Able and Game’s cards have a ‘mundane edge’, and that edge is usually cats
Where would an artist be without their muse? Andy Warhol had Edie Sedgwick, and Anna Blandford has various cats.
You may recognise Anna’s illustrations on Able and Game greeting cards stocked throughout the country and overseas, a business Anna owns with her husband Gareth. Anna – “Able” – is the creative-type, while Gareth – “Game” – is a former computer scientist who manages the nuts and bolts of the business.
Their cards are endearingly daggy. They’re quirky, funny, and as so aptly put on their Instagram bio, they “celebrate the real life moments”. When I met up with Anna for coffee, she perhaps described it best, saying her cards have a “mundane edge”.
I caught up with Anna at Grace Cafe in Fitzroy before she began her weekend tradition of selling her cards at the nearby Rose St Market, a hub for hipsters, creatives and vintage aficionados. With her two young children at home, and Gareth setting up the stall, we seized our chance to talk shop.
In fact, Anna can credit the success of her business to the Rose St Market. She began by casually selling clothes and other crafts, but it was her cards that sold most successfully, givjng her the chance to create a lucrative business and eventually open up a studio-cum-office space in Brunswick.
“I just put an idea down and hope people buy it. My only rule is not to create rude or vulgar cards with swear words on them. Not for any particular reason, because I like to swear, and I love rude stuff,” Anna says.
“The only problem with the business is that I don’t get to see the card-giving moment. I would pay money to be able to see the husband’s reaction. I have to just imagine. ”
“Sometimes I’ll put something on there and just think that it’s what happens in my own life, but everyone is like, oh yeah I’m the same. It’s nice to know it’s not just me.”
For my mother’s birthday, I’m planning on buying a card that says: “Mum, I’m glad I inherited your taste for wine”, and there’s a drawing of a classic mum-type drinking from a goon sack (or “cask wine” as my own mother defensively prefers to call it).
Anna grew up on a farm between Sale and Bairnsdale, 30 minutes away from the closest town.
“When I was a kid, all I would get for birthdays and Christmases was cat things. And when I was, I think, nine, I had two older cats. And mum was like, we’re going to get two new kittens, and I was like, this is heaven.
“We had a chook house with a feral cat that lived there and would often have kittens, but you couldn’t pat it. Although I did try to tame the chook house cat. Now we’ve got a cat we found in our office and tamed it, which was my ultimate goal as a nine-year-old.”
Anna’s cat, named Bubsy, seems to have inspired a multitude of her cards, and now a book, “I touched a cat and I liked it”. This idea came tumbling out of one Anna’s creative blocks, one she feared she couldn’t pull herself out of.
When she thought of the line “I touched a cat and I liked it”, she couldn’t stop laughing. It was just too ridiculous, she says.
“I kept looking at it and laughing, so I printed it out and took five to the market on the weekend to see how it goes, and they sold.”
‘I touched a cat and I like it’ started as a greeting card, and evolved to become a book sold around the world.
But what occasion would you buy it for?
“I asked one woman, and she said: ‘this morning I went outside and I saw this cat who normally hates me’... I can’t remember what the story was, but it involved a woman, husband, neighbour’s cat, and someone got scratched. She was like, ‘I’m going to send it to my husband because of this funny situation and give him a card’. And I was like, yes! This is the exact reason why I got into this.
“The only problem with the business is that I don’t get to see the card-giving moment. I would pay money to be able to see the husband’s reaction. I have to just imagine.
“Now I know that if something seems ridiculous, don’t not try and sell it.”
“Sometimes I’ll put something on there and just think that it’s what happens in my own life, but everyone is like, oh yeah I’m the same. It’s nice to know it’s not just me.”
Anna has always been creative. As soon as she finished high school, she jumped on a plane and headed to Gent in Belgium for a year, where she went to an art school. All subjects were taught in Dutch, and still today, Anna does not speak Dutch.
In high school, her favourite artist was Brett Whiteley. Anna would borrow his art book from the library and keep it for the entire school year. But Whiteley’s work doesn’t influence Anna’s work today.
Her biggest influence – and it’s easy to see why – is British artist David Shrigley. His drawings are child-like, sometimes dark, and, like Anna’s work, are capped off with hilarious captions.
“I remember going to see his stuff when I was in Scotland 10 or 12 years ago, and thought, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Anna says.
Anna laughs when she recalls one of Shrigley’s pictures of a pigeon with the caption: “I’m flying to London to shit on the government”.
I ask Anna what it’s like for your business partner to also be your life partner and then also be the father of your children.
“I think he finds me quite frustrating because sometimes I do things at the last minute. And sometimes he’s quite honest. Maybe I just want to hear that something I’ve worked on is good, not all the problems with it.
“It’s not that what he’s doing is bad - it’s my reaction to it,” Anna says, laughing.
Gareth holds an Able and Game tote bag.
Anna says her mind is all chaos, whereas Gareth is very systematic. Anna might, for instance, have a hierarchy of naming files – good copy 1; good copy almost ready; good copy final version; good copy final version 2.
But in any case, it’s clear Gareth is the cat to her chook house. “His contribution will make for the better card.”