Greenjeans Recommends: Hear, Hear & Ethical Metalsmiths

Today I wanted to share with you some great websites and blogs I've come across lately. (They have nothing to do with this picture, which is of some afternoon sunlight playing across one of Buff Brown's gorgeous walnut cutting/serving boards and Mary Anne Davis' porcelain bowls in gold and black glaze. I just like the picture...)

Hear, Hear is a newly-launched, surprisingly hip blog offering "intelligence for small business." I say surprisingly hip because while it's geared toward the interests of small business owners, there's none of that dull here's-how-to-organize-your-sales-taxes stuff. Instead, Hear, Hear understands the younger urban readership offering interesting and relevant interviews, articles, and photos about "everything us business owners go through each day." Run by creatively-minded business partners Shawn Liu and Danny Wen of Iridesco, Hear, Hear is a great blog to visit while procrastinating things like, well, organizing your sales tax stuff.

Another great site to check out is Ethical Metalsmiths, "formed for the purpose of stimulating demand for responsibly sourced materials as an investment in the future." If you're a jeweler or metalsmith, it will help you find sustainably-sourced silver, gold, and copper. If you're someone who wants to have their jewelry and a healthy world too, it will teach you about where all that gold and silver comes from, helping to raise your consciousness about the highly polluting and exploitative metals industry and to educate you about what you can do.

I also wanted to mention SOFAsphere, a new online community by the people who bring you SOFA (which stands for Sculptural Objects and Functional Art) exhibitions in New York and Chicago each year. It's like MySpace for art and craft collectors, makers, dealers, and appreciators. I'm not entirely sure what we're all supposed to do once we're signed up. Maybe it's an if-you-build-it-they-will-come kind of thing. But it was interesteding to click on the profiles of other users and maybe we'll all start "meeting" each other soon. Check it out!

As for news from Greenjeans, it's been an easy and not too exciting week, allowing us to work on the website and get caught up on the backlog. A week from today we're off to Wisconsin for my dear old friend Sam's wedding and a few days good Midwestern R&R. And this Tuesday we have made a date to actually go to the beach! At last!