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 .

If you’ve stopped by my table in Brooklyn, Union Square or by the MET in recent weeks you may have noticed that I am now carrying neat little mounted prints for sale. I am happy to announce that these same mounted prints are now available in my etsy store as well as the online store here! Yay. They are a cool little alternative to having the original painting in your homes and are great for decoration and for gifts. Best of all, they look almost exactly like the originals. All of my prints that are mounted on wood panels are ready to hang. I’m super excited to have these available now for those that have been asking about them. I’ll be adding more in the coming weeks so keep your eyes open for them.

In other news, next weekend, we have been invited to participate in M.A.R.T.E.’s (Manhattan Artisan Retail & Trade Emporium) Kickoff Event in the East Village. We’ve decided to give this venue a shot for next Saturday 6/5. Come check us out – we will be carrying our tee-shirts as well. Mention this blog post and get a free note card with any purchase.

Sometimes, a change in surroundings is needed. Over the past year, most of our success and headway was made in Manhattan (particularly in the Union Square Artist’s Market) as well as ongoing interactions and collaborations with artists from Brooklyn despite being temporarily headquartered in Queens. After much thought and planning, Ecopatterns decided that change was a concept we’d dive back into.

This week, we packed our boxes and moved back to our old digs on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (where we originally set up shop for our first year in business). We couldn’t be happier. Not only is this move exciting for us personally, but we feel that it would benefit us professionally as well. See, we see a lot of promise for the Upper West Side artistic community. We know there are a lot of cool, hip folks here that would be open to talk shop and share ideas. Stressing the importance of community is key especially to the development and nurturing of artists and their businesses. While we are doing everything we can in the online circuit (with places like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Etsy, etc.) we can’t forget the local, physical aspect of networking. Hey, we can’t let Brooklyn get all the press.

That said, we’d like to give a shout to all of our artist neighbors. We want to hear from you in hopes of getting a dialogue or movement going. What do you work on? Where do you market your work? What are your artistic goals?

Photo credit: Jamie – “From Me To You” Photo Blog <-- please check out her site. it's awesome. also, check out her stunning Upper West Side FREE iPhone Wallpapers set.