Slow

My friend Kris sent me this link to an article that describes what I do (and possibly you do,) from using scraps of paper to make my collages to knitting my own finger-less gloves. It's what makes ETSY so wonderful. All those people working slowly. Spread the word.

My new shop.

During the summer, I made a lot of tote bags to sell at the farmers' market. I was trying to do my part in reducing the use of plastic bags. Now, I've opened my ETSY shop, where I'll be selling my totes, my knit wear and items by my sister, who lives across the country from me. She makes wonderful beaded bags and other good things. We call the shop Fritzi, which will be our label, but the shop can be found under www.mim4art.etsy.com
There's a funny, sort of funny, story about the name Fritzi. Several years ago, when I was visiting my parents, I asked my mom if she'd had a nickname when she was young. "oh yes," she said, "my friends called me Fritzi because I was so flirtacious." I had no idea how the personality translated to the name, maybe it was a 1920/30s thing, but when my nieces recently asked her "Gram, did you have a nickname as a young person?", she said "Betty Boop, because I have such big eyes." Fritzi? Who knows!

Elflog

After being away, I decided to check the shelf, to be sure it was still there. It was bare except for a fake flower and a blue lanyard. I'd made a kind of trading card out of Chuck's old MOMA card and left that on the shelf. It's has a Rousseau painting on it and is very peaceful.

Bonding

My younger sister and I had a bonding experience. We gave ourselves purple hearts. Ever since we each broke something in our bodies spring of 2006 (withing a month of each other), and went through our healing, we talked about getting a tattoo. Lots of talk about what to do resulted in nothing. Then I went to LA for Mom's birthday and, one night, the idea of a heart came up. I'd been thinking about it, after reading my friend Sara's last dialogues with her Mom, where she'd said "follow your heart."









The heart is purple, the droplets are aqua, it's colorful, kinda comic, joyful, and was a good thing for us to do.

L.A. Sky

I've just returned from my trip to see my Mom in L.A. On Tuesday, the sky looked like this. It drizzled off and on. I left L.A. yesterday morning before the really bad rain started. Fortunately, or I might not have gotten home last night. It was a good trip, but it's good to be home!

In Los Angeles

I'm still in Los Angeles. It's a sad day for me as a dear friend died this morning, in Richmond. I'm sad not to be there. I'm posting my drive-by LA photos and a blurry photo of my friend and I that was taken last January at my anniversary party. It's kind of odd, I know to be posting these images of scenery with my friend's photo, but I'm having a hard time dealing with this and am softening my own thoughts by switching my focus back and forth, to past and in the moment.

Celebrating Mom's 94th.

Here are a few photos from Mom's 94th birthday celebration. 12 of us gathered to share the evening with her. 2 of her daughters , 1 sister, 1 son-in-law, 2 grand-daughters, a grand-son and his wife, a great-grandson, and two cousins through marriage were present. She had a good time. We ate, we drank, we toasted, we laughed. The desert was called Vesuvius.

Los Angeles

I'm in Los Angeles for my mother's 94th birthday. We'd gone to get her hair done for the party tomorrow. This exit was so pretty. I loved the green letters and the peach wall.

Tea time

I treated myself to a sweet little teapot at Carytown Teas. I spotted it the other day when I stopped by to see new entries to the Tea Time Mail Art show. Don't forget to send us an entry.

It was gray and drizzling. A cup of Barry's Irish tea made in my new pot, poured into my old lustreware cup, lovely!

Elflog

The festive shelf continued into the new year.



After a few days, the shelf was empty, but the pole was MORE festive.

What fun that the neighborhood is being so playful. I love this!

More NYC fun

I spotted this water sampling station in Chelsea. I'd never seen one before and neither had the people I was with and they live in Manhattan. The Chrysler and the Empire State buildings! How's that for a NYC playground? Perfect! Here's the new Apple store? Building? on 14th Street. Last time we were in the city, this building was a grocery store of some sort. Now it's three floors of Apple showroom, playhouse, um, whatever.









We went to a lot of galleries in Chelsea last Saturday. At Eyebeam (I think that's where it was) I saw this video on the VideoBox, which is on the outside of the building, note my reflection. See the word "DO!" I loved the video being shown. It was by João Leonardo, a typographic video of a letter by Sol LeWitt, the one he wrote to Eva Hesse. I love that letter!

Art time

I'm able to post again before we head back home. Yay! On Friday we went to MOMA and saw the Martin Puryear show. It was terrific. Lots of pieces, and only a couple that we've seen before. We also saw the Seurat drawing show, works from the Latin American Art collection and abstract works from the permanent collection. After that, we went to see a show of embroidered art, called Pricked, at the American Craft Museum. Pretty amazing work. On Saturday, we went to Chelsea to galleries. This Patrick Mimran sign caught my attention. what do you think? Is he right?

A weekend trip.

We drove up the coast to NJ, where I reserved a room in a posh hotel for a not-posh price on-line. This is the weekend we celebrate Ryan's 7th birthday and visit with Mica.
The view from the window is pretty geometric! With some imagining, one could think Egypt?! (pyramids?) Nah! I'm just tired! The restaurant was very interesting, with a large glass "tree" in the middle. Check out this cup and saucer design.



Friday night, we went to a small pizza place in NYC for dinner and the walls were hung with bad paintings that were actually good. We were able to get a small pitcher of house red, which reminded me of Paris, well, sort of. We had a delicious pizza. No photo because I was too busy eating to take a picture. More photos of what we've been doing here, after we return home.

Elflog update..last year, this year

Sunday, 30 Dec. 2007, was a very rainy day. The shelf was soggy but the fish pin was dry in a plastic bag. Wednesday, 2 Jan. 2008, was gray with a flurry of light snow and the shelf was so festive. It shouted HAPPY NEW YEAR to me! I was delighted to see it looking so great this morning.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of you dear readers....I took this photo of us at the festivities on Cary St. It is labeled 0101080000 on my phone! Pretty cool. Exactly at midnight! Our wishes for you, a happy, healthy, monkey joyous, penguin perky, coquis grinning, year.