kartwheel

Cats and birds are favorite animals for Lorena Pinon of Kartwheel. The famous character she would love to be is Cat Woman. She would love to be a bird for a week - especially a pigeon - to travel far and spy on folks! After all that traveling and spying, her dream day would be spent at an all day spa, getting a number of treatments to "make the noise in my head go away." Then, rested and refreshed, Lorena would be President Obama for a day and make the banks pay back the bailout money!The lifelong Bay Area native finds writing copy for her website to be brain-challenging, as she believes she is much better at talking about her designs and selling herself in person. Her art show experience to date is Indie Mart. HHD is the first "true craft show" she is doing because "it sounds like a cool thing to be part of," she says. A graphic designer by trade, she gives back by donating time designing bilingual books for Children's Book Press in San Francisco.

Creating her own art has affected her buying habits - she now thinks twice about who will beneift the most from her purchase, and keeps her buying local or at least in the US. She is happy to support local artists and cutting out the middle man.