Dylan Malik Orchard's Blog, page 2

Keeping it Renal – Living Donation

Tuesday was the first really big step on the path to giving up one of my (lovely) kidneys to a stranger. At least it felt like it to me. My last visit to Guy’s Hospital was for some quick blood tests and a long talk with a consultant. A step definitely, but it still felt a bit speculative – the transplant staff and me both feeling the thing out rather than doing the serious business. This one though was all serious business.

It was a long day, loaded with waiting around, tests and crap coffee. I had a CT scan, (lots) more blood taken, more pissing in pots, x-rays and something in the Nuclear Medicine department which I still don’t entirely understand. They also gave me an ECG and, as far as I’m concerned, confirmed that my hairy tits are indeed pure electric.

It was an exhausting one, was wiped out for most of the next day although whether that was all the injections and blood letting, the waiting around or the Guinness I had immediately afterwards I’m not sure. Was also a rewarding one though, I was mostly just being bounced from department to department where there was only a vague awareness of why I was there but it did a lot to solidify the process in my mind. And on top of that the results that come from all those tests will be the main factor in whether or not I get to go ahead and actually donate. That part is a bit stressful to be honest, it’s not exactly something where I can say I ‘did well’, there were no cheerful thumbs up after they’d taken the 4th blood sample of the day. Instead it all goes off to a consultant who has a good long stare at a load of incomprehensible results and decides if I can get by on one kidney for long enough to take the risk. A decision I won’t get to hear about until my next meeting on the 18th. So until then it’s a great unknown really.

In the meantime a couple of observations though. If you ever do consider donating then rest assured, the medical preamble of tests is no great trial. It’s boring and a little uncomfortable (especially the ‘warm injection’) but it’s all easy enough. The various teams at Guy’s were all good, friendly and full of answers even if I hadn’t asked the questions. My position on anything technical is that if I don’t care enough to learn myself then I’ve minimal interest in being told about it, but fair play for making sure a person doesn’t feel left out.

I’m also (still) a bit uncomfortable talking about doing it. I’ve a lot to say about the process and my reasons for undertaking it but it’s awkward to be honest. I’m still acutely aware that it may not happen, although the signs so far have all been good and it still feels like saying it out loud is tempting fate a bit. I might not be healthy enough to do it after all. And if it falls through then ultimately I’ve done nothing of any real value. At the hospital especially I’m nervy on that front. Another guy was on the same schedule of tests as I was and we chatted a bit. He was doing it for his wife, so the whole issue of donation was a lot more immediate for him. By comparison my reasons, good as I think they are, still don’t count for much next to his immediate personal experience. I can afford a detachment he can’t and that shuts me up a bit. Writing here helps with that but the process of being open about it is an ongoing one.

Anyway, as a final thought – you can see the logic but they should never have closed down that big McDonald’s next to the hospital.

The Machine

A new edit of something written nearly 10 years ago.

The sign might be meaningless.

She’d spent two days wandering this time. Aimless but energetic steps leading her miles away from the great machine before fear, or guilt or something had forced her to turn back. Now, as she made her way across the last few hundred metres of gravelly wasteland that separated her from it, from home, she could almost feel herself shaking with relief.

It was in exactly the same state as when she’d left it. Exactly the same state she’d first found it in even. There was, she dimly realised, no reason why it shouldn’t be but as the one supposedly responsible for it there was a definite comfort in confirming it.

The machine stood about twenty-foot tall, the one feature in an expanse of flatness so vast that even glancing towards the horizon brought on bouts of dizziness. The focal point of a great steppe of shale and detritus. She knew there were hills and mountains somewhere out there, beyond the nauseating horizon. She’d crossed them in fact, before finding the machine.

She struggled to remember why she’d come so far. The fact of her journey had long since been detached from the feelings of it. She must have had her reasons, the journey wasn’t one anyone would try without a purpose, and that was mostly enough to know. If nothing else the thought of going back was locked behind an impenetrable mental wall, she had come here and she would stay here. Certainty like that couldn’t have come from nothing.

—

The first grave, the one she’d dug herself, was about fifty metres from the industrial bulk of the machine and was the first to be passed. She’d piled rocks on top of it as a shaky marker in the absence of anything more fitting. It’s inhabitant had no name that she knew, he’d been dead and half-decayed when discovered. Slumped against the machine, his back resting on one of the few flat panels amongst the great bulk of whirring cogs, flywheels, valves and unnamed contraptions which made up the greater whole.

He hadn’t been there by chance, or if chance had bought him to the machine intent had kept him there. Set off to the side of the iron and steel box a small shed contained signs of a settled life, if not a comfortable one. A battered white shirt was laid out in a corner, in only marginally better condition than the blue jeans and t-shirt he’d died in but evidently placed there as an almost reverent concession to neatness. A hand full of stones, culled from the infinite supply outside for no reason that she could comprehend, had been arrayed in neat rows alongside a couple of wooden boards upon which he and now she slept. And finally a chipped ceramic cup lined with a patina of filth. Not much of a haul for a life but more than she’d arrived with anyway.

The stones she’d buried with him, the cup she’d used, letting the drops of frosty dew which gathered on parts of the machine sustain her in a state always short of satisfaction. The shirt, too large to be usefully worn, still lay in state. His life, any life, merited more than a pile of rocks.

She passed two more graves before she came to the machine. One was marked with a stick, the other with stones, neither of them bearing names. Her predecessors she assumed, or maybe not. Perhaps they’d been the ones to build the machine and put up the sign, it seemed unlikely though, or unpalatable maybe. The idea that such a monolith could be built by the inhabitants of such tawdry resting places seemed almost offensive.

Finally there was the machine. As she drew closer the eternal orchestra of mechanised existence started to vibrate through her. She dipped her head to the sign, almost reverentially.

‘DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED’

She’d taken it as a command. Understandably so to her thinking. She had no way of knowing what the machine did, or why it did it but if the graves were anything to go by it must have been important. How important was the real question.

From time to time a bout of curiosity would send her wandering. Never to anywhere or for any purpose beyond seeing what, if anything, the machine would do in her absence. Some small part of her courted disaster, seeing how unattended the machine could be left before the unknown worst happened. But it was an act which left her riddled with guilt. Had the others ever walked away? Had they been so selfish? Perhaps they had, perhaps they hadn’t, perhaps they knew the true nature of the risks that she so negligently took. The spiral of unanswerable questions always scared her off of such thoughts.

More than reckless curiosity though her occasional forays into the wasteland came about because she wanted a reason to come back. The machine went on, seemingly inevitably, it needed nothing, asked nothing and despite her early obsessive pouring over every inch of its intricate frame seemed neither to take anything in or turn anything out. How something so timeless, so seemingly free of need could demand such obsessive observation was beyond her and she longed to know why. If only it had broken, if only it had ever changed. Each pointless expedition was fuelled by the fervent hope that she might return to find that something had occurred to validate her presence. It never did.

In her search for something more than her oblique duties she’d tried anything she could think of. She’d tried writing messages in the grit and dirt and she’d tried naming the various parts of the machine. Anything which might offer more than the simple demand of existing alongside the ever indifferent machine. If her predecessors had found something in the fabric of the landscape, in the pebbles and flint then it was lost on her.

The messages she’d scratched in had faded with the first wind and her attempts at arraying stones into cryptic declarations had left only a nagging sense of discomfort. If others came after her what would her missives mean to them? They meant little enough to her, at least after the instant of creation. Mostly they amounted to little more than random words, created out of the desire to exist and destroyed when the onus of that existence became too great.

It wasn’t long after these abortive attempts at distraction that they appeared.

At first she’d suspected that they were hallucinations. The days with the machine had long since reached the point where numbering them was more of a grim routine than a useful measure of life.

They first came as insects. Not beautiful or impressive but just as minute sparks of life amidst mechanical anonymity. A movement amidst the metal which for once followed no inevitable pattern. Her first thought had been fear. In part for her sanity but mostly for the machine. The former, she thought, she could afford to lose.

She should have killed them at the start. The machine mattered, they did not, to anyone but her at least. They were such small things though. Eclectic in form but uniform in their insignificance, tiny black forms an acceptable element of chaos amidst the grinding machinery. They could, or in her mind would, no more damage the machine than she would – even as they traced their intricate paths across its exterior. Not a judgement she could justify, but then again what was?

Perhaps months passed before she ventured off again, perhaps just weeks. Leaving the creatures was no great wretch. They wouldn’t miss her, probably.

There was no adventure when she went away, she walked, ate and slept to the same rhythms of life which led her when she was with the machine. But perhaps it was on her return that she snapped. It was done without drama or excitement, without even awareness, she simply returned and sat down before the machine. And while she never had the time for hindsight a dim part of her knew even then that an ending of sorts was approaching.

The creatures were almost completely coating large swathes of the machine now. Their forms expanded and made more elaborate by her absence. There was no harm in that as far she could see. Their lives of scuttling interaction seemed wholly separate from the machine they lived on. A benign decoration.

The thrumming, grinding and thumping of the machine rang out their usual apathetic beat. She stood and listened for a moment, settled in the certainty of mechanical security. It was a comfort of sorts, tinted by the usual sadness of the uncertainty which defined her life with the machine.

Her eyes though were fixed on the creatures, their translucent shells glittering in the sun as they dashed across the stolid grey metal. They had almost become beautiful, mere black dots transformed into seemingly unique and chaotically designed entities. Each one a new being almost as complex as the artificial bulk they’d chosen for their home. They drew her in with an almost hypnotic effect, the chaos of life at last giving her something to wonder at beyond the unanswerable questions which surrounded the purpose she’d accepted the day she’d buried her predecessor and taken his place.

For a few days she simply gave herself over to the creatures, awaking each day eager to see what new changes had taken place in their ever increasing society. Some began to fly, others died away only to be consumed and reformed into new life by the others. They had no purpose in their actions, no meaning in their existence but with a fervour which she could almost confuse for joy they didn’t pause in their constant movement and twitching interaction.

The machine started to become an afterthought, a glint of steel beneath the growing organic mass which once caught only prompted an instant of recrimination on her part. She hadn’t left the machine and her duties were fulfilled even as she submerged herself ever deeper into the existence of the strange lifeforms that increasingly filled her vision.

She stopped sleeping, she stopped eating, such things seemed more and more like the obligations of a previous, artificial life. Instead she simply stared and took in each new pattern of movement, each new being to appear on the machine, each death.

—

When he came he found her lying dead in the shade of the machine, her chin still resting on hands frozen in place by rigor mortis and her now cold eyes still fixed on the machine. What she’d been looking at he couldn’t say, one patch of metal seemed much the same as any other from what he could see. But he buried her with all the ceremony he could muster and marked her grave with stones. Then he sat down and stared up at the sign.

Kidney Business – Living Donation

Just back from my first proper, in person bit of kidney donation business. Was up at Guy’s Hospital this morning pissing in cups, giving blood and being told I’m average height (fair enough), not fat (good to know) and my BMI is decent. Also sitting down and talking to the Consultant for a couple of hours getting a solid info dump which I mostly didn’t glaze over for.

It was a fairly full on experience given that I didn’t know what to expect at all. First thing I knew after arriving I was being taken off into a room to be measured and weighed, which wasn’t unexpected but there was very little by way of details given on what this first meeting would entail. So bit of a whirlwind process. Then a bit of sitting around before going in to get the full rundown on things.

It was a discussion really, not an interrogation, although there were plenty of questions in there and space for me to ask my own. That was probably more daunting than the rest to be honest. I’ve done a fair bit of research on the process already and the Consultant seemed pretty happy with that but there’s still a lot I’ve not thought of and trying to conjure questions up on the spot isn’t particularly easy. That said though it was good to test my reasons for going through with this on someone who’s seen it all before. After all, sitting at home thinking about it, or explaining it to friends and family is one thing but there’s no objective measure of the right reasons/time to donate and it’s good to express your own out loud and know that a: they aren’t unique and b: they make sense.

One thing it did bring home to me though is how much mental preparation can/should go into a choice like this though. Once you step into that clinical world there’s a focus about things which means one question -> one answer. Fair enough, obviously, but few decisions in life are summed up that easily. My choice to donate certainly isn’t, I can happily bore the arse off of anyone who asks by exploring the thought processes involved not just in this choice but the life experiences, beliefs and philosophy that lead up to it. And that’s important in itself, I think you need to do some deep thinking before you move forward and you need to be comfortable with each aspect of the process yourself before you even go in to discuss it. Helpful as people are I can imagine struggling to offer up those finally packaged answers if you haven’t done the mental/emotional/philosophical leg work yourself first. As an example I was asked about the anonymity aspect of things – you don’t get to know anything about the person you donate to, they don’t know anything about you, although they can write if they want to. I had my views on that already formed to be honest, generally I prefer the donor to be an abstract entity rather than a real person, for all sorts of reasons, so the anonymity is fine with me. But if you’re not confident of your position and motivations then that can be a difficult aspect to remind a person of.

Anyway, if there was any downside to the experience it was pretty quickly resolved. Prior to attending I had, as I mentioned, very little idea about what this visit would actually entail. I’ve read up enough to know about the various steps involved in the whole process but as to their order I was pretty lost. The Consultant was ready for that though, they had a full roadmap for how that particular unit processed things which solved the problem in itself really. She also asked how the whole thing could be improved and seemed happy to find a solution to my confusion. So, not a complaint at all really.

One final note to end on – sitting in the waiting room I was in amongst people who were (mostly) there about being recipients. That was a bit of an odd one. As I mentioned I view the end result of my own donation as a bit of an abstract thing – I know there’s a person who’d benefit, I’m very glad of that, but as far as I’m concerned they have no face or identity. Only on the day, in the place, they do. Lots of them in fact. Lots of people all at various stages of the process, one of whom might end up with my kidney, or being part of the same chain of donations as mine. I mean, they probably won’t, the waiting list is long and there weren’t thousands of people in there but still, it’s a thing. Also got talking to one woman who’d had a donated kidney already, she was there for a check up. Think she assumed I had kidney problems at first, maybe picked up on my confusion and started to chat with me. Rushed, maybe a bit too quickly, to clear up that confusion – felt vaguely dishonest to even be mistaken for someone who needed help, but then also felt a little bit odd to say ‘yeah, I’m grand, just a donor’ when I (at that point) wasn’t sure of her condition. She was nice about it though, very positive about my choice and that was good. Still, it’s a small moment of oddness in the day, a bit of human interaction in a process that, to me, is a vaguely mechanical one. Felt good I suppose, in a roundabout way, to know that there was a human effect to it all which I generally don’t focus on too much.

Anyway, will leave it at that for now. The last post and this one are both a bit rambly to be honest, in future I might try to focus on particular aspects of what’s happening and keep it more coherent but who knows? The process is a long one and there’s no obligation to make this semi-journal serve any particular purpose.

P.S. Definitely not recommending living donation for anyone (unless they want to do it) but you can register for normal, after-death donation here or to give blood here – which you should definitely do if you can.

P.P.S. I’ve got a vague roadmap for things laid out now, nothing will be moving that quickly but in theory I’ll be doing the actual donating in about a year as you have to wait for there to be a matching cycle that works for you.

Hack & Slash – Living Organ Donation

In two minds over whether to write about this really, it’s of interest to me but like most things people do in life – it’s probably of zero interest to anyone else. Still, as an exercise in self reflection it is interesting to me at least so why not?

Anyway, what is ‘it’ anyway? Well it is living organ donation and the organ in question is my kidney (insert joke about donating other ‘organs’ here ((insert joke about ‘inserting’ here)). To clarify – what I’m planning to do is called Non-Directed Altruistic Donation, which basically means that I offer up a kidney and, assuming I’m mostly fit and sane, someone out there will get it when they need it.

At the moment I’m only at the stage where the fit and sane part has yet to be established. Paperwork is filed and my first meeting and blood test is on Friday so that is, I suppose, when the process becomes a real one rather than just speculative form filling. Although even with that it’s still feeling a bit abstract, to me at least.

Why do it? A few reasons I suppose. The idea first crossed my mind years back when I was driving with a friend in the US, they had some PBS style talk radio piece on about altruistic donors and the concept stuck with me. I think the programme was actually about whether true altruism existed at all or if even the most selfless acts were, ultimately, self serving in some respect. A discussion I couldn’t answer then and still have no concrete conclusions to. Although I incline to optimism when it comes to human behaviour, as far as reality will let me. Anyway, that was the genesis of the idea I think but the logic in following through on it is a bit more convoluted.

To be honest it’s probably easiest for me to start by saying ‘why not do it?’. The potential to save a life – or dramatically improve one – is, to me, a self evident good after all so the real question isn’t so much what motivation there is to try and do it but what risks are there that might stop you. And there are risks, of course there are. For one thing some stranger with a knife is going to slice you open and take an important bit out, for another there are slightly raised risks of future problems. But then the majority of my life choices to date have the same true of them, the smoking, drinking, poor diet, lack of exercise – any/all of them could lead to complications down the way and the decision to do any of them was no decision at all. They were unthinking grabs for what felt good, or what was easiest, or frankly whatever was put in front of me. Not that I’m lamenting any of that, there’s no self condemnation or straight edge turn in this but if those risks were acceptable to me for no real gain to anyone then a slight increase in risk to do something that’d be a real gain for someone? Well, why not? Just taking it as that kind of pragmatic choice it seems right to me, never mind any higher or more profound logic than that.

Another downside is that I may never be able to box or do full contact sports again apparently, which as anyone who’s met me can attest will be a genuine loss to the worlds of UFC and rugby.

Reactions to my choice so far have been mixed. To be honest I’m trying to avoid talking about it too much, with sporadic success. It’s a very personal thing to do really and it’s hard not to sound like a bit of a prick discussing it, as if I’m showing off in some way. That said though it’s also a thing that’s happening and taking up a chunk of my head space at the moment so it’s hard not to want to talk about it even if it’s only in the same terms as talking about the cat having fleas, or gearing up for my busy work period at Christmas. Dull but it is what’s happening at the moment.

Most people are, vaguely, positive so far. Most find it a bit weird really, or at least that’s the impression I get and fair enough. That I can justify it for myself in no way extends to expecting or wanting anyone else to do the same because by a lot of lights it is a weird choice. Certainly an extreme one in its way. Most of my life choices always have been though so that one at least I don’t find it hard to live with. Some people have been negative about it, which I’ve less patience for. Indifference is more than fair but to take offence at the idea, especially when it’s someone else’s choice just seems like a bad sign in itself. ‘Nobody would do it for you’ or ‘I’d just look after myself’ are shitty takes to have whatever the topic really, even if you do believe the former and I’d say the fact that people are altruistic donors shows that it isn’t necessarily true. More on that sort of thing another time though maybe.

Anyway, as I said this is, I suspect, mostly just of interest to me but as I go down the road with it I might write more stuff. Or who knows? Come Friday they might let me know that I’m a physical wreck myself and in urgent need of going straight on the recipient list. There’s plenty of medical and mental stuff to go through yet after all. We shall see.

P.S. Definitely not recommending living donation for anyone but you can register for normal, after-death donation here or to give blood here – which you should definitely do if you can.

Tattoo the Moon and Back

I’ve gone and got myself a tattoo gun. It’s been a thought on my mind for a long time, partly because I’m fairly well covered in the things myself and I’m a big fan of the medium but also because, every now and then, someone stops me out in the world and asks if I do my own artwork as tattoos. It’s always a flattering question, even if it leads no where. The idea that someone likes my work to the point where they’d have it engraved on their own skin is always going to be an ego boost and perhaps more than any art form tattooing has a sense of gravitas to it, there’s a literal living force behind the work which not much else can match.

I’ve only had the machine a couple of days and so far my experience is entirely limited to drawing a variety of more or less straight lines on fake skins and fruit as well as watching endless YouTube videos and repeatedly Googling what are probably incredibly simple questions about incredibly simple things. All a learning experience and it’s a dizzying world to learn about. Any artistic medium is when you delve beyond the surface but obviously one with the potential for causing permanent damage comes with a whole other aspect of protectiveness and weight which you don’t get elsewhere. No matter how badly I bollocks up a sketch it’s unlikely to give someone hepatitis after all. It’s also an incredibly defensive/aggressive field, not universally of course, a lot of people talking about it seem sound but it’s weird to see such a deep level of disdain for beginners in any artistic field.

Numerous times already I’ve looked into a group or board to see learners asking fairly basic questions only to get replies along the lines of ‘don’t ever fucking touch a tattoo machine you little bastard’. Which is kind of fair given the risks involved but then when someone says they’re tattooing an orange they’re probably not running that much risk of doing damage and to be honest ‘do a 3 year apprenticeship before you even look at a needle’ probably isn’t the most helpful advice. Either way, it doesn’t do much to put me off.

My plan at the moment is to keep practicing but to, fairly soon, move onto my own skin. Plenty of designs in mind already of course and while using alternatives is a good way to learn I know there’s no substitute for having a go at the real thing. It’s the sort of enthusiasm to get to it which is frowned on, I think, but I think it’s best to ignore the negativity to a degree. Get your hygiene and safety stuff sorted of course but otherwise, if you’re a grown up with work on you already, why not go for it? Certainly for me, at the age of 36, a small, dodgy tattoo on my leg is way, way down on the list of lifelong regrets I’m likely to think about.

I’m also looking to work solely in my own style for a while, simple black lines, abstract stuff, animal oddities – things I understand the process of with a pen at least. I think that strikes a bit of a disconnect with the serious, ‘don’t do it’ crowd of the tattoo world as well. There’s a vast craft out there, full of loads of styles and techniques and I agree you’d be a mug to start off trying to emulate something immensely complex, or which you could never replicate with any other medium. But that versatility is a function of mastering the craft, not the art of tattooing. The art of it is, to me, the ability to learn the aspects of the tools that allow you to do the things you want to do. Same with any set of tools from pens to sculpture (safety aside). The fact that I can’t draw photo realistic stuff – and have never wanted to – doesn’t mean I can’t do the sort of work I want to, nor should a lack of experience in every aspect of the forms I use bar me from working in them at all.

Anyway, for now I’m fully hyped for the whole experience and slowly coming to understand the very basic rudiments of it so expect updates as and when. It’s a brave new world…

Art Nonsense

It’s a slow process but gradually adding more and more prints to this site, as well as getting all the other (myriad) brands I’m running going. As things stand you can find the London stuff here, my main brand of the moment, Laika57, here and the Barney Farmer/Lee Healey + the most absurd, pop culture stuff here at Culture Cargo Cult. Confused? Me too. The logic of breaking everything up into more coherent blocks still makes sense but the process is a massive pain in the arse to be honest. Lots to do in lots of different places, still, is what it is and we’ll get there in the end…

Pubs & People

Procrastination is the habitual destination but a bit of progress today as pub and portrait prints are (finally) back up for sale over here. More prints will be coming (back) to the site soon too so keep an eye out, trying to get on top of everything now but life is rarely quick, unless you don’t want it to. Anyway, treat yourself before they properly re-open and you find your vision to blurred to figure out what they look like…

Gallery Space

Not big news but some slow progress being made – just added a gallery for my artwork. Obviously got a bit old archive of stuff to share and will gradually be adding it to this site if you fancy having a look. Most things can be made available as prints if you want to get in touch, original pieces are also for sale of course.

More news and art to follow as and when…

– Dylan

Launching Laika57…

Well it’s taken a while to get here and there’s a long way left to go but as of now Laika57 Clothing officially exists!

This is the big change I’ve been building up to over the last month or so, the one that introduces a load of new designs, changes the look of things and the one which you’ll see me pushing more and more when I’m out and about at markets and events.

You can check the new line out over here and, of course, wherever I happen to be in the real world (news to follow on upcoming events).

This also means that a lot of my old work will be disappearing soon, lots of designs are already unavailable but it’s not too late to grab something from past ranges yet. Plenty of stuff is still listed over on Etsy, where it’ll stay for a couple more months crossover period, and I’ve also created People’s Republic of London for the perennial favourites of us parochial Londoners.

Beyond those main outlets I’m also working on some other new stuff as well as some special one off designs which will be available on this site. Confusing I know but since I started doing the art stuff – and later the clothes – the range of what I do has grown so wide that trying to present it all in one place just stopped making sense. There’s a certain charm to pushing abstract minimalism alongside pictures of dogs, granted, but while you end up covering a lot of ground you don’t have any kind of focus on any one style. This way my life will (hopefully) get easier as I organise stuff and you can cherry pick what you want to see more of and what you don’t. And this site is where you can come for updates on everything that I’m up to, as well as the writing and more arty end of the design stuff (plus original pieces and prints).

It’s all still a work in progress for now mind. While Laika57 is fully up and running this site is still in the midst of a major re-fit and there’s still more stuff which I want to add under another heading eventually – including work from guest artists like Barney Farmer and Lee Healey (all back soon, I promise).

Anyway, while all that’s going on keep an eye out for new stuff and feel free to drop me a line if you’ve got any questions. While I’m definitely trying to phase certain styles and designs out I’m still happy to try and sort them if there’s something you particularly want but can’t find any more.

In the meantime – hope all is well with you and yours and hope you like Laika57!

– Dylan

It’s a new dawn…

… it’s a new day, it’s a new site for meeeeee. And I feel alright, I suppose.

A week or two ago I announced that DylanOrchard.com as was would be winding down. The clothes and design side of things was going to shift to a new label (it will) and what was left here would be more the art and writing stuff. Maybe the odd one off tee design, but mostly prints and my other creative output. Now the plan at that point was to finish the new site, sort out all the branding, go back onto the markets and slowly start pulling stuff off of this one bit by bit. Leaving a transition period for people to grab old designs and figure out what was going where.

And then I managed to bollocks it all up and break everything. Well, I say ‘I’ but for now I’m planning to lay all the blame on my hosting company, so they bollocksed up (maybe, probably not, who knows?). Either way the slow transition quickly span out into a confused collapse which has meant I’ve had to start re-doing everything on this site from scratch. Annoying but worse things happen and at least it happened while I was in the process of transitioning anyway.

Over the next couple of days I’ll properly announce the new brand as well as clarifying where everything I do will be available. This is more or less just a headsup to those who’ve already ordered stuff (it’s on its way, no issues) or who wanted to (read on, you’re not out of luck).

For the moment the only place you can buy from me online is over at my Etsy shop. This is mostly just a stop gap measure until all the new stuff is sorted but for now all the old designs are available there. Once they go though, they go – each listing has a couple of months left to run so that’ll be the crossover period I mentioned. If there’s anything you wanted that isn’t listed there then feel free to get in touch and let me know. I do have some end of line stock and I can sort one offs for people if they want them. Again though that’ll only be for so long, once the new brand is on its feet I won’t be covering those old designs.

All that said, keep an eye on this site. As I gradually get it up and running I’ll post some proper updates – probably next week – on what’s happening. At the moment it’s all a bit hectic as I’ll be returning to real world trading this weekend, so a lot of my focus is on getting back to the markets again. Which is good.

Anyway, thanks for bearing with me while all of this gets fixed. Hope all’s well with you and yours.

– Dylan