Sara Selepouchin designs offbeat diagrams of everyday machines, which she silkscreens onto handy household items. I could not resist buying her pinball machine diagram featuring Williams' Monster Bash.

Selepouchin was one of about 150 artists showing their work at the Crafty Bastards! Arts & Crafts Fair sponsored by the Washington City Paper on October 3, 2009. The artists booths were crammed into the play yard at the Marie Reed Learning Center in Washington, DC's hip Adams Morgan neighborhood.

We were drawn by the crowd milling around Selepouchin's busy Girls Can Tell booth. It was festooned with towels, tote bags, notebooks, and other paraphernalia imprinted with intriguing diagrams of bicycles, appliances, tools, cameras, etc. Up close, we saw that Selepouchin's hand drawn diagrams were silkscreened in bright colors onto a variety of useful items.

I chose Selepouchin's diagram of a pinball machine silkscreened onto a page torn from an old textbook about insects. At first glance, it looked like a preliminary sketch drawn on a random scrap of paper. Close inspection revealed the artistry of the diagram and its hand printing onto the faded textbook page. It will look great framed and hanging in my gameroom.

Selepouchin said that she was inspired by a Monster Bash pinball machine she saw at the Pinball Parlour in Earlington, Pennsylvania. Monster Bash is one of about 60 pinball machines there, ranging from wood rails to the latest games.

Old patent drawings—with their numerous callouts—also inspired Selepouchin. Unlike those formal, finalized patent drawings, Selepouchin's diagrams seem more like a work in progress. One can imagine engineers discussing product features and revising the diagram to show a suggested improvement.

Selepouchin set a goal of producing one diagram each week for a year. After about 25 weeks, she was exhausted. Selepouchin has taken a design break, but she plans to start a new series next year.

Most of the ideas come from Selepouchin's fertile mind. She gets new ideas just from walking around Philadelphia: a neon sign, a store display, a brick facade. She also welcomes suggestions on her web site, www.girlscantell.com