkeys are spoken of in the same vein as dinosaurs a few generations from now. We have an opportunity to prevent this from happening especially if the threats are coming from things we have the power to control. So I wanted to extend a big thanks to everyone who has supported our mission thus far and those that continually encourage and help us spread the good word. Without you guys, we’d accomplish so little, and for that we are incredibly grateful. We look forward to keeping up the fight.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Red Panda otherwise known in some places as the original Fire Fox. Of course, I did not want to neglect actual foxes knowing that some of them are endangered as well. The Island Fox is one of them. On one island for example (Santa Rosa) there are under 14 Island Foxes left. 14?? There are more people in my 4-story brownstone where I live. This makes me sad and inspired my newest foxy painting, “Our Morning Ritual” – dedicated to all endangered foxes across the globe – including the most critically endangered Island Fox.

Another thing I wanted to say to everyone: I’m sure some of you have noticed that we’ve been available for outdoor markets less and less over the course of 2010. I just want to give my wonderful friends and supporters a quick note as to what’s going on. Lately, I’ve had to endure quite a bit medically – and have had repeated visits, tests and required rest prescribed by those monitoring me. Please rest assured that there is nothing uber-serious going on, and that everything will be ok. I am still working on new pieces and the business as we know it, is still moving forward. However, it is certainly affecting how often I can make appearances in outdoor markets and other venues. As always, please keep an eye on our twitter and facebook accounts for updates on when/where exactly we’re going to be setting up as we do have some venues lined up at the end of this summer and fall. In the meantime, my husband will be taking over most of the blog duties (on top of his web duties) as well as shipping mail orders from our online store for the next several months and he will keep you guys posted. I’m sure he’ll do a great job – so give him a chance to win you over. Thank you for your continued love, support and appreciation.

It’s Shark Week! I am actually pretty surprised and delighted to see that there are so many people across the digital sphere who are actually excited by an animal that has long been feared and discredited. Thanks to the folks at the Discovery Channel, Shark Week celebrates its 23rd anniversary this year, honoring and learning about this glorious creature. Also, because of social networking, Shark Week fanfare is spreading, and leaking over to current generations. Of course, this is exactly the kind of exposure animals need to fully raise everyone’s consciousness about the trouble and obstacales they face for the survival of their species.

As you may already know – late last year I painted a piece called “Ark Shark.” While most may think I am referring to Noah’s Ark (as I notice that Ark Shark comes up quite a bit in our Google Search statistics), its really a much more simple, silly story. When my husband was a child, his sister purchased a fishtank and adopted a few little fishies for their home. My husband decided he, too, wanted to own a fish – so he bought a little freshwater mini shark. He named this mini terror, “Ark Shark” (with the name being derived from his initials – Arie Richard Kriheli). So I decided I to name my painting after his little shark from his childhood. Anyhow, in honor of Shark Week, I am offering a FREE Ark Shark Note Card with a purchase of any art print from our store. Offer ends next Thursday, so get your Shark Week on!

Although our mission at Ecopatterns is to raise awareness about endangered animals through art, we are often hearing news about the plight of animals that are fortunate to still maintain significant numbers. Recently, we came across an update that shocked and saddened us – happening in our own back yard. Earlier this month, 400 Canadian Geese were euthanized by United States Department of Agriculture for just hanging out in Prospect Park. Seriously, did you HAVE to kill them? Couldn’t they be shipped to another region if they were really obstructing air travel. Apparently Geese are not welcome in Brooklyn. We urge all of our followers, supporters and friends to contact the USDA and give them an earful and express your disappointment. Such a shame.

In more positive news, we are happy to announce a tiny new development. Ecopatterns will now be accepting credit cards in our outdoor markets! We’ve been accepting credit cards ever since we launched our site, but we’ve abstained from swipe-arama outdoors. But our customers have long been requesting plastic commerce, and we listened. So we’ve enlisted Total Merchant Services to help with our commerce needs so that we can make transactions as convenient as we can for our awesome fans. We hope to receive our terminal to get rolling for this weekend. We’ll keep you guys posted. Oh and, we would have went with Square’s nifty little reader, but we’ve been gassed (pun intended) while waiting for months now for our shipment. Sorry, guys .

Up until last year, everytime I used the internet I’d be browsing with Mozilla’s Firefox. Ever since my husband upgraded our iMac to Snow Leopard however, I noticed that Firefox got slower and slower and is taking longer to start up. I wonder why this is happening. We cleared all of our extensions and did a fresh install, but still got the same lagging performance. I’ve started using Google’s Chrome a lot more recently and sometimes Safari. In the meantime, I’ve been poking around about Firefox to find out if others were having similar issues. I’m pretty psyched to see Firefox 4 is coming out and I hope that will fix a lot of their slowness. In my research, I also discovered that even though a Red Fox is used in the logo, the original name “Firefox” referred to the Red Panda – an endangered animal.

Yup, you guessed it – it inspired me to whip up my newest piece “Making New Friends” adding to the growing Endangered Animals Library. Although they are solitary, nocturnal animals – I figured companionship is important for all. Who doesn’t like having friends? So not only is this piece dedicated to the plight of the Red Panda, it is also a big shout out to all of my friends, especially the new ones I meet every day while I spread news about endangered species. Note cards and Art Prints are on the way, look for them soon – even on Firefox.

Ok, so my husband and I are huge fans of the television show, LOST. The show wrapped up a few weeks ago but to this day we are still talking about it, and my hub loaded my ipod with some soundtrack tunes from the original score. Yeah, we’re sorta nerds like that are having trouble letting go. So I’d like to dedicate this week’s post and new painting to this crazy show somehow. Lets see, so the primary “hatch” where our beloved Losties was called the SWAN. Perfect! There are some swans that are endangered for sure.

That said, my newest painting called “Swans Swing in the Pond” is inspired by the Trumpeter Swan whose numbers are low enough to be included in IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature. Since I was a child, I’ve always loved swans and I’d hate to see them nearly go extinct like the Black Swan from New Zealand. OK OK, my post is all over the place like our crazy show, so I better wrap this up. Definitely, look out for the new Swans prints and notecards, coming this weekend.