VKitchen

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My name is Violet! I'm an artist living in the woods of rural New England. By day I work as an associate editor for a small press publisher specializing in art books and indie comics. I also do freelance illustration on the side.

I tend to gravitate towards the morbid, the eccentric, and the strange. I love libraries and used bookstores, and I'm a great enthusiast of old paper in all of its forms!

I keep an entire wall of my bedroom dedicated to the pinning up of drawings, postcards, short comics, favorite quotations from books, and all manner of miscellaneous scraps. Further material for this "collage wall" is always appreciated!

I'm fascinated by found objects and the things people leave behind. I'd especially like to receive anything handmade or hand-drawn, and items that have a history or personal story behind them.

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• Drawing, illustration, and mail art
• Graphic novels, indie comics, and zines
• Surrealism
• Art Deco
• Retro, pulpy science fiction art
• Science fiction and fantasy
• Esoteric history and historical fiction
• Space
• Antarctica
• All forms of marine life, especially cephalopods
• Monsters, skulls, and skeletons
• Robots and machinery
• Cemeteries, caves, ruins, and abandoned places
• Anything feminist, queer, punk, and/or radical
• Irreverent humor, and anything macabre or offbeat

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Above all, I love books -- both reading them, and the craft and care that goes into making them. I love more than anything the feeling of exploring fantastical, self-contained worlds.

My favorite authors of all time are Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and Lynda Barry. I also love the short stories of China Miéville and Jorge Luis Borges, and some (but not all) works by Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon.

I love tea, baking, and hiking through the woods. I also enjoy gardening, and have a particular fondness for succulents, mushrooms, and variegated plants.

My all-time favorite spacecraft are Voyagers I and II, and one can't go wrong with any of the Mars rovers, either!

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I enjoy most kinds of tea, including green, matcha, white, rooibos, and herbal. I especially like fragrant ingredients like jasmine, lavender, and rose.

I don't drink black tea, but I'm happy to receive interesting varieties of black so that I can use them in future swaps (as I never buy black tea for myself.)

My only strong dislikes are licorice and fennel.

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If it’s helpful, here's a list of other items I’d be especially interested in:

• Book recommendations
• Zines and minicomics
• Hand-drawn/painted artwork
• Skillfully handmade items
• Older international stamps
• Anything especially well-printed (e.g. foil-stamped or embossed)
• Vegetarian/vegan recipes
• Weird, creepy shit
• Anything to do with the ocean or space
• Vegetable/flower seeds (US Zone 5) or succulent cuttings would make my day!

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I try to be open to whatever is sent to me, and I do my best to regift anything that's not my cup of tea, so no need to worry too much!

However, there are a few specific categories that I'm definitely less interested in:

• Anything religious or patriotic
• Anything to do with astrology or tarot (constellations are fine!)
• Marvel, DC, and Disney
• Anything excessively cutesy, frilly, or saccharine
• Children's stickers and planner/memo stickers
• Coloring book pages

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