Years of pickleball art making has resulted in enough images to create this pickleball alphabet art book for all ages! Special thanks to the final inspiration for the book, cover dog Pickles the actual first dog of pickleball! Because the truth is the truth and it's not "FUN" to alter history just so you can sell it, it's something else entirely.
Pickleball Again, a pickleball parody sung to the tune of Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffett! Sing Along to this one the words are there you know the tune!
A fitting song for the unveiling of my “pickleball margarita” artwork (and pickles the dog sitting in a margarita) both seen in the video alongside the mermaid plus some vacation clips taken while on a Pickleball Getaway (and also some local clips). Thanks to all the friends and PROs who let me take video clips and photos to share randomly as I need them .
Here is a little last minute shot of the products before I closed my store. I still have the designs for all of these so they can enter the market place again when I decide I have the right ducks in a row. :) (Or if someone wants to buy them) Also....more about everything here: Pickleball ARTwear explainer site
Karen who hosts Pretty Pickleballers (women who love pickleball) asked me to do a live video intro for their small biz Saturday. I don’t know that I can do it live, between all my parody videos and the art, and the book… so I made this video for them and I’m sharing it here because it does explain all my madness! 🤭👍🏻😅❤️. Thanks for being here. Rachael Chatoor of Pickleball ARTwear
#pickleball#pickletel#pickleballartwear
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As you may have been following I have had my own history with a company. You see I recently noticed their new website and rebrand included my own older brand name:
Pickleball Artwear.
Understand that back in 2020-21 when I started this art journey I googled the crap out of the words Pickleball Artwear and it was nowhere and it has been nowhere besides me since then except and until these people showed up and began using it.
I also wrote to them before posting publicly, and let them know they were using my brand name and that while I had just closed my own shopify store I was still using it and had published books and clothing with that brand name on it, and still was doing so.
In a really small space such as pickleball and seeing as they had gone all the way through Nationals introducing their brand while not using my name but just their own, I thought they could easily pivot and change it back up, I mean it's a small pickleball world and clearly I've been using it, so why not?
But no. My comments got deleted or ignored and eventually, the point just blatantly missed.
Somehow my reply got turned into a reel on my own Instagram page and it turned out so perfectly with the image that it was attached itself to, I left it up. The power of the response was just stunning to me.
How can anyone be unsure of the problem here?
This is a small, small business. I am a small time artist, I've done nothing but support other small biz and women and try to make people smile and laugh with art and music.
Even if they didn't know, once they did... they ghosted me and just kept going or said the above, that they don't see the problem.
My thoughts are simple really and inspired my latest t-shirt design and meme. (you can get this image on a shirt, without the words) See design here
People who are with me, I appreciate you, see you and I love you. The world starts to heal when we speak up about wrongs we see, rather than ignore them.
I'll be happy to take every bit of my ugly opinion down as soon as they stop being facts (and/or using my name).
Now at Tee Public, you can even search for me because my Pickleball ARTwear is now part of the Artisan program there. What is pickleball art? Instead of paint or brush strokes I use digital images of pickleball paddles and pickleballs to create my images. So it's an image within an image. Sometimes it's even an image within an image within an image. (say that fast three times)
My whole mission from the get go was to get people singing along together. It always has been. Even when I was in a touring band I would hold the microphone out to the audience to hear them sing. It's my favorite part of being a musician, hearing you.
Me onstage as Agnetha in Arrival Canada's tribute to Abba....and the awesome singers who helped....
These last few months my brain has been filling with pickleball songs and images I need to create, but instead of doing so I've been spending every blipping moment figuring out the Shopify platform.
It felt like work. So I jumped ship. Well I jumped off the expensive superliner and onto little moterboat. I understand that boat much better and have no need to cross oceans anyhow so that ticket was just too expensive.
The whole reason I started the Shopify is because my previous ARTist shops were not related solely to me and so when I sent customers to my store they could easily get lost on the site (since it could direct them to other artists). That's tough when you spend a lot of time catching peoples attention.
So I thought if I controlled the store, then at least I wouldn't lose people. What I didn't anticipate was the enormous cost of involving a platform such as Shopify as well as all the other pieces of the puzzle which eat up every penny you might make.
If a shop owner gets lucky and needs a web developers help to deal with expanding, well you now have to pay what feels like lawyers hourly rates to get things done, and finding someone you trust to do that in a faceless internet world, is not easy.
So just as I was about to start ramping up advertising I pushed the big red button instead of the green one.
You see as all this was happening the ARTist platforms began streamlining so that ARTists wouldn't lose their customers so easily, they gave us a shop, not just a spot in their shop. Smart.
SO, my problem was, I was ahead of the curve and started solving my problem a just a bit too early. It took the larger platforms a bit of time to reach my needs.
And I realized, since they do now, just as I was getting more and more bills to my store, my old platform was offering to do it, right. SO I thought, why am I not making use of it? And so I dove into this place ARTIST SHOP
The result is I have time to do more of the things I love, including taking my Pickleball Parody songs out on the road. This Christmas season for any pickleball event I went to I brought my little guitar and a handful of parody lyric sheets. (Taken from my Pickleball Sing - Along book). and PS I realize I need to make a Sing Along book 2 because I have a whole paddle bag full of NEW tunes that are not in book one, so stand by for those..... but I digress....... on with the show.....
A few of these people had seen my videos but not even close to all of them....so this was the first time that MOST of these people had seen or heard any of my songs. But with my handy lyric sheets, it was easy to get them singing.........so easy.........
How much fun will this be for any pickleball event? Pickleball dinner, tournament, festival or getaway?
I'm your Pickleball Parody girl, let me know if you would like to know how I can help you do this! :)
Merry Christmas to all my wonderful Pickleball ARTwear supporters!! (here are just some of your awesome photos, you'll find the rest on facebook) I LOVE you!!
All of the items you see created below were created long distance via messages, requests and discussions with the client who was customizing their own Pickleball ARTwear.
The SHURGELOs
My first custom teamwear gig was for the Shurgelos Hiedi and Darcy to be precise (photos by Abby Shurgelo) . I saw them playing at a tournament and they liked my patterns but didn't like the mature shapes to my tops at the time, so I designed this pattern onto the cute little crops available in my personal ARTwear design portal. The ladies chose the colors and patterns they wanted and we created this popping piece for them. Want to design your own? Go check out my Artist portal and look around at my various pickleball ART designs, make notes of your favorite styles and images and we will get to work. I can change colors around. :) Find me at my Facebook or Instagram.
TRACY BENNET PICKLEBALL
My hubby and I met Tracy Bennet while travelling in Nelson and scoping out pickleball courts to play on vacation. We followed each other online and have enjoyed watching and supporting each others pickleball journey ever since. Our friendship expanded to include doing a run of custom Tracy Bennet Pickleball ARTwear, for her huge team of amazing supporters and pickleball partners.
Tracy's journey is vastly different than mine, she is the founding member of an exceptional initiative, bringing extensive expertise from her role as a former Tennis Canada High Performance Coach and Competitor, Tracy achieved a top 10 World Ranking on the ITF Tour, navigating intense pressure and adversity in competition.
Shifting her focus to Coach education, Tracy became a role model for female athletes in tennis, and now extends her influence in the pickleball world. Tracy has taken on the significant responsibility of crafting and delivering the blueprint for the National Women's Pickleball Initiative. Her role as the Head Facilitatio and Head Coach, contributing professinoalism, mentorship, empowerment and leadership, founded and inspired an incredible team.
If you are a serious female player or interested pickleballer looking for training support or how to help be involved contact the National Women's Pickleball Initiative.
If a new look for your team is in your future and you want something completely new, and totally pickleball then shout at me and lets get creating. Pickleball TEAMwear is going to be a super fun thing moving forward and getting more popular all the time.
Mona Lee
I met Mona Lee while out with my pickleball booth, she is a very busy coach for Vancouver Pickleball Association and she had seen Tracy and others wearing my Pickleball ARTwear, so we began to chat. She did want to try a dress but I didn't have one in Pickleball Camo as she liked so I went home and whipped this one up and had it sent out to her. She wears it coaching and has since co-created a custom tank to wear for her pickleball vacation camps and clinics using my Pickeball Sugar Skull. I've been gifted with several great photos to post on my FB page since, and also I got to meet Janet saw this dress then made an order.....Janet has sent me some of my favorite photos of my Pickleball Rainbow top and is definitely a top model.
As referee at one of the summers big events.
Mona and kids at one of her many coaching sessions! (she borrowed one of my skirts to use while she waited for her dress )
And this is Janet in Pickleball Rainbow, Janet saw Mona's dress and felt the rainbow was more her speed. I agree this is one of my favorite shots! It's part of my Pickleball ARTwear gallery post coming soon, along with all the other Pickleball ARTwear models wearing now retired
(so limited edition ) pieces! My stuff is constantly changing and being updated.
Once it's gone, it's gone. Keep sending me your awesome pics!
So my new clothes have arrived ( a couple of my samples, anyhow ) and I am more in love with them than I hoped I would be. I immediately set to work on trying them on and decided to film the process and intro the clothes with whatever film I captured. See the video below to get a glimpse of my new goodies.
If it seems like I'm delighted with the quality of the items I am, I am so happy the colors in real life look as beautiful as the colors in my imagination and on-screen, plus the make and fit are reliably supeior to the ones I could design on before. These are all I was hoping for and I'm so excited.
This video I must admit I laughed at and watched a few times. It was because it made me laugh that I even kept my ass in there as I was pulling my pants up over it. But it looked so ridiculous to me and I tried so hard to recover and the dragonfly looked so cool I decided to keep it in.
And guess what.
The dragonfly goes on the front.
How
did
If it seems like I'm delighted with the quality of the items I am, I am so happy the colors in real life look as beautiful as the colors in my imagination and on-screen, plus the make and fit are reliably supeior to the ones I could design on before. These are all I was hoping for and I'm so excited.
This video I must admit I laughed at and watched a few times. It was because it made me laugh that I even kept my ass in there as I was pulling my pants up over it. But it looked so ridiculous to me and I tried so hard to recover and the dragonfly looked so cool I decided to keep it in.
And guess what.
The dragonfly goes on the front.
How
did
I
miss
that?
Honestly until a friend of mine asked me which way to wear it? I had NO idea I was wearing it backwards.
What an introduction. I've decided it's perfect and I'm keeping it in. If anything it will give people something to scratch their heads over. Giggle.
Anyhow, I don't expect people to wear all this stuff together by the way. My items are not meant to be worn "party on the top and party on the bottom" always, unless you love literally being ALOT. Then by all means have at er.
Personally I usually wear a top OR a bottom and then I pair them with a matching solid from one of my other favorite brands. The pants I am wearing in this video are Lululemon
The fit is true (I'm a large in most brands. A medium in generous brands and XL in fancy shit) I'm wearing large for everything.
Ok maybe I'm not breaking up with ME but I'm breaking up with something I've worked very hard on for well over a year now. It's my store. I'm breaking up with my old storefront.
All that art I made is gone, blown up and I already have a new store lined up
Last summer while a lovely lady was making a number of purchases in my store, she wrote and asked me to make a T-shirt for a pattern she favored (because I had not designed one yet). So, of course gladly I made her the T-shirt, which she added to her orders. Shortly after her order arrived, I checked with her to see how everything was.
She said she LOVED all the items but sadly she would have to wait till she lost a little bit of weight, before she could wear the capris. Sadly I didn't have a larger size capris or leggings to offer her so, she hadn't made the wrong size choice, I had simply only limited sizes in my store.
This made me feel a kind of way, and it was not a content feeling, knowing that my new friend was unable to wear my weird and wonderful clothes, simply because I didn't have the right products to suit everyone out there.
I thought about it a lot.
As a musician first and artist second, I want to run the "business" side of things, not at alll. Putting together a store and learning all the dreary numbers and tables and htmls and ins and outs and getting computer friendly has not been an easy hike at all, especially when all I want to do is make things look or sound pretty. And I finally had my store running even if it wasn't serving everyone.
But it still bothered me that I couldn't serve everyone, and if the only thing in my way was myself, well I've learned how to do things before. When publishers wouldn't even look at my book idea a couple of years ago, I learned how to self publish. Now I have two books, the second one I also published entirely myself (well my husband supports me in everything I do but that's a whole other love story), because I could. I just had an idea and made the book. So what I am getting at here is that I find forced growth is often a good thing or at least a catalyst. I embrace it (often after a bunch of complaining, but I digress).
And thanks to my aforementioned new friend (who loves butterflies by the way), my thinking turned into inspiration. Inspiration to do what I had never done before and get off my ass and source a manufacturer who could provide ALL the products I needed.
Look, I've had people write to me and ask me to get larger sizes or to make shorts, or long sleeve sun shirts, or leggings with pockets etc....... but it's an enormous task to change everything.
This woman is a customer however, she committed to me by purchasing, and I felt like I had failed her.
So I was determined to at the very least, find some leggings in her size that I could customize for her, even just to send her as a unique original pair, just for her. Never in my wildest dreams did I realize her simple request for some Pickleball Butterfly clothes would inspire a radical blow up of my store.
You see I found a supplier with the best leggings I could locate. They looked amazing online, crossover yoga band, pockets and seemingly superior construction to the ones I had in my store at the time. The best part is they went up to size 6X and that's several sizes above what I even needed, so things looked golden, I dug in and designed a pair.
While on the new site designing I noticed some other items with similar broad sizing that were empty canvases, just waiting for me to create on, pieces that people had been asking for. Different cuts, better materials, More significant construction.
I wanted to see this stuff. It is pricier and I wanted to see how it feels in real life, to see if it was worth the extra cost, so I made some longer athletic shorts and an athletic short sleeved top as well and sent off my order.
When they arrived I was so impressed with it all that I found that my wheels where turning. This stuff is too good for me not to offer it. It would be excruciating, but I had to do this.
So I set out looking to teach myself how to RE-do my store. I didn't do it without help. I did as much as I could by myself first, and then when it got scary, I searched and found a web expert who lives close enough by who helped get me running and then due to family emergency could not continue the job.
Which paralyzed me. I was not interested in floating alone again without someone I could trust holding my hand through the web developer stuff, so, I blew it up again.
Yes, after a thousand dollars of education I had a beautiful store that I realized I didn't want to run because the stress of it took all the fun of the art away.
And this new site lets me just be an artist. The Artist Shops.
basics like Tshirts and hoodies as well as all sorts of new items like mugs, towels, jackets, stickers, sweatshirts and more will cost you LESS because that all has been moved onto my ARTIST site where it's not my own store, I am merely an artist who designs using the THREADLESS site where you get the items from directly, and I get a commission. It cuts out the middle man, the shop and sends you to the source. If I put these basics in my store I have to charge more and do all sorts of work to do so. So I didn't. Look for all these new gift items and basics at my ARTIST store HERE.
Canadian residents please note some items will be shipping internationally and duties could apply.
And to my new friend, she has her new leggings now, and loves them, and I am so grateful to her for her open comments because it spurred me and all of us, to a better place. See the old store I blew up. (I still have all these designs and more ready to go digital if someone wants to partner with me)
Here is my free ARTIST shop. :)
This site will invite you to sign up but you can bypass that, you are not obligated to sign up to look or shop! :)
And for your listening enjoyment I leave you with my latest #pickleball parody. "I DINKED the ball and I liked it" based on @Katy Perry's iconic tune I Kissed a Girl which I used to sing with @Hitzone a hundred years ago. :) (also please take some time, Katy has a foundation called Firework Foundation and she serves underprivileged kids with her inspiring camp)
The video above features not only my friend @Lee Whitwell but also a few other outstanding young professional pickleball players who she wrangled in to guest star with her, and it's so been exciting to watch the PPA and MLP and spot these players who are in my video, out there being awesome on the courts. In fact the same day I got the video part from Rachael Rohrabacher my hubby and I watched her win a gold medal with Anna Bright. I've since seen them all playing on stream and become a fan of each of them, so thank you SO much again pickleball stars! (and speaking of Pickleball Stars.... )
Now I know for a fact that many of you don't really watch pickleball on TV (or stream it) because you tell me so, and that's a real shame. If I can inspire you all to do one thing for your pickleball self that will inspire you and ignite some fire in your happy little pickleball heart, let it be to tune in to some pro pickleball and give it a watch. Admittedly it's getting weirdly harder and easier at the same time to watch. There is more pickleball streaming than ever before but no one knows where to watch it, so it is a challenge, but most of the big Pickleball Forums share great clips and so if you scroll through those it's a place to start. They usually post when there are tournaments streaming as well.
If you know this game it's really worth watching it being played at the highest level, especially when you know just how hard it is to be THAT consistent.....you will keep tuning in to be inspired to move your own feet more if nothing else.
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