mim4art

Some images of Paris & Mail Art

2012-02-01T10:25:00.001-05:00

I've been making mail art pretty regularly, though not sending it out on the day that I make it because I carry it in my pocket and forget to drop it in the mail box. So it goes. This is number 819.

Using exhibition show cards as my base, scavenging images from the old Sotheby's auction house catalogue, and some bits of text, is quite satisfying.

Yesterday, we went in search of La Maison du Chocolate to buy a gift for someone who's invited us for lunch. This is the view of the escalators in the grand department store, Le Bon Marché. I love this view and have taken it over and over. We introduced it to our friend Anne.

This is the array of dried fruits and nuts that we purchased today at the store two streets up from us, called Izraël. We were told that it has the best selection and it does. I did get a bit claustrophobic as it's a tiny shop. I was afraid I'd knock into something or someone. The almonds coated in toasted sesame seeds are quite delicious.

We stopped in the MEP to see the current expositions. Wonderful photographs by a number of different artists, plus a group of photos from the collection of a large bank in Brazil. The courtyard is a zen garden.

This is at Le Bon Marché. There was a set up of perfumes that one could try out, spray on papers, there was no attendent, just the perfumes and paper. So here was this group of three older women, huddled around trying out the scents. It became a bit overwhelming so we had to hurry past and I turned to snap this image.

Returning from the theatre on Monday night, we got off the train at the Notre-Dame exit (RER) and walked the rest of the way, even though it was chilly. This is the view looking up at the towers from right out front. There was hardly anyone around, it was so quiet, and silvery.

A bit more of Bilbao & Mail Art

2012-01-30T11:30:00.001-05:00

Spotting this man in the water cleaning the Guggenheim museum was interesting as it gave the building scale, though that's not so evident in my close up shot.

This Louise Bourgeois spider is on the river side of the Guggenheim. It's called Maman. There are other versions of this elsewhere. Have you seen any of them?

Jeff Koons Puppy is on the plaza by the entrance to the Guggenheim. He is so cute, I mean it, really cute. The people liked it so much that the city bought it rather than having it be removed at the end of the exhibit time. The plantings change with the seasons, I believe. Big, this puppy is BIG!

We were sitting on the wall on the river side of the building one night, just looking at things, when a HUGE noise jolted us! What the heck!!! The fire sculpture had come on behind us. I turned around and got this shot of it.

This is one of the things I'm doing besides the tiny watercolor landscapes and mail art. I'm altering Mona. Can you spot the changes?

This is #817, which I sent to someone in Paris.

This is #818 which is going further away. I used show cards as the substrate for these two cards.

And now a special announcement: My honey is putting more images on his blog. He got some fine photos while in Bilbao. Check them out here.

Images from Bilbao, Spain

2012-01-30T06:58:00.000-05:00

We returned Saturday evening and it's like Bilbao was a dream. We had 3 1/2 days there and, in spite of rain, did lots of walking. Our main objective was to see the Guggenheim, and we did, but we found out that there was more to Bilbao than that. To prove it, here is half of the dessert table at our hotel buffet (smile.)

We took endless photos of the museum. You can, of course, see them on the internet in abundance, because the building is seductive and it's impossible to stop taking photos of it. This is our view on the first day, our first walk, though we did see it coming in from the airport in the taxi the evening before.

Here's bit more of the building. I'll be posting my multiples views on Flickr should any of you be interested in seeing them. Again, I'll say it, I couldn't stop taking photos, and neither could my honey. To the last moment, in the taxi on the way to the airport, I was snapping photos through the window.

We also went to the Museo de Bellas Artes, where we caught the final days of an exhibit of work by Antonio Lopez, which was very good. We'd not heard of him, as we aren't very knowledgeable about contemporary Spanish artist (other than Tapies.) This is a view of the museum cafe. I was sitting on a bench and noticed the reflections, how the people inside seemed like a painting, and the passersby, a blue of movement.

Here's a view of the Guggenheim at night. Pretty amazing building. The exhibits were also very good. We enjoyed seeing the Richard Serra installation, the exhibit with Richard Serra and Brancusi, and works by Georg Baselitz. The 3rd floor was not open, which worked out great as we were pretty full seeing what we did see. Satisfied and happy that we had the experience of being at the museum. We returned another day to take more photos (only the outside can be photographed) and to visit the bookstore, where we found some books on sale. Who could resist? Not us. We got a book of Rauschenburg works and a photo book.

What a surprise to come upon this bust of John Adams on the Gran Via. The 2nd U.S. president made some positive comments about the Basque people, culture, and language, which were included on the plaque.

We had our umbrella this afternoon, though we'd forgotten it another day, when it was sunny and we'd assumed it would stay that way. We took refuge in a big indoor market in the Casco Viejo (old city) which was dicey for me as I don't eat meat and there were lots of butcher stalls. We hung out by the mushroom stall! Once there was a bit of a let up, we dashed out to continue our walk. Soon the rain let up and we could take more photos.

A nice view of the pedestrian bridge designed by Calatrava. Our hotel was just up a bit on the right so we had views of the bridge and part of the Guggenheim from our hotel window. We walked across the bridge in the daytime and the night, quite different experiences visually.
All in all, we were happy to have gone to Bilbao, where we celebrated our wedding anniversary.

Greetings from Bilbao

2012-01-27T04:44:00.000-05:00

We've been in Bilbao, Spain since Tuesday. I can't post photos until we return to Paris, but wanted to post that the city has more to offer than The Guggenheim Museum. Lots of walking since we've been here, in spite of the drizzles. We did have one day of sun, felt fortunate to have that. Oh, the other thing is that my Spanish works! Yay! This is the first time I've used it in a Spanish speaking country. Next post from Paris.

Food, of course, and Mail Art, of course

2012-01-23T07:02:00.001-05:00

I made crèpes for breakfast on Sunday. I'm grateful that the previous person left the flour as I'd probably not have bought a bag of it. Look, Bon Maman preserves.

The people without roofs were also cooking lunch/dinner. They had a pot on a heater of some kind. There are two people sitting on the bench. They contributed to the pot. I missed the eating of the meal, as it happened a few hours later and I was busy at that time. It's been so interesting to be a watcher of life on the street.

On the board downstairs, I put up one of Andrea's weather-grams. I put a used metro ticket up next to it saying "Free Gratuit" with an arrow. This morning, all of the used tickets were gone, and one of the weather grams and a little collage booklet that I offered up. Maybe people thought the metro tickets were what was free? and useable?

Åke's wife came to visit him and brought me a beatiful surprise. She gave me a knit ornament, AND the instructions how to make them, and a book of traditional Norwegian knitting patterns. She has challenged me! I think I'm going to attempt to make these. What a sweet thing to do for me. I'm so touched and feel so fortunate.

This is card #815. I used a show card and part of a painting.

This is card #816, using another of those show cards and a different painting.

The sun is coming through and Notre Dame looks like this, this morning.

We'll be leaving early tomorrow for 5 days away from the computer. I might be able to post some text from my iPod Touch (first generation, no a camera) or not.

See you when I return, with photos from somewhere else.

Choeurs Resilience

2012-01-22T05:07:00.001-05:00

We went to the concert by this group last night. This is a publicity photo off of their web site.

This is a photo I managed to take from the back of the church. We were so surprised to see Yadt Elyas playing the oud! We'd met him a number of years ago when he was living down the hall from us.
More information about this amazing organization can be found here and here.

We saw that there were some people in the group with visible disabilities, but didn't know that the group was dedicated to including them in the choeur.

We'll stop at the Cafetheque (a coffee roasting and drinking place down the street) one day soon, and ask Yadt (who works there) how he got involved with the group.

Saturday, more goings on.

2012-01-22T05:00:00.001-05:00

On the way to meet our friend M. for coffee by Bastille, we saw these odd cars on rue St. Antoine, which by the way was jammed with tourists. We had to worm our way through the crowds and were a bit late. Who knew there'd be a traffic jam of people!? We had coffee and gelato at Amorici, a nice visit, and by the time we said our "a bientôts", it was getting dark out.

At we crossed the area where the Sunday market is on rue Richard Lenoir, C spotted something - little booths set up with artists' wares. We walked the length of one side, saw two artists' work we liked, one does collage and the other paintings. I chatted a bit with each of them. We hope they made a sale or two.

Here's the carousel that was ready to start up.

There was a gathering of Egyptian young people, but we didn't know what it was about as they were doing speeches in French and Arabic. Notice the woman crossing the street with her guitar on her back. We see lots of people with guitar and violincello cases, like this, on their backs. Oh, that's the statue in the middle of the Bastille round about.

We stopped for a baguette, had some bread and cheese, then went off with our neighbor to a concert at a church. We had to take 2 metros and got off at Solferino, not knowing where we were, went the wrong direction (my doing) in the drizzle, had to reverse, rushing so we wouldn't be late. We weren't. The concert was wonderful. See separate post about it.
After the concert, we stopped at a cafe, where I had a vin chaud (hot mulled wine.) Perfect for a dark, chilly, damp night. We took the metros back and popped into another cafe for a coffee.

Wow, caffeine at 10h45 p.m. Guess who was up very late reading last night?

My afternoon walk.

2012-01-22T04:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, was a very nice, very busy day. In the afternoon, I took a walk, crossing the Pont Marie and cutting through Ile St. Louis to Ile de la Cité, and Notre Dame. Besides wanting a walk, my secondary goal was to check that my iPod Touch could pick up the free WiFi in the park behind Notre Dame. It could & I sent a test message. Here's the view of the dark, cloudy sky with the Pantheon in the background. I like the way the sillouette skyline looks.

Notre Dame looks a bit tilting! Oh, dear, don't worry, it was me tilting in the wind.

This is a pretty dramatic view of the little park. I love the way the trees are cut flat along the top. People were sitting on the benches underneach, which are set in a grid, in spite of the gray, windy, drizzly weather.

Here's boat pushing a barge of rusty metal. All of the tourists, and me, too, took photos of it. I can hear my French teacher saying "Mim, with all the sites in Paris, you're taking a photo of junk?" (in French, of course.)

As I stood along the wall looking at the Seine, I heard a loudish continual sound coming from the right. Several other people came to the wall to look over. This is what appeared as a surprise. What a change from the big tourist boats and the working boats.

Crossing back to the Cité Internationale des Arts, via the Pont Louis Philipe. See the Cité behind those trees?

This is the commerative little monument in front of the Cité, which I've written about for years. We call it The Bunny, but it's the map of Korea. Really, doesn't it look like a rabbit getting ready to sit down? Across the road, you can see the book sellers, one of which was open, even with the not so nice weather.

A flower shop on Ile St. Louis gave a bright spot to all of us passing by.

I was taking a photo of the Velib' bicycles in from of the building and heard lots of chirping birds. I turned and saw this little bush full of them, a someone had hung a tiny net bag of seeds from it. A nice end to my walk.

The dinner party and more

2012-01-21T04:21:00.000-05:00

Here's the dinner party, just before we started to eat. We moved the little work table that the computer is usually on, to the end of the dining table, which C had moved into the middle of the room. It worked out great. We borrowed a chair from our neighbor in order to seat 5 people.

Our friends brought an epiphany gallette made with almond paste, what's called a King's cake in the U.S. The baker included the gold crown. K got the little porcelaine figure but left the crown for us. The gallette was yummy.

This is the card that I got from the photo booth at the Archives the other day. C suggested that I choose the SUSPECT card, though POET tempted me.

We went to see the Jean-Paul Goude exhibit at Musee des Arts Decoratifs. It was really exciting for us. We enjoyed seeing his sketches, his actually pieces of work, and his process for creating. I ejoyed the cut apart photos. They reminded me of the project we used to give our students.

This train was set up in the middle of the grand hall. Enormous. It was used in the bi-centennial parade in Paris. I was fascinated by this enormous presence and kept thinking "how did they get it into the space." There were videos showing it going down the street, all kinds of parade activities, really spectacular. Finally, I asked the guard - the train, is it real, is it metal, how did they get it in here? (spoiler) His response - it's not real, it's wood, they brought it in pieces.

I was still impressed because it sure looked real! The exhibit was huge and very interesting, both the work and the installation.

Visiting and some surprise mail

2012-01-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

This morning, we walked over to the 11th arrondisement to have breakfast with our friend M, who's come over from Ireland to visit us and other friends. It was a nice walk, but I missed the street due to the page in my map book, having the street appear to be connected to another. It wasn't, but looked that way because of the gutter of the book. We asked for directions of a man on a motorcycle, who was doing something with his phone. Turned out he was a police officer and spoke English, and said, "I love America, I was in Los Angeles to learn about police motorcycles." Besides his police job, he has a service of driving people or taking them on motorcycles, and gave us his card. He'll give us a tour on motorcycle, he and his friend. COOL!!

We were very close to where we had be, just a bit late but had a nice conversation & the potential for a motorcyle ride around town. Here's the church that was the landmark.

View from the window into the courtyard of the apartment our friend rented.

This is so typically French, right? With the houses all backing into a courtyard space.

When I went downstairs in the morning, I was handed a form saying that something had postage due and I could pick it up at La Poste Hotel de Ville. During the morning walk, we discussed what it might be. Oh a packet of goodies perhaps, as 1,55 euro was due on it.
After a late lunch, we went to Hotel de Ville. Oh, an envelope (#10 in USA) with NO stamp on it.

See the empty space in the corner? It's from my friend Val, who lives in the south of France. He's prolific mailer but somehow managed to forget about a stamp. We are going to tease him mercilessly when we see him in February.
So, I paid the U.S. equivalent of $2 to receive this envelope. I don't want to open it immediately, but savor the possibilities of what it could hold.

Catch up

2012-01-19T15:14:00.000-05:00

I took no photos today - I had French class this morning, then we had an appointment with the now-retired, but still present, wonderful President of the Cité. After that, we went to get the "detaxe" form at the eyeglass shop (long story.) No photos, however, I took a photo of the kettle last night. In order to use it, to make hot water, we have to unplug the hot plate, which means I can't cook and make hot water at the same time. We have limited outlets. It's good for us to be challenged like this.

We went to celebrate our good meeting with Mme B. My honey, Anne (the photographer from Sweden) and I went to happy hour at La Perla. We had Margheritas for half price!
This is Mail Art I made yesterday, using some of the used up tickets from the metro. I have many more as resource material.

The box from pasta came in useful for this collage Mail Art.

This is rue Pavée, with me walking back from getting more postcards of Mona Lisa at the book shop Monalisait, yesterday. See the carousel in the distance?

I'm working on a project using the Mona Lisa cards. I'll take a photo of them when I get further along. Today, I made four pieces. This is going to be amusing, at least for me.

I passed by the chantier (work site) near Metro St. Paul. They've begun to break up the paving stones, preparing for the new plantings. I think we'll be here long enough to see the results.

Today, the weather was mild, but it was a typical gray, drizzly day. I like the way the city looks when it's gray like this. The light flattens things out. Distances appear changed. Tomorrow, I'll take my camera when we go out in the morning to meet a friend for coffee.

A rainy day

2012-01-19T03:18:00.001-05:00

I got up in the dark, but it was already 8 a.m.!! It's raining and gray now, but the temperature is like spring, 50F. Wow. Crazy, right? I'm off to French class shortly, but wanted to show you some things.
This is what came in the mail yesterday from my friend Andrea. A packet full of goodies that I can use in my mail art. She knows I came empty handed. What a treasure trove. Plus some of her Weather-grams. I put three of them up on the board in the Cite already.

This is at the other Cite Internationale Universitaire. It has a beautiful campus and right across from the big park Mont Souris. It was raining when we got there last night. We went to the Theatre de la Cite to see a performance by Jamie Adkins. What fun! We took the RER to get there which is good practice for when we take it to get to the airport next week for our trip to Bilbao.

Here's one of the pieces of Mail Art that I made yesterday. I just can't stop making. This one has a show card as the base, part of a painting from a catalog, and part of a sticker. I brought my small hole punch, so I can add those dots for movement.

After seeing the performance last night, we stopped at Pizza MoMo and got a pizza to go. They make them right there in front of you, they're small compared to U.S. pizza's of course, and very delicious. It was a perfect thing to eat on a rainy night, at our little table, overlooking the Seine.

This is what I often make for lunch or dinner. There are several non-meat varieties available and none of them have msg. The flavors are ones not available at home. These, too, are perfect for gloomy and/or chilly days.

A bientot, off to French class.

Tuesday, the archives and Mail Art and food.

2012-01-17T13:54:00.000-05:00

The National Archives are located not too far from where we are. This afternoon, the courtyard was open and there was an exhibit installed along the arcade. In the middle was a photo booth, which caught Chuck's attention and drew us in. For 2€ I got a photo of myself as a "suspect."

The exhibit was of identity cards and passports from 1917 until the 1960s. It was very interesting, surprisingly.

A close up of one of the large posters along the arcade.

I brought my 9B pencil with me and enjoyed making piece of Mail Art with it. The circles were made using an aquarelle pencil in green.

No one knows, except Mona, why she is attracted to light houses. Who knew that the needlework catalog left in the storage room would come in so handy.

Mona showed off her latest needlework creations. These are destined to me housewarming gifts, no doubt.

Last night, I made salmon (that came from Scotland) and potatoes for dinner. I don't have an oven, or broiler, so I made the salmon in a frying pan. I sear that bottom then lower the heat and cover the pan. It works well.

On our walk back from the trip to the galleries, we stopped at the boulangerie recommended by someone, and got a pain au raisin and an abricot viennoise. We decided that we don't like this one as much as another bakery nearby. Not to say these were not delicious, and certainly better than we get back home, but we are getting to be very picky about our pastries!

Tuesday, out and about after French class

2012-01-17T13:25:00.000-05:00

After my French class we started out for a walk to an area where there were a lot of galleries. Along the way, we came to a florist shop, oh but there were shoes in the window, it was a shoe shop - a shoe shop/florist! What a nice combination! Even though it was quite chilly, the flowers were out waiting to be purchased.

Everywhere I go, I have to be mindful not to twist and ankle! I love the old courtyards and streets, but even in a solid shoe they are treacherous. I can't imagine how some women walk over them in high heels.

Autolib' - There were four spots marked with this and four numbered metal posts, where one uses their pass card to get electric recharge and then GO! This was the first time I'd seen anything like this. All of the vehicles were gone so I guess it's useful.

This older woman was stopped in the street in front of us. I loved her blue coat and matching gloves, with her white knit hat and brown boots. She went on her way shortly after I snapped her photo.

We went to see the exhibit at Galerie Karsten Greve. They were showing a huge amount of work by James Castle, who was a naive artist from Idaho, in the U.S. We'd seen some of his work before and have a book of it, but this was work we hadn't seen before.

This was a nice surprise. In a small shop/gallery we saw these "shoes" on a glass shelf in the window. We glanced then went back and looked again. They are wonderfully painted old wooden shoe forms. There were two more shelves. One had baby shoes on it. I'm sorry that I didn't fotograph the name of the artist. They are wonderful illustrations.

Another sunny day!

2012-01-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

The sun is extremely bright today and it's quite chilly outdoors. It looks much warmer than it is. We took a walk today, noticing the sharp shadows on the buildings, glad we had enough layers of clothing and hadn't forgotten our gloves.

I crossed the Pont Marie to go to La Poste but there was no one to wait on people at the stamp desk, so I went to La Poste in the Marais. There are so many of them within walking distance, it's such a pleasure for a Mail Artist.

On the way to La Post on rue Pavée, we stopped in at Mona Lisait (bookstore) which is full of wonderful books at lowered prices. One must be very careful not to get too distracted by such fabulous items or one could break one's ankle. Notice the "floor" which is just the paving stones of the former passage way that is now the shop. We got a super book on collage that we'd not see before. This is also the best buy on Mona Lisa postcards - 12 for 2€, as I mentioned before. They do have other postcards, not just Mona.

We stopped at the Orange telephone and photo developing store and chose some of my honey's photos to have enlarged. We've decided to have an Open Studio before we depart. After that, we went to the market for and got some Poilâine bread for lunch. It's nice for us that they carry it at the market and we don't have to make the trek to the shop, though we will do that one day, also.

Last night, I wasn't sure what I'd make for dinner as the cupboard was pretty bare. The previous resident had left some of these packets. I wasn't sure what they were but Alsacienne's are maybe a pancake? The ingredients: pyrophosphate de sodium, bicarbonate de sodium, et farine de blé. Okay, I know it's baking soda, some flour, and ? maybe baking powder?
So I beat up a couple eggs, some milk, some flour (left by the previous person) and some of the packet. Voila, I had a sort of thicker crèpe. I folded them in half with some chevre inside. Sorry no photo as we dug right into them and they were delicious. We garnished with apricot preserve. My honey says that I'm such a creative cook. Nice to be appreciated.

I made a double landscape for some mail art to send to a friend who is a landscape artist par excellence.
She can cut each of them out to frame, should she wish to do so, or leave as they are. I was thinking that next time, I can leave them sans color, like a coloring book, for her to complete. Hmmm, an idea!

More in Paris

2012-01-15T03:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we were models for Ann, who lives across the hall. You can see here work here.
She lives on the other side of the building, with wonderful light coming in, with a view of buildings.

This is a view from Ann's studio. I love the way the roof tops look. The shadow lines are interesting to me, also.

After the photo shoot, we went to the Swedish Cultural Institute for coffee. It's gotten quite popular but we found places to sit inside.

When we were on our walk along the Canal St. Martin, we passed through an area where there's a Fire Station. These Pompiers were cleaning there hoses. You can see a beautiful photo of the hoses on My Urban Fragments blog here.

Day 12, almost a 2 weeks in Paris!

2012-01-15T03:41:00.000-05:00

La Poste offices are in old buildings but have been "modernized." This one is near Les Archives. I have to go to one again tomorrow. One of my big indulgences - postage stamps!

Mail Art using a show card from an exhibit that has passed. Now I'm seeing a couple of eyes peering out at me!

This is another of the Mona card alterations. I'm having a lot of fun with these and glad that I saved the petit-point patterns catalogue. I bought another dozen Mona cards from the book shop Monalisait, which has a different version and a better price, 12 cards for 2€. We (my honey and I, have a plan for them.)

Here's the view from Centre Pompidou looking towards Mont Martre. What nice weather we had for that day. I love how the light and shadows effect the pattern of the buildings.

Folks from Richmond are in Paris for a few days and met up with us for dinner. We went back to Le Trumilou. Here's my dinner, which was quite tasty.

The Tarte de Pomme, shared by my honey and I, was yummy. It had a berry sauce drizzled on the plate.
We aren't going out to eat very often. I'm making simple meals in our tiny kitchen, frequently just a salad with cheese and baguette. We eat it, sitting at the table which we've placed by the window, with the view of the Seine and the Ile St. Louis. It's so good.

Friday, already!?

2012-01-13T13:23:00.001-05:00

We went on an excursion with Ann (photographer from Sweden) and Åke (painter from Norway) to the 10th arrondisement. We took the metro to La Crimée stop and then walked down the Canal St. Martin.

People were rowing on the canal, which is quite wide at this point.

Does this look like Paris? It reminded us of the Canal du Midi in Toulouse.

We stopped for coffee (Cocolate Chaud for me) at this famous Hotel.
I put a link to a video in French that shows (after an advert) the Hotel/Cafe & the canal. When you see the inside of the cafe, picture us sitting there this afternoon, inside to the left of the door.

This is a boat that was docked on the canal.

Here, I altered a card for a musical about Le Petit Prince. I had fun with this. I blocked out all of the information with the needle work and the black part at the bottom, which was from the auction house catalog of paintings. I really like precisely cutting out the images to make them look like part of the card. Reminder: not photo-shopped, old school cutting and gluing.

Update of Thursday.

2012-01-13T13:14:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, after my French class, we did some errands, like laundrmat, eyeglass shop, BHV to see about printing digi prints, and stopped at a small boutique to say hello to the owner, whom we'd met a few years ago. She has a small boutique with ceramics and hand made jewelry and has this cute faced heater!

Here are more of my tiny landscapes in progress. 2" x 3" (5.8cm-7.3cm appx) So far, I have 34 more to complete.

When we were at Centre Pompidou the other day, I found a souvenir shop with inexpensive tourist postcard, 10 for 1,50€. I got a lot of Mona. I will go back there and get some more as I'm having such fun with them.

The catalog for needle-point that I cut up is coming in very handy for giving Mona something to hold.

On the way back from errands yesterday, we stopped at a bakery for a baguette and some pastry to have after dinner.

These were quite delicious. You can see that we shared them.

Mail Art in Paris

2012-01-11T15:38:00.000-05:00

I did 2 cards early this morning, and two cards in the early afternoon. For the first series, I used a show card from the Korean artist who had a exhibit that opening this week.

I torn the show card in half to get two standard postcard sized bases. Someone had left an old (1990) art auction catalog in the atelier. I used that to find art work to use on top of the show card. I added the small labels and my date stamp.

This second series uses show cards by another Korean artist, who has an exhibit at a Gallery in Village St.Paul. Again, I used a painting from the auction catalog, tearing it in half and using each half on a separate show card.

I'm quite pleased with the results.

Some gray views

2012-01-11T03:00:00.001-05:00

Entry area of the main building at the Cité. The smokers will come out in the evening and sit on right to have their smokes.

This is the little playground at the corner. It has a few things for the children to climb on and three little rocking horses. There are two table tennis tables and we see people using them. They bring their own paddles. There are also benches all around for parents and others to sit, and they do, even in the chilly weather.

This is the reception area of the Cité, newly renovated. There are lots of mirrors so it seems larger, airier, and brighter. The white shape in the foto is one of the benches. To the left is the glass railing leading down to the lower level where there is an exhibition space, a concert hall and meeting rooms. That's where the French class meets. I went yesterday for the first time in 2.5 years and it was good. All levels of learners and the teacher wears herself out demonstrating vocabulary. Participants are from all over the world but the common language is English.

This is the street we walk down returning from the Franprix or Monoprix (shops) on rue St. Antoine. Ahead is the Seine, to the right at the end of the sidewalk we turn to go to the Cité. That's the corner with the playground. To the left is a construction barricade. There is always work being done. To the left, across the street is the Hôtel de Sens, which, sadly, we've never been in. I think we'll check it out this trip. It has a lovely formal garden on the side that we see all the time, though right now, it's a winter garden.

Here's yesterday's mail art. I used images cut from a catalog someone left here. It was from a shop that sells patterns for making needlework items. Not that there is doubt, but I thought that the label "This side up" finished the composition. For the substrate, I used the carboard that covered a box of 6 eggs. I only had to cut off two side wings. I liked the half-circle cutout on the side.

Last night, after the concert here in the building, we invited some people to come back to our studio for wine. It was a lively party and lucky for us, the common language was English, as my German is minimal and my only Swedish and Norwegian word is "Tack/Takk." Today, we'll go to see the exhibits at Centre Pompidou. Finally, a museum, after one week here.

Mail Art outgoing, Tuesday

2012-01-10T02:46:00.000-05:00

It's early, for me. Since we've been here I've had trouble getting up, and getting to sleep, too. BUT I set the alarm and got up before 8 a.m. It's new sheets day so I have to strip the beds and take the sheets downstairs to get new ones.
And it's, also, my first French class at 10h30. yay. I'm doing better than I thought remembering vocab and getting tenses correct. Way better, which I attribute to my Spanish classes and meet-up. yay.

Here are the pieces of mail art that I made last night, while my honey was on the computer. We are learning to share one device.

We walked by the tiny theatre: Point Virgule, and picked up some of their advertising post cards. They are perfect for altering. We can't attend any performances there as they're usually comedy pieces and all in French, bien sur.

I used water color pencils for this landscpe, and some graphite. I'll be interested in seeing where I end up with these imaginary landscapes. I've already done two sheets of four each for the art-o-mat project. This one is standard postcard size.

On our walk last night, I spotted this spotty shoe. Love it. Actually, I'm crazy about lots of the shoes in this town. I can't wear high heels anymore, oh I could, but my feet would yell at me, but I can imagine them on my feet.

I taped one of my friend Katerina's envelopes to the wall by the door of the studio so I'd remember to take the mail to the post box. They've removed the one in front of the Cite so I have to carry these a bit further. I'm going to start to take photos of the Post Offices that I go to, hoping that it's not a security thingy and get questioned.

The street lights have been turned off, the sky is getting brighter, morning begins.

Day 6, the sun is out! oh, now it's gone.

2012-01-09T09:37:00.000-05:00

I made some mail art the past couple of days. This is using material at hand.

My honey found some free postcards at a cafe, and he found the balloon to alter it with.

This morning, we walked to La Poste at l'Hotel de Ville and BHV. I bought a lot of stamps but we didn't buy any blank discs as they are very expensive here. However, we did stop into the Illy cafe in the basement for some quiche and espresso.

How delish is this? A dark chocolate dusted almond is in the little packet.

Children's clothing is always fun to look at. So cute.

The sky started to become overcast with puffy clouds, gradually darkening. It was nice having sun for awhile.

Exciting news! My honey has posted new photos to his blog. He's now very happy to have one and will keep up with it so be sure to subscribe to his blog or become a follower. It's called My Urban Fragments on blogger. Look at it here.

Day 5, Market day

2012-01-09T09:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we went to the market on Richard Lenoir, aka Bastille market. There was this wonderful duo with terrific voices. The little girl in pink was swaying with the music.

Here's what I purchased at the market. I was happy to see the simit (the round sesame seed bread) like in Istanbul. The long cucumbers were 2 for $1.27, inexpensive. What a feast. And I found some repro postcards.

Leaving the market we saw these pigeons taking a bath in the water that was pumped out to clean the streets.

In the evening, we took the bus to our friends place up by Pere Lachaise cemetery, and went to a restaurant for dinner. I chose the couscous.

Notice the lovely vegetables. There was a small bowl of chickpeas, another of white raisins, and some harissa for spicing it all up.
Afterwards, we went back to our friends' place for some Armanac (spelling?)

We decided to walk "home" rather than take the metro, as the buses had quit for the night. It's not a long walk, only 2.4 miles, though it seemed longer. Probably because it was pretty quiet and very few people were out. We stuck to the wide, busier streets. This is the Mairie of the 10th or the 11th or whatever arrondisement we were walking through. It was a nice night, and we enjoyed the walk. We got "home" by midnight, ready to sleep well.

On a walk through the Marais

2012-01-07T12:56:00.000-05:00

The lobby/reception area of the Cité has been renovated. I'll snap a photo of the desk and what it looks like as we enter. This is as we were leaving for our walk today. Pretty spiffy!

We passed by the bottle trees. Oh No! They look terrible in daylight!

This is a huge bead store that we've been to before. It's beautifully organized by color and has everything a person would need to create bead jewelry. It's Tout a Loisirs!

We passed by a fabulous window full of gorgeous creations make with flaky pastry. It was Bio (organic) and we got a delicious bread there.

The carousel was in action when we walked by. Kids were loving it! A tiny girl in a helicopter. The vehicles got up and down as the carousel turns.

A little boy and girl, side by side, on motorcycles, with big smiles on their faces.

This shop has items that appear to be antique but they're facsimiles. They do a good job of presentation in the shop so we like to stop in there.

Don't you just love this "graffiti?" It says something like "In the new year, I will offer my old dreams."

Day 4, Saturday

2012-01-07T12:39:00.000-05:00

I've started to play with my little traveling water color set. It has a specific limited palette, which is okay for me. I decided that I'd do some coloring book imaginary landscapes.

Here is the man who makes St. Michel Galettes. I love that they are putting the makers' faces on the packages. Buy local!

Here's some mail art I made, altering a photo. The title is: "Mom chose the party hats. They weren't happy with her her choices. They were hoping for something simpler."

Here's our milkman. Buy local, wherever you are.

We didn't get up until noon today, having gotten to sleep finally at 2 a.m. Yikes. It's supposed to get better not worse. We are so turned around clock-wise. This is what the view was at noon. Later in the afternoon we had a bit of sun, while we were out for our walk.

I made this salad last night. The haricot verts were delicious; I had to boil them as I have no steamer here, but they turned out great. The beets and carrots came prepared like that. We are happy eating salad, having bread, and cheese. Oh, and a bit of wine.

Here is my honey opening the mail I got from my friend Val, that said "DO NOT OPEN." Val said that Chuck should open it. and he did. What a riot. So funny.

It had an old document in it, which Val had added to, but in the end, this is what it was about. I hadn't sent Val mail art and was getting fined, or I was getting fined for opening the mail art. In any case, Val cracks me up. I think Chuck will have to pay the fine as the "opener." What do you think?

Day 3, Friday

2012-01-06T10:07:00.001-05:00

This is a "telephone booth." It has Bonjour on the top, and is internet connected via Orange. I'm not sure how it works. It has an old school hand set (or whatever we call that thingy) and a touch screen. I must lurk around it to see it in action at some point.
It's by Metro St. Paul where rue de Rivoli becomes rue St. Antoine.

The little carousel has very modern transportation for the children to ride in. A small child, bundled up in orange, was in the purple rocket waiting while it's mother paid the fee. I'll snap a photo of it sometime when it's running. Maybe at night.

These Christmas trees were lined up in a courtyard with the only lights being tiny blue ones laid out along the bottom part of fake grass. The building is 1700s.

What a fabulous door knocker. Wonder how it'd work on my door at home!

I honestly do not remember this fountain being in this location. I don't know why. It's next to the "telephone booth." These are famous fountains. Read all about them here.

These are the Christmas trees at the place by Metro St. Paul. There are two groupings of them. The pigeons are hanging around and under them. They must be delighted. The pigeons, not the trees!

My honey picked up this container of olives to have with lunch. I was very amused by the bottom explanation. It's very amusing in a direct English translation, right?

At 2 p.m. the shadows were long and sharp. The sun is out. We took a walk late this morning, but I think I need to go outdoors again and enjoy this weather while it lasts. It's 4 p.m. as I post this. I'm off on a walk!

a couple of shops

2012-01-05T19:39:00.000-05:00

These are two of the shops we looked at on our way home from Trumilou.

Here is a darling little shop with lots of cute items. I love the way the stuffed toys are leaning on each other. They have dishes by Marimekko and all sorts of well designed items that we don't need but love to look at.

Gilbert Gilbert is a tiny jewelry shop around the corner from us. We've purchased some things there in the past. These two items caught our eye. Maybe vegetal ivory, or acrylic (plastic?) We liked the inlaid silver stars.

Back "home" and after tiring ourselves out with computer time (Chuck) and some cutting things out (me) we had some herbal tea. And now to sleep.

Day 3 has already started!

Day 2, in which we got up late!

2012-01-05T19:31:00.000-05:00

Today's mail: a postcard from a Mail Artist in France. "E" Ambassade d'Utopia sent this one from somewhere close-by.

I went to La Poste today and purchased some stamps so I'll begin sending out my own Mail Art shortly. The stamps didn't have denominations on them, only 20gm (max weight) and "Europe" or "Monde" on them. Like the Forever stamps in the U.S. I like numbers on my stamps. They make them so graphic.

This is the result of our cleaning and re-organizing the storage room. We still have more towels to wash and put on the shelf. We will return items we've removed for our use when we depart, like some books, wastebaskets, coffee maker, Brita filtre, and more. We weren't able to get the to the coffee maker or other items due to the congestion in there. I wish I'd taken a before photo.

These are the lights on the Mairie on rue de Rivoli, near us.

This is the reflection of the lights in the windows of the building across the street.

This is what I ate before my main dish, at Le Trumilou, tonight. It's a beet pate. Roasted beets in layers with a goat cheese mouse in between (the rosy colored part.) Delicious. The thing above it is actually a tomato wedge with some vinaigrette drizzled on it.

This was our dessert. We shared it. Apple sherbet with Calvados poured over it. Okay, it was so good! For the main course, I had baked fish (Liege) also very good but not a good photo of it, and no where near as exciting as the beets or the Calvados dessert.

After dinner, we walked our friends to the bus stop and saw these lit up Christmas trees on the plaze by the Mairie. I got up close and to my surprise - soda bottles! How recyclage of them to do this.

From across the street at the bus stop.

Here's the entire scene with the 5 trees. So festive. A real bottle tree.

We walked home, looking in shop windows. Checking to see what shops and restaurants are still here, and they mostly are the same, with the addition of a few more Asian cuisine ones, Thai, Japanese. It's nice to have things familiar.

We're HERE!!

2012-01-04T18:06:00.000-05:00

Finally, on our way!
We left Richmond, VA yesterday later than expected. Scheduled departure: 4h30, actual departure 5h15! Why? We start to taxi out to the runway, then the pilot comes on saying that there is a problem with a passenger being buckled in and we have to return to the gate. !!! Turns out some woman couldn't get her child to buckle up! They were in the back of the plane, we were closer to the front. The child was screaming hysterically. We were thinking maybe it was sick and thinking if the child does this all the way to Atlanta the other passengers are going to be going crazy!The flight attendant finally called the pilot and told him what was going on and he made the decision to put them off the plane. We were late into Atlanta and some people were going to miss their connection. But people were so relieved that they didn't have to listen to shrieking the whole way. Luckily, we had plenty of time for our continuing flight to Paris.

We did get to see some gorgeous sunset at the airport while waiting to take off.

I shot this out of the window as we were landing in Atlanta. It's so festive!

Here's all of the mail waiting for us at the Cite when we arrived. We were at reception, filling out the paperwork, and they handed us this. I think they were pretty awed by it! Mail from Katerina, Val, Mary, Emmy, Kerri, & Annie. Wow, we are so fortunate - to be in Paris and to get so much wonderful mail.

After we set up the studio, which is a living and working in space. We went to sleep for a couple hours. We got up and went shopping for dinner. Here are some of the things we bought and there is Traveling HiMonkey in the midst of the dinner fixings.

DELAYED!

2012-01-02T21:51:00.000-05:00

These babies are going NO Where tonight!

Our flight from Richmond to Dulles airport was very delayed and we wouldn't be able to make our international connection. Needless to say, this was disconcerting! One of the agents suggested we rent a car and DRIVE to Dulles! Yeah, like not happening. We could get caught in Interstate traffic for DAYS. I called N & J and asked them to return to the airport to get us. Meanwhile, a helpful United Airlines agent managed to rebook us on Delta for Tuesday. Their fault so no extra charge to us. Whew!
We stopped to pick up some dinner, returned home; then I sent e-mails to the Cite (nous sommes arrivés un jour de retard) and the Paris Shuttle (hopefully our new voucher will arrive in time for our leaving home tomorrow at early afternoon.) Aaaagh!

Oh, and here's the other thing, I suspended my cell phone service starting 3 January. Tonight at midnight, I'm cut off. Oh, No, I'm going old school. No phone contact once we leave our house tomorrow. Au revoir, again!

Packed & ready - ish

2012-01-02T09:32:00.000-05:00

I'm packed! Unless I decided to take some things out of the suitcase, I'm ready.
This is what I packed for art supplies, except I eliminated the roller tape (don't ask why.)
HiMonkey aka "traveling monkey" will be with me again.

Here's what I'm taking. The Blue suitcase is a 22" one. I'm not taking my water bottle, it's just for scale. The bright pink duffle isn't stuffed but is carrying the bag of chargers, and a change of clothing in case the suitcase is misplaced, and a little plastic bag with liquids/gels (my tiny toothpaste, my Rescue Remedy, and some lotion.)
The colorful bag on top is my "purse/tote" which holds my REAL purse, Kindle, laptop, and the folder with eTickets, etc.

Whew. I did it.

Happy New Year, looking ahead.

2012-01-01T19:41:00.000-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

With dancing, gaiety, frivolity, happiness, joy, and laughter;

With peace and compassion, with good health, with love.

The first day of the new year is almost over and we're not finished packing!! Oh, No! Tomorrow night we leave and the following morning we'll be in Paris. Amazing!

I'm in awe of our good fortune and grateful for this opportunity to see Paris, again. And now to finish that packing!

The last Mail Art (for 2011) and looking ahead

2011-12-31T15:18:00.000-05:00

Here's a lovely Leger woman, holding a book. How perfect for her to follow in the line of the books arriving in Tiny Town. This is my last mail art of the year! wow. I'm in upper 700s with mail counted since 1 Dec. 2010. I'll keep going until I reach 1000. I may have mentioned this before. ooops, if I did.

Here are two little memories of Paris. We'll be seeing these shortly, though the sky will probably be gray, and there might even be rain. But the bridge and the sculpture will be there.

We call the sculpture The Bunny, but it's actually a map of Korea. It's right in front of the Cité. We were even there on the day they had a ceremony for it, watching from our studio window.

In memory, mail art, and soon....

2011-12-30T13:53:00.000-05:00

Today is the one year anniversary of the death of my friend. She was a painter, we met when we were 14 years old. This was taken in 1993 before she became ill. I do not know why "yes" was posted on her wall. That is one of her paintings behind here. I think of her very often.

Big news in Tiny Town: the library is expanding! I wasn't sure how to incorporate the trunk of old books that I cut out of a magazine. I just loved the image. Here, I trimmed it up so it looks like it's going into or coming out of the courtyard. This is not photoshop, it's old cut and paste method.

Here a portion of the trunk of books landed on the hunting club grounds outside of Tiny Town. How the residents will get them to the town is unknown.

I was able to use this section in the background. Addition books appear to be arriving in Tiny Town. Again, I've had some fun comments on these on Facebook.

This tiny image is what I'll soon be seeing from our very own (temporary) studio. Now to figure out how to pare down the art supplies!

Whirlwind

2011-12-29T17:57:00.000-05:00

This is one of the collages that I did last year for Papergirl San Francisco. I had fun doing it and was happy to see that there is one planned for Zagreb, June 2012. It's something we all can participate in, so here's the link: Papergirl Zagreb. I think we'll all have fun doing this, don't you? No jury, no fee (just postage to Croatia) no framing, nothing but making something to share. Ivana will be very excited to hear from you that you plan to do this with her.

My honey said "Quick, look!" This squirrel was trying to get on the porch or was looking for one of the pumpkins to chew on. Hopefully, it sound them, outside the fence by the garage. We're down to 2 little pumpkins being chewed on.

See this tiny pastry? It's a pain au raisin and it's one of the things I'm looking forward to.

Art supplies, mail art, & my new pocket

2011-12-28T17:29:00.000-05:00

Here's a pile of things I think I want to take with me. Some because I'll miss them if I don't, some because I always travel with them, and some because I don't want to buy new ones at 33% higher price. I'll be paring down in a couple of days for a much neater kit.

I cut out a few things from the VMFA monthly news magazine before tossing it in the recycle bin. There's an exhibit on Mummies so Egyptian objects were plentiful in the publication. I just had so much fun with this one. The background is from a design magazine from a decade ago. It worked so well with the figure.

There was this large head on a page of the magazine. I wasn't sure what I could do with it, but was drawn to the eyes which had such a life to them. In the end, I figured that a trip to Tiny Town was needed. Don't you think the residents just freaked out when this guy peeked into the town? Scary!

My friend gave me a piece of fabric remnant left from the valance she'd made. It's beautiful, with a sheen to it and a nice weight. I was able to make a new pocket out of it, which I'll take with me on the trip. The fabric is dense enough to make it somewhat water resistant. I like it a lot, it's a treat for me.

Mail out & more

2011-12-26T20:39:00.000-05:00

I'm really fond of this altered photo postcard. Juli sent me a pack of photo postcards. This is the second one I altered by simply cutting up postage stamps and gluing them to the photo. I hope the recipient liked receiving this.

Our niece has a collection of Chanakiot (that's plural for chanukah menorahs, I think, correct me if I'm wrong.) These are a few of them, including the newest one that her hubby gave her. We had the annual gathering at her home yesterday and it was very festive.

We had a few of the little pumpkins left and the squirrels are continuing to enjoy their feast of seeds. They work very hard and long to get at them.

I've started to put together my art kit for our trip. I think I might be going over-board with it. I can pare it down, since there ARE art supply stores in Paris.

Dotty mail art & a memory

2011-12-25T13:53:00.000-05:00

It's quiet today. The streets are quiet. No cars going past. The sky is gray, but the sun is a brightness showing through like a thin haze. Very odd light.
I decided that I needed some color, so I dug out the Color-Aid paper and played with layers and dots.

The substrate is cut from some scrap cardboard with angles at the corners.

This is the loveliest tree we'd ever seen. It was nearby and we'd go to see it night after night. I was decorated like this for 2 or maybe 3 years. We just loved seeing it. Now it's only a memory, revisited in photos.

The owners of the house & tree gave us such a lovely gift. I hope they knew that; I think they knew that. I'm glad I have photos of it.

It reminds me of something I read this morning in the latest issue of The Sun magazine; Sy, the editor, was reminded of the Buddha saying "Remember we're not here forever. Every moment is precious."
I'm grateful for all my precious moment.
And grateful for you, my friends!

In the 700s with Mail Art & a preview

2011-12-24T11:52:00.000-05:00

I'm having fun playing with the labels that my daughter gave me. A happy series for the new year.

I'm using cut up cereal boxes for the substrate and allowing some of the color from the box show.

I've added either my white chalk pencil marks or used the koh-i-noor pencils that are a sort of metallic blue and gold colors.

These postcards put me into the 770's in numbering since I started counting 1 Dec. 2010. I'm going to keep track until 1000, or not.

This is a photo of me, taken in Paris in 2008. In 2 weeks, I'll be standing here again, on the Pont de la Tournelle, the only thing that will look different is my hat. I have a new one to wear this winter.

Mail Art & moving the mail

2011-12-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

This morning was Spanish meet-up. I decided to make today's mail art using a substrate cut from a box of Spanish cookies. You can just make out some words at the top, which say that the cookies are like the ones mama made, or something to that effect; because of that "La Paz" seemed like the right word and the "fragile" label fit perfectly.

This old engraving of the mail being sorted on a train reminded me of my visit to the National Postal Museum where I was able to get onto a U.S. Mail railway car. It was an updated version of this French rolling post office. How speedy this must have seemed when people first had mail delivered via the railroad.

Happy Holidays to all - whatever you celebrate this time of year, I hope it's festive and happy.

Mail art finally

2011-12-22T18:09:00.000-05:00

what a day, what a day! I spent most of it typing up address labels for the preview invitations for my honey's art exhibit. The exhibit will open on 1 March but we'll be away for 2 months so it's as if the opening were 1 January.
I had to take breaks, so I made some oatmeal cookies.

I finally finished, yay, and came up to my studio to make some mail art. I had two more old pipes and they just work so nicely with the de Kooning painting. I'm not sure if the paint is coming out of the pipes or being sucked into them. In any case, these make me laugh.

This baby head is the last of my Victoria scrap stickers that has a person. The rest are flowers or birds. I called this one: "Baby's in the fruit again. Why?"

I received this beautiful card from Alicia, who lives in Iowa City. I sure hope I'll get mail art while in Paris, if not, I'm going to feel withdrawal symptoms. One of the first things I'll do, after gettig WiFi hooked up, will be to get to the post office to buy stamps! Okay, to be honest, maybe that'll be after I buy a baguette.

Hard to believe it's 23 Dec. as we had spring like temperatures. I walked to the mail box without a coat! Crazy!

A few more in-coming

2011-12-22T00:23:00.000-05:00

Positively Postal (aka Scott) sent me an envelope full of goodies from the U.K.

PTRZIA TICTAC sent me an envelope with a postcard and a set of her lovely artist stamps. What a treasure.

Wenchkin is now doing a daily mail art project using her amazingly good silkscreen process. For this mailing, she folded the wings and antennae so they fit into the little envelope. I got the fun of unfolding them.

This is Owney, the Postal Dog as a plush toy. I bought this for my honey at the National Postal Museum and, using tags that H got for his assemblages, I recreated the little tagged jacket that the real Owney wore as he traveled with the mail. Cute, right?

Mail art in and mail art out

2011-12-21T11:34:00.000-05:00

I received this from Cernjul who lives in Buenos Aires. Her envelope is as lively as what was inside of it. I feel so honored to be the recipient of so much lovely mail.

This came from Fleur in California. A tiny envelope made from origami paper, with small photos of store windows in it, and mailed in a clear envelope. So fabulous. Oh, and the stamps didn't get cancelled. Yay, this didn't go through the machinery.

These are the two pieces of mail that came one day after another, from Katerina in Greece. So much fun to see what is included in her colorful envelopes.

Marie sent sent this from Japan. Fabulous!

I altered a photo postcard, one of a packet that Juli sent to me. A reminder, we're departing soon and any mail that arrives after 30 Dec. won't be seen for 2 months!

Busy days before our departure

2011-12-21T11:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we went to the lunch at a new place. We liked it and we'll definitely eat there again. Ettamae's is very homey and warm.

We liked the walls decorated with enlarged old photos of Ettamae and old plates. Cool idea.

Before lunch, we were at Ghostprint gallery so that my honey could talk about some of the arrangements for his exhibit. It will open shortly after we return to the states, so he is anxiously completing all of his tasks now.

I love clouds!

These are my new Sanita clogs. I really like that they are matte black & not shiny, so as not to draw too much attention to my feet. Will I be the only one in Paris wearing clogs?

Tiny Town, again, +

2011-12-19T11:09:00.000-05:00

Tiny Town is being watched! For what reason, they don't know, but it's rather annoying! I've counted my Utrillo Postcards and I have, at least 30 of them left to work on. I may take some with me to Paris, to see what images I come up with.

My acquaintance, via the internet and her books, Kristin Espinasse, has written another book and I'd like to help spread the word. She self-published this one and it's on Amazon, how cool is that? You can see it here and here. I took this photo from one of Kristi's posts. I live vicariously through her French-word-a-day blog, and manage to keep up a bit of the language that way. If you have any interest in the French language, of Provence, or of an interesting writer's take on her own life, check out this book and the blog. Merci, on behalf of Kristi (who doesn't know I'm writing this as she's in Marseille having another doctor appointment to check on her skin cancer.)

Booklet completed +

2011-12-18T13:16:00.000-05:00

I finished making collages in the little book that Robayre sent me. My honey would like to have it, which is a nice compliment, yes?

Another page, I'm using the line and the dots for consistency.

Another page.

I received this card from Rebecca in the U.K. She was so sweet to send a card of congratulations on my completing the 365 project and thanks for encouragement I've given her. This collage has been finished with a matte coating and made it through the mail in perfect condition. The reverse is also very nicely designed.

The sky was so blue + mail art

2011-12-17T12:02:00.000-05:00

I walked to Spanish Meet-up yesterday morning. The air was crisp, the sun out, the sky was so blue. This house on Monument Avenue was decorated simply with copper and silver colored balls. One night we'll do our drive around the neighborhood to capture more of the decorations. Mostly, it's pretty tasteful, but a few people get wacky.

The Davis monument is in the middle of the intersection. It's huge because he was the president of the Confederacy. My daughter and I are reading books about the American Civil war now, her interest piqued mine. So far, we've both read some good ones. I recommend the book March by Geraldine Brooks, fiction, about the father from the book Little Women. I've downloaded Little Women to my Kindle as I couldn't remember it very well. A revisit is in order.

This is the Science Museum, our former railroad station, where my Spanish meet-up group gathers in the cafe each Friday. In front is the Grand Kugel. I've written about this before. It never fails to amaze me.

This fish landed on the ground with a "kathunk" that sent the dogs and horses into a panic! The previous landing of a pumpkin was bad enough; this was far more startling. Tiny Town revisited!

Mail art using more of the labels from my gift box. This one is going to Buenos Aires to cheer up someone's mother who is ailing.

For this piece, I used part of a recycled cover from a pad of art paper as the substrate and another of my new labels. I am keeping to my minimal three for the label series, I think.

Playing with labels

2011-12-16T09:29:00.000-05:00

Oh, nothing like a surprise in the mail. I get them often, lucky me, and last night, a package arrived from my daughter with this cool present! A tin full of mailing labels to help me during the upcoming year, with lots more mail art. She always choses something exciting and new for me to play with.

I got busy playing with the labels first thing this morning. Here's the first one. The gold foil circle is from chocolate candy "coins of the world", which our friend in Chicago sent us. We get to eat chocolate and have collage material. Cool! I found a new adhesive in the craft store. A glue stick that works with metal, fabric, wood, other non-porous material. A nice addition to my stock of adhesives.

This is the 2nd card of the morning. By coincidence yesterday, while at the craft store, I bought some other labels and used one on this card, also. I like the way a bit of solid color in the background gives a cohesive look to minimal pieces like this.

Here's the little packet of labels from the craft store. They'll be put to good use along with the other new labels. Both are reproductions for old labels. What's old is definitely what's new!

Playing with water colors +

2011-12-15T17:30:00.000-05:00

I've been playing around with water color, as I mentioned in yesterday's post. Not sure what I'm doing with it but today, the weather was spring-like, so, I was inspired to do something with a feeling of happy, growing, energy flowing kind of mail art. I stuck on some gold foil circles. I don't know how they'll make it through the postal machinery. The cards may arrive sans the gold. It's kind of an official looking touch, right?

Oh happy mail box. I got some lovely mail art yesterday, from Brazil, the U.S. and Germany.

We drove by this house today, and my honey stopped to let me grab a photo with my phone. I must go by when it's dark to see this lit up. There's the santa from the Nightmare movie, a santa in a cage with vultures on top of it, a witch, a snowman or two, and more. What a silly scene. Someone was having fun!

When my honey was cutting up the box that my suitcase came in, so it'd fit into the recycling bin, this dropped out. An earring! I wrote to the company and showed them and said I'd send it back. I got an e-mail this morning, saying that I could discard it as the person who owned the pair had thrown out the match. oh well. I think I'll hang it on some display Christmas tree instead. It's ornamental
and will be a surprise for someone.

Getting ready +

2011-12-14T16:59:00.000-05:00

I needed a new suitcase for our trip. I wanted something very light weight and lucky for me, someone did a lot of research and I happened on it. She bought three suitcases and reviewed them on a web site (wish I could remember which one.) She had certain criteria - like it won't tip over! a good one. She did all the research and I used it. My suitcase arrived today. It's an Eagle Creek Hovercraft 2, 22" (no one is paying me to write this!) I'm pleased. Thank you, Lady, whoever you are.

My friend Anke in Germany, sent out a holiday greeting which included this drawing by her son Lars. I love it! I just had to share it with you.

The geese are still in the park. I took that route home from Spanish class today, as usual, so I could check on them. I had to navigate my turn slowly, as several geese were crossing the road. I'm happy to see them there. A lot of people complain about them, but I'm thrilled to see wildlife, like this, just a few blocks from my house in the city.

Here are a couple of my African Violet plants. They are blooming beautifully. I've arranged for them to be cared for while I'm away. I'm very fond of them and have had them for awhile.

Here are two pages from the booklet that I'm working on. I think the fan, with the piece of a photo I took in Venice, works really nicely.

On this double-page spread, I adhered a small envelope that is transparent and put some scraps in it. For the line that continues across all of the pages, I'm using an ink brush pen.

Yesterday, I received mail from my friend Andrea in the U.K. You might remember her and her friend Beanie, whom I met while in London last spring. She used some kind of holographic tinsely pen, which I like a lot, and which doesn't show up on this scan. boo hoo. The musical holiday greeting is from Roberto in P.R.

I played around with watercolors today and made some mail art with it. I sent it unscanned and un-numbered!

Mail Art & tiny book

2011-12-13T13:48:00.000-05:00

Here's some of the recent mail art that I received. Lucky me, happy mail box, and we're keeping the postal systems going!

I finally got around to changing up my real wall in my studio. I put up some new received mail art. You can see the wide range of styles. I put up some of the cool envelopes, too. Andy, who started our 365 Mail Art group, started a Real Wall and it's such a good idea that several other people are doing it. Sometimes, he creates his real wall out of doors!

By curving the lower edge of the man, I was able to incorporate him into the landscape better, I think. He definitely appears to be popping over the edge to check on the hunt.

This gal's neck is so long! I think it's a real help for her when she goes to art exhibits as she can see over the heads of other viewers. The Matisse piece makes a nice background.

Here's another of the double page spreads that I'm doing in Robayre's booklet.

a tiny book

2011-12-12T22:00:00.000-05:00

Back in April, I received book 55 out of 365 from Robayre, who lives in Illinois and make things. I was so delighted to receive this because I love little notebooks and this was handmade!

I wasn't sure what I'd do with it. I kept it on my work table all of these months and now that the 365 project is finished, I decided what I'd do....I'll fill it with little collages, like the small books that I did in Paris in 2008.

Here's one of the double page spreads of my collages. Keeping it simple!

This is the image from Robayre's blog - http://www.robayre.com/news/2011/04/
showing a group of the books before she put the address on them. She put a rubber band inside before sealing it, so we could use it to keep the book closed. How clever, right?

More about the Pumpkin, and other stuff

2011-12-12T10:23:00.000-05:00

I titled this "thud" the sound of something heavy dropping! Got any good titles for it? It's more in the Tiny Town series and it's hunt club, a companion piece to the card I did a couple days ago.

By turning the de Kooning painting on it's side, I was able to make a nice background for this jumping girl. I titled this one "joy." What else?

The sun light filtering through the glass block window in my honey's studio, created this shadow on the wall. It was like another piece of art work was hung there. Light works.

The sky was so blue, and the clouds so nice. We are cloud appreciators. Caught this image while driving (I wasn't the driver) east on Broad St. I was able to crop out the rather large building to the left so the view seems somewhat rural.

The Moon, mail art, and more

2011-12-11T18:22:00.000-05:00

The moon was enormous last night and our clear sky permitted my seeing it so clearly. Other places in the world, people got to see the eclipse of the moon.

I made moon inspired mail art today.

I bought some more Washi tape when we were in New York City last month, including this dotty one.

This, too, was inspired by the moon. It's called Brownie Moon Cakes and I put the recipe on my recipe blog. You can see it at Mim4mail.

Yesterday, we stopped by our friends house for his annual pottery sale and holiday cheer. He lives in this lovely old house, which is not far from where we live, and right behind his house is the home of my Spanish teacher. You can see it in the distance. I'm so lucky that everything is so conveniently located that we don't have to drive far to get there.

Here is some of the pottery that was for sale. You can see more of it on Steven's web site. We bought a small bowl to add to our collection of useable original pottery.

Having fun with mail art

2011-12-10T10:09:00.000-05:00

Oh I was so happy when I found this statement. Now that I've passed along my old scraps, I'm open to finding new bits so am, once again, cutting up magazines. I added the Japanese character, friendship, because I wanted a third element in the composition.

The award wining pumpkin, a fright for Tiny Town's residents, no doubt. I don't always know how I'll use an element, or if it'll work for the Tiny Town series, but when it fits in, I'm pretty happy with the results.

The de Kooning cards that I purchased at VMFA, give me a bit more of a challenge for altering. In the end, with a bit more cutting, I could fit the pipe into the scene.

Since finishing my year long project, I'm making mail art differently than before the project. I have a larger vocabulary to draw on, using my own pieces as references. It's really a very nice consequence of the 365 and in a sense, if proves what Noah's book title says: "365, Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life." I didn't think it would, but in a sense it has.

Tiny Town

2011-12-09T09:05:00.000-05:00

I wasn't sure how I was going to use this hand with a rose from a 1965 magazine. The paper was very fragile and I worried that it'd fall apart as I was cutting it, but it didn't and it worked perfectly for Tiny Town alterations. I wrote a long caption for this.
Here it is: On her birthday, Cheryl liked to bring a rose to Tiny town. The residents, on the whole, apprecciated the gesture, though the scent was overwhelming, at times.

I just cracked myself up with that one. Oh, and it really is cousin Cheryl's birthday today!

Mail boxes, tiny art, and something new

2011-12-08T23:16:00.000-05:00

I took a few photos of mail boxes while at the National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. on Sunday. I'm still in a state of happy from visiting that museum. This is a small mail box that I remember from my childhood. You could only put regular letters into it as anything bigger wouldn't fit into the opening. A problem with that design.

Here are a few of the examples of Post Boxes from other countries that were on display. Have you seen any of these in person? What countries are they from?

Today, we went back to the Think Small show at ArtSpace. The work was to be no bigger than 3" (7cm) in any one direction. The wall piece is by a friend of ours. There are lots and lots of tiny artworks on display.

There were many pieces that we liked a lot and wanted to own. If you're in the RVA area, check it out before it goes down on 18 Dec.
Update on the local Art-o-Mat: my piece, my honey's piece, and my son's piece, have all sold out. YAY!

Something new!! I got myself a Kindle in preparation for my two months in Paris. I've purchased 3 books so far - IQ84, Reamde, and The Night Circus; and I've loaded on some classics, which are free. Want to know what they are? Take a guess and let me know what you think I chose.

Wednesday update and some more Tiny Town!

2011-12-07T17:55:00.000-05:00

We had some small pie pumpkins out in our garden as decorations for the halloween party that didn't happen (it was cold and rainy that night.) A couple of squirrels have been very happy, they are looking mighty healthy! It's been fun to watch them tackle these.

Driving home from Spanish class, I stopped to look at the geese on Fountain Lake (an tiny artificial lake.) They were very quiet. See what a gray day it was today? It's been raining but it's warm. Very odd, it's December!

Here's our stash of holiday cards that my honey pulled out of the drawer. The green ones in the center were a gift from a letter writing friend who scored a 90% off sale on cards. So nice of her to share. And we will mail these off as we want to support our postal system as much as possible, as well as wish everyone some cheer.

Here's some shadow play from Saturday in D.C. The sun was so bright that we got some nice crisp outlines.

Even though my Mail Art 365 project has ended, I'm still sending out Mail Art and Tiny Town is still going. Today's cards show the amazing news: open-faced sandwiches appeared from a courtyard.

Tiny Town residents were confounded by this, and the mystery of who made them remains to this day!

More D.C. memories

2011-12-05T23:44:00.000-05:00

This was the decoration on the gates leading to the main Smithsonian building, the Castle.

The weather was so nice, perfect for walking around D.C. I love how yellow this tree is and that's the Smithsonian Castle building.

This is a painting by Gerhard Richter. The illusion is so fabulous. We'd walk close up and back again, just to admire how good this was.

I finally made it to the Postal Museum!

This is Owney, the postal dog, really, it's the real dog, taxidermied since forever! He's got on his "jacket" and collar full of tags showing all the places he'd been.

These hand carved stamps were used to cancel the postage stamps. Postal workers would make their own out of corks.

This is a small postage stamp, an engraving, considered to be a very beautiful stamp in it's day. (Size, about 1" x 1/2")

Here's another sky photo that I took from the car window as we headed home. The beautiful weekend ended with a beautiful sky.

Stamp news & sky

2011-12-05T10:08:00.000-05:00

We went up to Washington, D.C. on Saturday and were fortunate to have a place to stay over night so that we could do some more on Sunday. I have some photos to download from my camera to show more of D.C. but wanted to share about the National Postal Museum.
Our friend made sure that I didn't miss seeing it. I was a bit apprehensive, thinking maybe it'd be boring but it wasn't. The building is huge and grand, the museum is on the lower level and very nicely done. Lots to see.
One of the things we liked a lot was this pane of stamps that is not for sale as far as we can tell. It was created by artists for a special A to Z of philately exhibit. We all want this pane of stamps!!

Look what I saw in the window of the shop at the museum! Our good mail art friends Jennie Hinchcliff & Carolee GIlligan Wheeler's book. This is the book that I take with me when I do a workshop as a must have for newbies to mail art.

This was the sky as we were driving home. I took this with my cell phone but someone else took some with her camera and hopefully I'll get one of those to share with you.
More on the museum and D.C. next post.

PS I'm still making and sending out mail art, but not scanning or posting. When I make a Tiny Town adventure I'll post that.

Art walk

2011-12-02T23:31:00.000-05:00

This isn't part of the art walk but it's art. I purchased this beautiful piece from a former student to give to a friend of mine. Here's my friend holding it. She'd been ill with a life-threatening illness, and she's well now, and I'm so happy about that.

My honey and I went down to Broad St. tonight to check out a few of the galleries that we missed last night. We went to the new pop-up craft shop that is next to 1708 Gallery. There are tee shirts by Pop Idiot (always fun) and jewelry and more. They'll be open every weekend through December. Buy local, in Richmond, or wherever you live.

The window display at Quirk Gallery and shop. Fun stuff and a really nice Sparkle Plenty jewelry exhibit.

There's a new gallery on Broad street called Candela Books and Gallery. Their first show is an exhibit of beautiful photos by Shelby Lee Adams.

This is the glass necklace that I got at the pop-up craft shop, by Sibelle.

I met up with a few of the Happiness Coalition people who were handing out cards. I got two and passed one along to someone else. What fun. Happiness is always good. We enjoyed being out on a really nice night for a walk. Meanwhile, in another part of downtown, the illumination ceremony was taking place.

Celebration!

2011-11-30T23:13:00.000-05:00

This is how I'm feeling tonight! Powerful! It feels powerful to reach my goal. Doesn't this gal look powerful? I thought so.

Tonight, I celebrated by attending the Art-o-Mat event at the Visual Art Center. If you're in the Richmond, VA area, check it out. The machine still has some pieces to vend. Here's the machine open so you can see the art that's left in it. Two are completely sold out.

Here are people standing in line to buy mini-art works. That's Clark Whittington, the man behind the project, standing to the left. Yay for Clark. I love him!

Here's the machine getting it's front panel replaced, while people wait to purchase tiny art. That's Alyssa, our local Art-o-Mat gal extraordinaire (who got the machine her originally.) Yay, Alyssa.

People waiting and someone trying to make a decision on which one to choose. We got 5 pieces tonight. I let my honey do the choosing and he chose well, but we may have to return for a couple more. I'll post pieces after I scan them so you can see what he chose.

We got home and our mail still hadn't been delivered. Poor Clyde has to work so late to complete his route. I was thrilled and delighted to get this piece of mail. Notice: "Free Mail" and "..tary Post Office" This was a note from one of the soldiers that I sent a package to earlier this month. I've only gotten a note 2 times before. I don't expect any so when it happens, it's soooo nice. And I'm about to send off 2 more packages to this officer since he has 3 platoons with 100 soldiers total that he can distribute things to. These are people who don't get much or any mail. They are in forward operating bases in Afghanistan. If you're interested in sending packages to the U.S. troops, sign on with Booksforsoldiers.com. Since I couldn't stop the wars, I figure I can send some lovin' to the people far from home with a care package.

Day 365 of my project - whew!

2011-11-30T17:28:00.000-05:00

These three little books contain the record of my output for this past year. A piece of mail art daily, that was the commitment, though some days there were more; because it turned out that I've sent out 704 pieces of mail art this year.

I can't believe that I met my goal, that I stuck to it, and that it's done.

There are a few things left to do. I'll clean up my area, I'll pack up the scraps and bits and send them to people who are still working on their 365 (and doing collages,) I'll scan the received mail art that I've neglected lately and just piled up on a surface in my studio, and I'll organize all of the addresses of my mail art recipients into an alphabetized list. Okay, so maybe I won't do the last item, which seems a bit much. But here goes on what happened over the year: the best thing was that I got into my studio EVERY DAY. Before this project, I'd let myself get distracted and not set foot into my studio for days. I found that a daily practice was very grounding. I realized that making something everyday centered me and kept me from getting depressed about what's going on in/on/ our poor little planet. I had a group that was supportive, and a few people on the same path, at the same speed. I loved that people would be surprised and happy to receive mail art. I never told ahead of time who the recipients were going to be. I loved getting comments and having people make up their own titles, when I didn't post the titles. Not only did I send out mail art, but I received mail art. I haven't counted the number of pieces but as I'm scanning and sorting and archiving, I might get a count. It was terrific to find my mail box full of such fun. There's more, and I might write about it as the days go on, or not. Since I'd just finished a series of 20 tiny landscapes for the Art-o-mat, I decided to continue with that theme. Here are my final pieces of my MailArt365 project.

There'll be more Tiny Town, folks. I have more of those Utrillo postcards to alter so the adventure will continue until the cards are used up. See you in Tiny Town and thanks for all of your comments and support during the past year.

Tuesday, day 364

2011-11-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

I took my time doing today's mail art. I didn't want to do it first thing in the morning. I think I was trying to prolong the second to the last day of my 365 project.
I'd had these Renoir ladies for awhile. It was time to make use of them.

I won't stop making and sending mail art. I did it long before I started my 365 project. I just won't be making and posting daily. I have many more copies of this Utrillo street scene, so you'll be seeing Tiny Town in the future. Tomorrow, I pack up my collage bits and send them off to others for their use. I'll choose a recipient for my MailArt365 rubber stamp and send it off (using Random.org) and I'll write up something about what a year of a daily project has been like for me.

My Maple tree & mail art, nearing the end.

2011-11-28T22:59:00.000-05:00

My mini-maple is such a lovely color. It's dropping leaves now and I picked up this one to scan and share. It's such a delicate shape and the color is so rich. The weather has been very warm, like spring, but the trees are mostly bare (except for the big magnolias and the piney ones.)

Today is day #363, can you believe it. I can't.
I made two altered Tiny Town cards today
and am thinking that perhaps tomorrow
will be a Tiny Town day, also.

The bird card has attracted a lot of attention on Facebook. I didn't post the elephant one so don't know what the reaction would be. I was pretty pleased with how I was able to make him part of the landscape. By the way, there is NO photoshop involved. I cut the pieces to fit the postcard image & glue them down.

I usually don't plan ahead but since I have only 2 days to go, I'm thinking ahead. The last day, I'll make several cards. I know what I want to do and will probably post later in the day so I can take my time with the cards. Exciting!

Done with Art-o-Mat, almost done with year long project!

2011-11-27T22:42:00.000-05:00

Here it is, my favorite of my tiny landscapes for the Art-o-Mat project. I finished wrapping up today and I'll deliver them tomorrow. The opening event for the 10th Anniversary of the Richmond VA machine will be this Wednesday at the Visual Art Center. Very exciting!

Today's mail art pieces (day 362, omg almost at the end) were inspired by Josef Albers.

I was surprised at how much work goes into making small paintings. Really quite similar to making large paintings but I think I want to do more of these, even after the year long project ends.

My friend Ann called me this morning to come join her at the VMFA garden, but I was finishing my project and couldn't join her. However, when I finished, I asked C to join me and we walked over to the park. Here are the stairs leading up to the upper level. The water falls runs alongside. It makes a nice water flowing noise.

Here's the approach to the park, with the VMFA on the right and ahead of us, the berm (which actually is covering the multi-level parking deck) which is a park area with benches, plants, and sculptures.

I love to photograph this building. I liked the reflection in the pool, with the cat-tails in the foreground. The sky was so blue today. It was spring-like outdoors. We sat for awhile at the top of the berm enjoying the view, getting sun on us, saying how lucky we were to live so close to this lovely place.

the Art-o-Mat project and mail art

2011-11-26T11:51:00.000-05:00

This morning, I finished the sides with white paint to give a finished look to the pieces. The labels are on the back. I need to write the series numbers, 1/20 etc, then wrap with the clear wrapper once the pieces are thoroughly dry., probably tomorrow morning. Yay. I deliver them on Monday morning and Wednesday they get loaded into the machine to be kerplunked that evening. Yay, again.

#360

This painting is inspired by a Kandinsky painting that I saw at the Guggenheim. The installation was more than the painting on display, as it included information about how the painting was done, why it was done the way it was, about the time in the artist's life, all very interesting.

#361

This painting that I just completed, is inspired by the work of Cy Twombly. We saw a large piece of his at MOMA and a selection of his white sculptures.

This is the second painted Mail Art piece for today, day 361 of the project, oh my, only 4 days to go!! It's inspired by the work of Franz Kline. I've always loved the boldness of this paintings and the minimal quality. I stopped myself from doing anything else with this piece, which was done on cardboard from a cereal box. I like the natural color of the carton as the background.

El dia de accion de gracias, thanksgiving day

2011-11-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

I like the way this day is said in Spanish. It's about the action of giving thanks rather than a title of a day. The day of the action of thanks. I wake up every day, feeling gratitude for my life. I learned this from my mother, who at 97 still says that every day when she awakens.

Today, we are having 4 of our relatives with us, to share a meal. Each bringing something yummy to eat.

These are the "Neat balls" that I made, before they were simmered in a tomato sauce. I'll post the recipe to my recipe blog this weekend.

My honey set the table. These are the dishes we got when we got married. We still like them and have seen them in two museum collections. Oooh, we are surprised we had such good taste back then.

Here is this year's version of the Sweet Potato Pound cake with a drizzle of lemon icing on it.

This is today's Mail Art (day 359.) I used up the left over paint from my sky changing palette. A mini-action painting!

I am so thankful for the life I've been fortunate to live and for the people who are in my life, and who I've met along the way, and to departed family and friends, who are still in my heart.

Changing skies

2011-11-23T23:42:00.000-05:00

I spent a couple hours tonight repainting the skies on the landscapes. I decided they needed to be lighter and it sure made a difference. It made the land POP! The bottom two are the earlier skies. The top ones are the new, improved skies. I finished all 21 skies. Now to paint around the edges and put the labels on the back. I'd like to finish up tomorrow, but think I'll wait until after American Thanksgiving day.
I can't believe I'm doing paintings!

Baking day (and mail art, of course)

2011-11-23T12:25:00.000-05:00

Today, I'm making a sweet potato pound cake. Here's the image of the one I made back in 2008 and here's the link to the recipe, should you want to try it. It's a perfect cake for fall, though right now we are experiencing a very spring like, about to drizzle day.

Today's mail art play - use commercial postcards from my stash and alter them with only one or two images. This is series #358 (only 7 days left in the year long project!) Someone in Finland send me this card in an envelope, so there's no message on the reverse except a translation of the description. It's a vintage card reproduction.

This is a postcard that I picked up for free in Dublin, Ireland one year. I titled this one "We took a wrong turn?"

The background is a Tiffany stained glass window in a chapel in Petersburg, VA. The little Victorian scrap turned this into something like a music box for me. I don't know why, but it did.

This is another of the Tiffany stained glass windows. I added the butterfly and the old man, who appears to be demonstrating something.

a surprise visit

2011-11-22T23:55:00.000-05:00

My little neighbors surprised me this afternoon with 4 eggs from their chickens. They told me that one of these was the 2nd egg produced. They were so sweet to share with me. Aren't these lovely?

This is our Art-o-Mat machine. On Wednesday, 30 November, it'll get filled with our tiny artwork, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of it's being in Richmond. Now to finish my tiny landscapes!

Day 357's mail art. My title - "Mama said: Pay attention to what makes sense."

This is the view from my studio window this morning. There's a "hole" in the holly tree and I can see the red leaves on the tree across the street. It was a gray day, it drizzled off and on, however, the people in the market seemed pretty upbeat as they shopped for their day of giving thanks meal fixings.

Day 356 of my 365 project!

2011-11-21T17:17:00.000-05:00

There are only 9 more days to go in my year long project. After a weekend with Tiny Town, I decided to go minimal today and use just 3 things that were within reach and a blank that was cut from some cardboard (carton.) I used a bit of a photo that I found very intriguing; Swans being transported in a tiny boat.

I'm still working on my tiny landscape paintings. I think I have the ground done. I want to work on the skies a bit more, brighten them up a bit. After that, I'll paint white all around the sides to clean them up. I thought tiny paintings would take a tiny amount of time, ha ha ha, silly moi!

Beginning of the week!

2011-11-21T17:00:00.000-05:00

The temperatures are springlike, but the leaves have turned colors. I'm especially fond of the yellow leaves A gray day makes the leaves brighter.

On Saturday, I went on a Tiny Town spree. I found these cool fashion models from the 60s. They were perfect for the series.

I called this series "The 1960's fashion models liked to visit Tiny Town" or something like that.

This is such a 60s look.

The idea of one of the model's walking across the town tickled me.

Someone suggested that I use Paul Klee images for Tiny Town and it turned out that I did have an old book to take apart. These are Sunday's play with Tiny Town.

I'm especially fond of how the tight rope walked turned out. I had to piece the sky as the image wasn't long enough.

Me with the 3D glasses from VMFAs Mummy exhibit

Our mini-maple tree turning red.

Back in the groove and Mail Art, of course

2011-11-20T12:37:00.000-05:00

What a concept. An artist, in this case Gwyneth Leech, sits in a street level window of a big building, and paints on carry out coffee cups. I think they're used ones.

These are some of her cups on display, hanging in the window. They are really beautiful. What a concept, and a convenient portable art project. I loved seeing it and wanted you to see it, too.

These four mail art cards are ones that I made on my short trip away from home. We took the train up the coast and I carried the blank cards with me, plus some butterfly stickers and purple dots.

The phrases were in an advertisement in the Amtrak Train magazine. How fortunate that I was able to have 4 phrases, just the amount needed for the cards that I'd be sending.

This is the 4th card of the series. I made it on the train home and mailed it from Richmond to Norway.

I've put a basket full of my small purses (aka Pockets) into this holiday market. If you're in my area, stop by and support local Makers, if you're not in my area, support local Makers wherever you live.

I'm not much of a spirits drinker. I'll imbibe an occasional glass of wine (except when I'm in France, bien sur) but lately I've been exploring the flavors of beer. I try different local brews and am finding flavors that I like. I prefer lighter brews, whites, wheats, having first tasted them in Holland.

This one was a nice surprise of holiday flavor. Now to try out some of our local brews. More on this in the future.
Back to painting tiny landscapes.

my travel kit, revamped and mail art

2011-11-14T10:27:00.000-05:00

I'm taking a brief trip, so revamped my travel kit to only a few items, and the pre-stamped, pre-addressed postcard blanks. Hopefully, I'll find fun scraps to use for the design.

Tiny Town had some visitors actually step into the street. The residents were fearful that this little girl might not mind her feet.

This Irish dancer was quite careful and mindful, so the residents enjoyed the dance.

This page is from a 1965 McCall's magazine. The girl scout outfit is the same one I wore, several years earlier I must admit in the name of honest disclosure. I always liked paper dolls and would even make my own. Did you ever make them?

Peaceful Sunday

2011-11-13T17:55:00.000-05:00

We were invited to friends for brunch and decided to walk there since they live only a mile away. The trees were beautiful colors and the air was so mild, like spring, though on the walk back home, it had changed. The sky got darker, the wind picked up, the temperature dropped, oh it was not spring!

We walked through one alley way that was planted beautifully the entire block. The neighbors must have gotten together to plan this. We enjoyed the walk, even though it had gotten cooler.

For today's mail art, I used a base cut from a cereal box. The two image juxtaposed made me laugh, and then I realized they made a nice narrative. You can give it a title of your own making.

This afternoon, I worked on my art-o-mat project some more, adding details. I've lots more to make, but the nice thing about paint is that I can cover up what doesn't work. Perfection, however, is not the goal, getting them done, is.

The project, the park, & mail art

2011-11-12T21:26:00.000-05:00

This is how I'm moving along with my art-o-mat project. I've laid down the color bases of sky, clouds, land. Tomorrow, I'll start refining. This will work!

The leaves are changing color and it's so beautiful to walk in the park, or just in my neighborhood. Today, I took my shopping cart and walked to the post office, market. tea shop, and library. It was about a 2 + mile walk ,which is what I do in the park. I met up with neighbors and friends on the walk, which was a lot of fun.

Friday's mail art was made up of pieces from the scrap box. I kept to my limitation of 4 pieces per card.

I like the way these turned out and will probably do more of them during these last few days of the project.

Because I discovered I had these big heads, it was time for more Tiny Town.

I just love how the big people change up the feeling of the town and truly give it the feeling of a Tiny Town. I amuse myself easily don't I?

The new project, some mail art, and the park

2011-11-10T20:32:00.000-05:00

I finally got started on my Art-o-Mat project. I have to complete 21 pieces for the 10th anniversary of the local machine. Who said "yes?" Oh, it was me. So now I have to get busy. It took awhile to decide what I'd do. I wanted out of my comfort zone - don't ask why, please do not ask why.
I decided I'd do little landscapes. I hadn't painted in a long time so I thought, go for it. I did a sample landscape on paper then I sanded down all of the blocks of wood.

I put gesso on the blocks. Tomorrow I'll sand them down again to get a smooth surface. I'll start painting using a production line kind of process. I plan to lay down a base of sky and land, then go in with details to make each one different.

Today is day 345. There are 20 more days to go. Amazing! I made two cards referencing the French language. I did that because this morning I had to Skype Paris to make our deposit on the atelier at the Cite International des Arts. I was nervous as I haven't spoken French to a French person for a year and a half. Can you spell RUSTY!

When I get nervous I speak quickly so I wanted to remember to s p e a k s l o w l y. Another reason I was nervous was that I was giving our credit card number and had to be sure I was doing it correctly. Well, I did okay. I understood the Madame at the Compabilite and she understood me. How cool is that?!

After my telephone call, we went to the park and it was a gorgeous morning. A light breeze, the smell of spring (because they'd cut the grass) and sunshine. The geese have moved further into the park, middle of the trail.

My honey straightened out the items on the tree stump. He doesn't know who started doing this, but it happened right after the tree was cut and the orange paint appeared to indicate that the stump was to be removed. So far, it stays. This is right on the edge of the trail, near the 1/2 way mark. We were happy to get out as the rain came in the late afternoon and it got very chilly out.

A foggy day in the park and mail art

2011-11-09T17:36:00.000-05:00

Go back two post and you'll see the difference. We drove to the walking trail but had my honey stop the car so I could snap this photo. Amazing difference from the past couple of days. The geese had moved further into the park beside the walking trail. There were few people out there this morning. Here are a few images for you to see.

Today's series, #344, was all made from scraps from the little box. Again, I limited myself to 4 pieces of paper. Fortunately, I had some really cool images to use, which gave a nice consistency.

I have no titles for these, as I'm hoping someone will come up with some good ones. I think there's a nice narrative going on. All I could think of was "Don't look at the shoes" or "feet." ha ha ha

I did nothing to the bits as I pulled them from my scrap box, except clean up some of the edges on the heads or legs.

I couldn't believe how I had enough of each part and, also, the speckled or dotty paper.

Here's my work table this morning. There's the box of scraps and the cards in progress. I'm going to try to work out of this box for the next few days. Few, indeed, as I'm coming close to the end of my year long project. Unbelievable!

Mail Art in and out & the lake

2011-11-09T17:20:00.000-05:00

The lake look so beautiful, I just had to share another photo of it.

Yesterday was so bright, the leaves with their changing colors were so wonderful.

The shadows against the wall were crisp. This was yesterday. Today, a whole different look which you'll see in my next post.

This is yesterday's mail art. I chose 4 pieces from the little box of scraps as a limitation on myself. I like the result.

#343

I am so far behind on scanning and posting my received mail art. Lots of wonderful mail arrived at my house the past couple weeks, from all over the world. Lucky me!

Back to "normal?"

2011-11-07T13:25:00.000-05:00

We walked to the vita trail this morning and the geese weren't at the little fountain lake, except for maybe 2 or 3. Where were they? Further along, there they were, grazing in the grassy areas. There's my honey walking ahead as the geese cross the roadway unperturbed by a person's presence.

I snapped this as we walked back. How serene the little lake, with just a few geese near it. I took lots of photos or this scene, with the clear reflection on the still water. The sky really was so blue today. Even my old school flip phone captured it.

I borrowed an eReader from the library and took it to the park. While my honey continued on for a couple more miles, I sat and read The Greater Journey by David McCollough. I'm getting used to reading on the little reader in preparation for our travels.

Today's mail art, on day 342 of my 365 project (can't believe it's almost a year.) I went back to one of my boxes of scraps that I'd used early on in the project and pulled out color paper. I didn't change up anything, shapes or sizes, just arranged them on the postcard blank. It looks so retro. I'm thinking of this week as sort of a retrospective of earlier output.

Crazy busy weekend and Mail Art Update

2011-11-06T23:06:00.000-05:00

I'm so relieved that the Richmond Peace Education Center annual auction is over! I was consumed by my tasks for the past 4 days, but glad that I was able to make a contribution to the event. It went well.

Today, we walked to the vita trail in the park. We passed fountain lake, where there were lots of geese, a few ducks, a few sea gulls, and a heron. Pretty cool for a little park near my house in the city.

This is mail that I did on Friday, I have so enjoyed these alterations. These two women came from a 1941 painting called "The Hands" by Paul Delvaux, a painter I do not know. I really like the look on their faces.

Those passers-by are, of course, from Le Grande Jatte, that big painting that I grew up with at the Art Institute in Chicago.

I stayed up very late on Friday, into Saturday morning, so I made my mail art at 3 a.m. I grabbed three pieces of paper that were handy and made a composition of them. The little scrap on top is from that same Le Grande Jatte painting. I added the rubber stamps, just because they were at hand. Not bad for a sleep deprived person.

This is today's card. I decided to use three scraps for this one, also. I went back to one of my boxes of cut out bits that I used early on in this 365 project. I'm thinking that I'll try to use those scraps during this week. I can't believe I'm coming to the end of the daily project. It's amazing to me. Daily, I did at least one a day, if not more! Yikes.

Today is day 336, yikes!

2011-11-01T17:13:00.000-04:00

Back to Tiny Town. I have many more of these cards left, so Tiny Town will continue beyond the 365 project, for sure.

I'm still using the painted ladies and other painting bits. I think they fit nicely with the town, but I may have to go back to photos as I'm almost through with the old book I've been cutting up. This is a Klimpt girl. Her stare is un-nerving.

This Matisse bowl of fish seemed like a fun thing to place in the street. Can you image the shock of seeing it there? Tiny Town residents have a problem to deal with here.

The Arshile Gorky painting made me think about Northern Lights, aurora borealis, or something unusual in the sky. I think it works nicely.

This is from a painting by Cezanne. The look is stern but I think the person really was someone nice, just had to sit for the artist too long.

Mail Art plus other stuff

2011-11-01T17:06:00.000-04:00

Here is all of the Halloween treats we had left over. It was a dark and rainy night, thus, few little folks at the door. Our favorite little neighbors came by while it was still light out and got special treats. They looked great and I forgot to take photos of them, darn it!

This is mail art that I received from my friend, Dean, in Paris. He's the wildest Mailer. Part of a computer? and a map of Paris, and on the reverse a song about our upcoming trip to Paris to the tune of "Start Spreading the News." What fun!

I have to show this to you! We just got the photos from our great-niece's wedding yesterday and if you look really closely, you'll see me in the back there, co-officiating with the pastor!!! How cool was that?!

Yesterday's mail art was a very simple alteration of three of the cards I got on sale at VMFA, left over from the big Picasso exhibit. I added 1960 bird stickers. That's all, just a bird or two. This is the #335 series. I entitled it "Paul's costume came complete with a live bird."

This piece I called "They run with birds."

I'm very fond of this painting of Olga. I've titled this one "Olga's red bird tried to cheer her up."
I have a few more of these cards, so you might see some more alterations of them. Which one do you like best? What other things might I do with them? Any ideas for me. I'm at the home stretch for the 365 project! This is the last month, I can't believe it.

The weekend and lots of mail art

2011-10-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

This afternoon, we took a walk to drop mail in the box for early pick up tomorrow, and then walked over to our friends' to drop off stuff they'd left at our house. We stopped to chat with a neighbor who has a small garden in front of her house and she gave us some hot peppers. The orange ones are very hot, she warned. I gave one to John, one to our son, and kept one. That's about all the heat I'll need.

At our friends' house. We were chatting, when I suddenly notice that there was a critter asleep on the couch in the kitchen. He didn't stir even though there were four of us talking. I think there'd been some Saturday night Halloween festivities.

Our neighbor gave us this bottle of Glühwien made in Nurnburg. He'd bought several bottles for our outdoor dance party that didn't happen on Saturday night. It was too cold to be outside and we had to cancel. Boo Hoo. I can't wait to try this, as it'll bring back memories of Brussels, where we went late one November and got to see the holiday markets and light shows.

This was the weekend for squares and circles. I decided to create designs based on my own 2D design course, which finished up last week.

Saturday was all about squares.

Check out how the circles change up the spatial quality depending on their value.

I used my neighbors maths book for titles for these compositions.

Here comes Sunday, all about circles.

It's so interesting to me how simple placement changes the energy and direction that we follow.

This composition was random. I dropped the circles on the paper and glued them where they landed.

This is another of the random compositions. They really work for me.
Which do you prefer, squares or circles? Why? This is not a test. ha ha ha

Think Small, Mail Art & more

2011-10-29T00:08:00.000-04:00

I'm participating in ThinkSmall again. In the past, I've entered collages and sculptures, but this year I decided to do something conceptual and minimal. I had a small jar that fit the size limitations. I filled the jar 1/2 full with those circles of map that I used to create my skull for the Skull Appreciation exhibit. They're from pages of a Larousse Atlas from 1911 (or earlier.) I call the piece "Le Monde 1911" DIY collage/100+year old map pieces. You can shake it like a snow globe and change the shape of the map stacks in the jar.

These are for my day 331. I used one of the photos labeled 1948 - Opera Martha combined with my photos from back when I was using film.

I'm very taken by the narrative that gets set up when I combine two disparate photos.

In today's pieces (day 332) I used a photo that I took at the Tour de France in 1990, in Paris. It's quite uninteresting. I paired each half with half of a photo of my deceased friend's father and his wife.

The photo of Phil and Pearl was taken in Miami Beach, Florida, USA. I'm using fragments of sentences from an old art history book as titles. "Phil - His emotions woke in me something of a conscious grasp of the problems..." "Pearl - Expressive emphasis which breaks down their separate identities..."

At the end of my 365 project, I'm going to give away my rubber stamp to someone who's still doing daily mail art. I"m asking people to send me their name and I'll assign a number, then select the winner via a random number generator. so far, only one person has said that they're interested. Hmmm. I might not need the RNG.