The last alphabet month card, #90

 I totally cracked myself up with this series. Seriously, I've been laughing (silently, in my head) as I chose the images, as I glued them down, as I scanned them, as I posted one to the Mail Art 365 blog, seriously laughing about this. Why they're cracking me up so, I don't know other than that I'm giddy! Giddily happy!

 Why? (You might ask) Because I managed to book our hotel in London! It's real, we're really going. I have the flights booked, and now the hotel. So excited about this. Now it feels real. We have an apartment to stay in, and friends to stay with, at our other destinations.

 Now to find out weather in those places and get a wardrobe figured out, a minimal wardrobe, because I like to travel light, and besides I need room for my mail art kit and kaboodle.

This one, #90, itself, really makes me smile. What the heck is the story here? I think each of these is a strange story, except for the gal with the camera. Obvious, right?  

This is the last day of the alphabet month, which was proposed by a member of our group. He suggested a "," for the final day, but it pretty much looked the same in every typeface so I went for the much more versatile "ampersand." Sorry, Dewi.

#89, a series + a surprise from my honey.

"Z is for Zodiaque"

 Today is the last letter day of alphabet month. The person who proposed this, Dewi Johan, suggested a comma for the last day of the month, but I'm not going for that. The comma is so necessary, I use it so often, but it's so tiny. I want something to make more of a statement, something that has more variety and comes in different fonts. I'm thinking The Ampersand! I am very fond of ampersands. I think I have, at least, two of them ready to use.

"Z is for zorille"

I decided that this last letter day would be straight forward - Z is for____ .
 I used my old Petit Larousse for the images with the big dots for action. They actually line up in a nice rhythm, these three cards, but they'll be separated. Not sure who'll receive them.

"Z is for zinnia"

I'm sad that alphabet month is over. It made it easier for me to have something to springboard off of each day. I do have something planned for 1 March, having made plans to exchange like images with another member of IUOMA.
From there onward, we'll see what happens.




I got a nice surprise from my honey the other day.

A big box arrived at our door. What is this? It contained 4 mugs, designed by iittalla of Finland, oh my, I was delighted. I've loved their designs for years. Normally, my honey would choose very geometry designs, so I knew that these were chosen for me. The stylized birds and plants are sooo cute. I really like these. Aren't they so Finish? I've been drinking tea from this mug all day.

#88 series, the letter Y

"Why"

#87, 87a & 87b

 Thanks for this idea goes to my hair cutter exemplary, Meriel over at Spa310.
When I told her today was "X" day, she said something about "X" rated and I thought about those black strips put over eyes on photos. Fun!

I'd decided that today was going to be a walking day, preparing for my trip, which will include much walking.

 I walked to the Science Museum this morning, in the drizzle, for my Spanish Meet-Up. The walk home was in full sunshine and lots of wind.

After some lunch, I walked to Spa310, with really strong wind trying to hold me back.  I kept looking at the trees to make sure there wasn't a cracked one about to be blown down onto my head. Seriously, I thought about that! Silly moi.  The walk home was quick, as the wind was at my back.  But oh it was so sunny nice and are we fortunate. Our friends in southwestern Massachusetts reported lots of snow and my sisters in Los Angeles reported lots of rain.

#86 the letter "W" and a mail art call

 One lonely "W" sitting on my work table and a book of commerative U.S. states flower stamps. Hmmm, hope there's a lily in the bunch. Yes, there was and now it's on this postcard. It works for me.

Cynthia at Carytown Optical is sharing temporary space with Carytown Teas (the only Op-TEA-cal shop in the world she told me,) was intrigued by the mail art that Patricia and Mistie were receiving. She asked me to do a mail art call for her. So here it is. Please send her some Mail Art. She's very excited to receive some.

 

"Make a spectacle of yourself"

Do you wear eyeglasses, do you like eyeglass frames?

Some of us have a passion for eyeglass frames and

look for really interesting ones all the time.

Here's your opportunity to show your love for 

eyeglasses.

Theme: eyeglasses

size: standard postcard

medium: open

Deadline: 16 June 2011

No jury, no returns, all will be documented on-line

at http://carytownoptical.blogspot.com

as well as exhibited on site permanently.

Family friendly please.

Send to: Cynthia 

Carytown Optical

20 S. Nansemond

Richmond, VA 23221

USA

They will move back into their

renovated shops on 1 March 2011.

#85 the letter "V" & a new magazine.

 I didn't get to this until just a short while ago, as I had lots of errands to run after my morning clase de español. When I got home, I had many business phone calls to make, then I had to spend time getting our flights for our big trip, then I had to make dinner, as I'd invited my son, and our NDL over. They didn't linger after dinner as they were tired, and so were we, BUT, I had to get to V. How this came to me, I don't know. But I'm happy it did.

I was waiting for my honey to get finished at his somewhat emergency appointment at the dentist, when I spotted this magazine. What a title! What a concept! What a combination! I had to see what the contents were and to my surprise, I found a very engrossing article about an artist in New Orleans (now deceased) that hardly anyone has heard of but did really nice work. His name is/was Noel Rockmore.
There was, also, a book review of Mark Richard's new book House of Prayer No. 2, which sounded really interesting. Who'd have thought that I'd find this magazine so interesting?  Not me.

#84 Ululating

The first time I ever came across this word was in Ulysses by James Joyce, which I read while at University. I thought that Joyce invented the word. I liked it so much that I did an etching related to the word. Now, I'd like to be able to ululate about all of the troubles going on in the world today.

Instead, I'll make more mail art.

I tried to post the definition here, but somehow error kept coming up. I guess you'll have to look up the word on your own.



 

#83 the letter "T", a series

 We went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art this afternoon to see the Ifa exhibit (Art from Ancient Nigeria.) It was inspiring! I just wanted to get home and make art. When I sat down in my studio, this is the series that resulted. I don't see any connection with what I saw at VMFA but maybe there is one.

 The series is the letter "T."  They're all about torn and top, where I placed all of the letters.

 So far, I'm at day 83, and I've sent a total of 193 pieces of mail art related to the project. I'll get to 365 before the year is over, however, my goal is to make mail art every day for a year. That I'm making more than one a day is incidental to my goal.

My favorite is the one on which I placed the series number (83.) Which one do you like?

#82 the letter "S" for "security"

 Today's letter is "S." Early this morning, I read something on-line about recycling junk mail and they mentioned using security envelopes, with an explanation of what they are.
Well, perfect! Thanks for the reminder. I've been collecting those things since 2005 (how do I know, the postmark on some of the envelopes!) When I first started to save them, I had an e-mail conversation with Anna Banana about them, saying I didn't know what I was going to do with them. She said "You'll figure it out."  For awhile, I used them in my "fine art collages," a series that I did called, what else, "Security." Then I forgot about them until today.

 I started out with 8 pieces of substrate, postcard blanks. I attached a different piece of security paper to each. There are so many patterns to choose from, which was nice.

 I had already decided yesterday that I'd only use three elements today, so that helped with decision making. The letter "S" was one element so I only needed the others. I chose items that had to do with security, objects or living things that could evoke a feeling about security. In some cases, the item even starts with an "S." That's just a bonus.

 Viewers and receivers of the cards can decided what the reference or connection might be. Some are obvious, right?

 Like this one. Obvious.

 Obvious?

 Oh yes, obvious.

 Not so obvious.

Somewhat obvious.

Your choice, you decide.

Another merit badge!

Oh happy dance! I just saw this on  the 365 blog. Don't you just know I'm going to want one? What do we have to do to earn it? Hmmm. There's a promise to tell us how to get one of our own really soon. YES!

#81, about color

Among the items I have from my deceased friend, is this box of color papers. It's probably from the 1970s and is the same as the ColorAide papers that I would have my students purchase years ago (until they got too expensive) to do color projects. I've decided to use these papers as my year of making mail art continues.

 I had lots of these small color samples, which I've been cutting out of a book about color that wasn't what I thought it'd be when I ordered it; so it's become fodder for collage! At least, I could put it to good use. REDs, lots of reds, so perfect for the letter "R" day of this alphabet month.

I used a green base since this is the complementary color for red. In person, the cards POP! The addition of the multiple letters on top, tones down the vibrations a bit.

If you'd like to read about red, I recommend the book "A Perfect Red" by Amy Butler Greenfield. It's history, mystery, obsession, intrigue, more about red than you ever thought you'd want to know. A good read, too.

#80 the letter Q and a cute face.

The young Queen

 I discovered that I had only one "Q" in my stash of letters and wasn't going to look for anymore, so one it is. A couple of days ago, I found this young Queen in one of my scraps drawers, along with her husband, but he'll have to wait for another day for his own mail art card. I, also, have lots of young Queen stamps, which worked just right for this card.

I'm a member of the Flickr group, Faces in Places, and this sweet face was looking at me from a neighbors recycle bin last Wednesday.  It has a sweet, naive, in that totally circular eye, look. Start looking around and you'll find faces everywhere.

#79 with a story.

 Today is the letter "P" in the month long project that is part of  MailArt365. When I went into my studio, I pulled all of the letter "Ps" that I had cut out and then began to look for things that might represent the letter.

 I pulled out an old magazine, The Artist's Magazine. It probably had been at my friend's place and I took it when she moved into the nursing home in 2009. It was from October of 1986 and was full of "how to" do things with water colour paint, acrylics, etc. I pulled out the pages with water colour samples thinking I use those for P.

 Then I came to the article about the acrylic paintings of Patti Cramer. I just loved how fun they were, colorful, charming, humorous. Wow, I thought, I want to write this woman an e-mail to tell her about how much I like her work.

 I looked her up on the internet. Sure, enough, a couple of entries for her, one an article in a newspaper in Denver.  Within one sentence, I knew I'd never get to write to Patti. The verb used that was the clue: WAS. Patti had died this past October.  I felt so sad. I didn't know her, and had only just tonight really paid attention to her work in that old magazine.  This series, which I did little to alter, is in her memory, using parts of her paintings.

 This is the magazine cover, a page showing water colour swatches, my letters "P."  That's a self-portrait painting by Patti Cramer.

 This shows her process for creating the painting of the man in 4 steps.

Here's what Patti looked like in 1986, and here's the title page of the article.

Rest in peace Patti Cramer. I sure do like your paintings, illustrations of joy and fun.

A big fire!

 These are in reverse order of how I saw the action!

I went out this afternoon to mail my "O" cards. I'd missed the mail carrier so I thought "I'll go to the mail box by the hospital where there's a 5 pm pick up. Easy and quick.

I went out my back gate, down the alley to Davis Ave. and took a left onto Grove. I noticed flashing lights, then a smokey look up ahead. Whoa, some yellow police tape.

Looking east on Grove

Looking west on Grove

Channel 12's truck on Grove

I saw Adrianna, Sage, their mom and friends coming towards me. They'd seen the smoke and went to investigate. They filled me in about what they'd seen. They smelled smokey.

There was no way that I could get to the mail box, nor would the postal workers be able to make the 5 p.m. pick up with the street closed.
I decided to walk around the hospital on Floyd Ave, parallel to Grove, to a post box on Grove and the Boulevard. Lots of fire trucks, police cars, the streets blocked. Lots of smoke. I was able to get really close to the action from this direction.   There were lots of fire companies involved in this.

I didn't realize how many of our fire fighters are women. I think in one of these photos you can actually see one of them.




I just heard the news on Channel 12 that firefighters are still on the scene as they investigate how the fire started. The owner and his dog got out safely but the man lost a lot including his computer. He said that he wished he'd had off computer back up. Good idea! Glad I have my photos on Flickr and this blog.

Oh yes, they said that it was a 3 alarm fire.


Such excitement in the neighborhood. And it took my mind off of what had been bothering me. Along with 2 pieces of mail art, I was mailing copies of the death certificate of my friend to businesses. I was feeling sad about that. I'm still in surprise about her death. I suppose that's how it goes.