MAQET

Like everyone else, I was saddened to hear of Maurice Sendak’s passing today. Sendak was an amazing person who did amazing work. In my mind, Where the Wild Things Are was one of the first books to recognize the worlds of creativity inside the minds’ of children.

It has been many years since I’ve read it, but I suspect that I’ve carried Sendak’s principles and spirit with me all along. When I started MAQET, I initially thought of it as a platform for enabling the creativity of young artists. Thinking outside the box (as children often do), a hedgehog, a bear and a viking become Japanese Schoolgirls.  While those particular customizations were done by Shin Tanaka, a professional artist, yesterday, we showed you a great abstract bear by 5-year old Camille.

MAQET has always been about celebrating creativity. We try hard to break down the barriers of production so that personalized collectible art objects are within the reach of anyone with an imagination and an Internet connection. We will miss Maurice Sendak’s countless contributions to art and literature. We know wherever he is, he is among fans and friends.

After successfully eluding San Franciscans, it looks like our Frank Kozik x MAQET Gold Heathrow has been captured elsewhere. Congrats to Mike, who, armed with the GoldRun augmented reality app, found Gold Heathrow hanging out in this tree. Nice!

Want to hang a Heathrow from your own tree? We’ve got Holiday Heathrow ornaments available now.

We promised you photos of real, newborn Heathrow the Holiday Hedgehogs, and here they are! Frank Kozik‘s cutest forest friend is “hanging out” in a local redwood tree waiting for you to pick him up.

It can get a bit chilly in MAQET’s secret lab. These three Heathrows have a bad case of frostbite. Just kidding. The fresh powder is all part of MAQET’s process.

These two Heathrows are finished and ready to go. You can choose between freestanding, collectible figurines (shown at left in green) or hanging, collectible ornaments (shown at right in red). We still have sets of the gladsome hedgehogs for $50 a pair (what a deal!) here. Order by December 15th (standard mail) and December 21st (Fedex Overnight) for GUARANTEED delivery by Christmas!

Check out the new sculptures by Ferris and Kelly on the wall at the Grass Hut gallery! (The wood shelves are a nice touch, too.) We hope everyone is having a great time at Sweater Party tonight. We’re there in sweater spirit! For more photos, see this Facebook album.

We thought we’d dress up Heathrow in the signature stripes of that other perpetually lost fellow, Where’s Waldo. Have you seen Heathrow in San Francisco? He’s still out there as part of the Designer Toy Scavenger Hunt. GoldRun just let us know that they’ve increased the radius of Heathrow’s Hot Zone, which makes it a bit easier for you to stumble across him. We’re going to help you out with an additional clue: The special Gold Heathrow is located in one of our favorite San Francisco neighborhoods, The Mission. His exact coordinates are reachable by public transportation, too. If you’re BARTing in from across the Bay, you’ll want to exit at 16th and Mission. Heathrow awaits you in walking distance. Go get him!

MAQET is all about the combination of technology and tradition. We like designing online and holding an actual art object. So when GoldRun invited us to participate in their augmented reality Designer Toy Scavenger Hunt, it was a no-brainer. Not only did we say yes, but we got fellow San Franciscan, Frank Kozik, to re-imagine everyone’s favorite Plastin^® Hedgehog as a striking GOLD trophy. Meet the radiant gold Heathrow the Hedgehog…if you can find him!

To find the gilded Heathrow, you need to be in San Francisco with your iPhone and the free GoldRun app.

Here’s what he looks like in reality, but you need to locate him in augmented reality. The Gold Heathrow is officially up for grabs through November 30th. We’ll be providing clues to his whereabouts here on the blog, and also on MAQET’s Twitter and Facebook Fan Page. So stay tuned and click through for a clue!

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Even when Dankeschoen gets a little creepy, he’s still alotta cute The amicable bear makes friends wherever he goes… Happy Halloween!

This weekend, a delegation of Japanese schoolgirls arrived in San Francisco. The girls are students at Dankeschoen Academy, and they’ve come to America with a message of love and peace.  MAQET is hosting the students for one week. Over the next couple days, we plan to hang out, hit the malls, make sticker-pictures, you know, stuff like that. On Friday, the younger schoolgirls head back to Tokyo, but the rest will be looking for homes. Stay tuned to the MAQET blog all week long for photos of our adventures. We’ll also post info tomorrow about how you can adopt one of these Japanese Schoolgirls. MAQET newsletter subscribers get the details first, so be sure to sign up!

This photo just in from one of the first Patchwork Dankeschoen MAQETs to reach its new home. If you ordered one, it should be with you very soon. A handful of Patchworks are still available in the MAQET shop while they last.

Cats love hedgehogs. (But you should probably keep your MAQETs out of the reach of your animal friends though, just in case.)

Related and true story: our cat is also a friend to ye olde opossum. You can tell this one is an older possum because he took off his Crocs before coming to the dining area. Young possums have no respect for manners.