Mail Art, for sure, plus....

#935

 I was so pleased to find a way to use this elephant, and the bakelite bracelets. In this piece of Mail Art, I used a card that I picked up in Paris this winter. It was a piece of toast! Perfect background.

#936

 The rest of the bracelets couldn't go to waste. Here I combined them with a scrap that I was using to punch out dots. I like that the phrase is unfinished. People are always----what?

#937

This disk/diskette was dated 2000 and contains the tech notes for a production of Hamlet that I was stage managing for the Richmond Shakespeare Company.

#938

I made this card using scraps sent to me by a mail art friend. I'd sent her some scraps, she made a piece of mail art and sent it to me, then sent me scraps so this card is going back to her. A fun back and forth project. I like it. Other people's scraps are fun to use.

 A reminder that the 2nd Annual Skull Appreciation event is this coming June 4th at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia PA USA. If you're in the neighborhood, be sure to stop by and say hello. Mail Art will be on exhibit as well as lots of other skull related items.

Yippee, I finally got to wear the sandals that I purchased last fall to wear to N & J's wedding. I ended up not wearing them because I thought the weather would be too cold. I wore my cowboy boots. The weather was hot. Oh well. BUT today, I got to wear them. They are so cute and feminine.

Mail Art, of course, clouds, and more

#932

 I make myself crack up (laugh) with my own visual "jokes." In this altered card, a Blue Footed Booby takes a bath and notices a big postage stamp coming out of the structure.  I hope the person who receives this gets a big laugh out of it.

 I was trying to come up with some way of using the pages of a romance novel. I was cutting out bits of sentences and had these remaining bits. I'm not sure, I think I have to be more in control of this, or not. The circles, of course, are my favorite things to add.

#934

The birds were illustrated by John Burgoyne. I love his style of drawing so much. The text is cut from two different romance novels.

 The Science museum has covered their big Kugel in a brain covering. How funny! Made me laugh.

 I met my friend Anne at the cafe at VMFA last week. The sky was beautiful. That's my favorite tree (actually TWO trees.) And of course, the clouds were so good.

Check out THESE clouds. I snapped this through the car window while we were out driving a couple days ago. They were so puffy. They reminded me of some illustrator, can't remember who, but so fabulous. I was wondering if I could take up cloud painting. Hmmm.

Some Mail Art and more

#929

#931

 This collage arrived at it's destination in 2 parts - the front with the collage, and the back with the address by itself. Woah!! I guess I didn't glue the address part on securely enough but fortunately it fell apart in the mail carrier's pack and both parts got delivered.. Whew! I must be more mindful about this.





This card was sent to a woman for her 90th birthday.  She's the mom of one of my mail art buddies.

 Market basket from this week was exciting as pickling cucumbers were available. I really like those. We also got asparagus in the fruit share, which was lots of strawberries and some veggies this time. I rolled the asparagus in olive oil, dusted some sea salt on them, and grilled them. YUM!

 My friend Kat in Greece, passed this along to me. She did the "BLUE" part, Dean did the bar codes, and I added the dots. It's being sent back to the original sender after having been to Greece, France and Richmond, VA. A nice little project. The originator will wear it and post a photo of it. It'll be fun to see all the masks that get returned.

 This is the milk bottle building that used to be - guess what? Yes, a dairy. Now it's condos/apartments as are the two building beyond it in this photo. All were commercial buildings, of course. They're a little over 2 miles from our house.

 I was at the Science Museum of Virginia the other day and took this photo of one of the stair wells. I really like all of the lines and the view of the sky and trees beyond. I still remember this place as a train station. When we first moved here, we waited for a friend to arrive and thought how grand this building was. It still is and has been re-purposed beautifully.

My honey had given a talk about his collage exhibit, which is in the cafe at the museum and then we saw an exhibit of work by Chris Jordan. He does these amazing photos of objects that relate to statistics and consumerism.  This skull has to do with deaths by cigarette smoking and is made up of lots of cigarette packages. Amazing.

Making art +

#926

 I'm moving right along towards 1000 pieces of Mail Art since 1 Dec. 2010. Slowly but surely I'll get there.
I like the odd perspective in this collage.

#927

 I promised to send something to a gal in Zagreb, Croatia, who is doing a "Papergirl" project. I sent her 4 pieces, copies of other collages with collaged bits and sewing added to them. They're 8.5 x 11" in size. I rolled them up and mailed them today. Hopefully, they'll arrive.

 This is one of 4 pieces, 5" x 7" in size, that I did for a project here in Richmond. The call was for self-portraits, or portraits. I'm calling this a self-portrait. Can you see why?

 On Mother's Day, we took a stroll through Hollywood Cemetery.
It was a lovely day for this and there were lots of people there, mostly looking for the graves of the graves of the Presidents (2 are buried there.) My DIL and I came across a stone for a Prince and his wife (a Princess by marriage.) I'd never seen this before. We had to brush the pine needles off of the stones to read them. When I got home, I looked up Prince Wolkonsky and was I ever surprised at what I read. So fascinating.

Isn't this a lovely hand holding the flower wreathe? There are some beautiful tombstone in this cemetery.  This is definitely a place to take out of town visitors. 

Caught in the act + mail art, of course.

 I am so pleased with how this piece of Mail Art turned out. I'd cut up an old photo (left over from back in the days of film) showing a building in which we'd considered buying a flat.  It wasn't doing anything for me until I turned it on an angle and then it worked! With the addition of some circles and letters, I had a piece that was satisfying.

Look closely at my BIRD feeder. Can you see the happy critter, feasting on BIRD food. I was able to snap this before he/she spotted me. It looked over and then scurried down the pole and ran towards the big tree then realized that I was by the big tree, it was confused, which way to run! It froze. I went back into the house and it raced up the tree, heart thumping, no doubt.

Mail Art and More

#920

 I have been able to make some Mail Art even though my work table, well to be honest, my entire tiny studio, is a MESS. I just swept things aside to make a bit of room for MAKING. #920 is a minimal collage piece that I sent as a thank you to the folks who purchased my art work from 1708 Gallery.

 Here's another of my altered computer disks from back in the day. I've obscured the address so the recipient can be surprised, but I wanted to show how I'm sending sans return address. So far, two of my disks arrived at their destinations. One arrived in Greece after 9 days and one arrived in Chicago after 3 days.

#922

 The fronts are a simple collage of 3 pieces, and some stick on letters. The circle goes over a moveable part and can be rotated!

#923

#924

 I wanted you to see what was on the blue disk before I added the mailing label and stamp. Check out the date - 1998! I knew that most of these were pre-2000 but none so clearly identified.









Today, I made two in a series, using like collage bits. The mail receipts were from my income tax forms, state and federal. I know they were received and already processed, so I could make use of the receipts.



I like the random placement of letters. They are like sound poems.

 Here's the way the table looked on the patio, for Sunday Mother's Day brunch. My honey set it up and my dear son and DIL came and made waffles, fruit sauce, whipped cream and brought delicious prosecco. The weather was perfect.

Here's the view looking up into the umbrella.  You can see how the sun was shining down through our big tree.

Mother's Day

This salt and pepper shaker set belonged to my mother. I played with it as a child. When my parents house suffered damage in the 1994 Northridge, CA,  earthquake, I was visiting them. During clean up, I found these undamaged and told Mom that I was taking them home with me. I'm happy to have them, they remind me of my Mother.

 The modern holiday of Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in America. She then began a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the United States. Although she was successful in 1914, she was already disappointed with its commercialization by the 1920s. Jarvis' holiday was adopted by other countries and it's now celebrated all over the world. She specifically wanted it spelled as a singular possessive noun so that each family could celebrate their own mother. 

Skull Appreciation Day 2012

It's not too late to send in an entry to the Mail Art exhibit for Skull Appreciation Day 2012. Click here for details.
You can make something simple and pop it right into the mail. You'll be happy you appreciated your skull!

I had a surprise late afternoon visit from Jonah, baby Luna and parents. They'd been at a school festival in the neighborhood. I let Jonah pick through my rubber stamp drawer and he had a great time making stuff. Mother's Day cards were made using alphabet stamps and Luna's foot prints, for the grandmother's. Jonah did his handprints. What fun. AND the doorbell rang again! It was Adrianna and Sage. They joined in the fun, while sharing what they did at the same festival. They also gave us an update on the Chicken situation. City Council is going to meet and decide. Oh boy, everyone, send some good clucky thought out into the universe that the Ladies will be able to stay with the girls.

Mail Art, chickens, and Mom

#919

 I'm moving slowly forward towards my 1000 cards since 1 Dec. 2010. Slowly, for some reason, not wanting to rush my experience. The base for this one is a cracker box. I like the crackers appearing over a horizon. This is part of a continuing series of "poetry" cards.

 The plant in the foreground is an azalea bush. My honey thought he was buying a gardenia bush, didn't read the tag, just saw three big white blossom. He was surprised when he got home. But it's a nice plant, and my honey's arrangement of potted greenery looks nice. This is a very homey corner of the back garden/patio. We like to sit out here.

 These cement chickens have been part of our life for a long time. I just decided that they had to live by the steps so I could spot the edge at night. They look good here, don't they?  Which reminds me to tell you about this-------

 Here's an adorable note from my neighbor girls. They brought us eggs from their chickens. The chickens are in danger from a neighbor, who's complained to the city about them. There had appeared to be an allowance for people to have a small number of chickens, no roosters, in the city so I don't know the details of the complaint. The girls have taken around a petition. They're fighting the complaint. I give the chickens my organic veggie scraps. They're beautiful birds. The girls are very sad. I'll see if I can get some nice photos of the hens to show you.

 Here's Mom doing another of the things she likes to do, read the daily newspaper. She can read it four times during the day, each time, like it's new news. She'll read aloud items she finds particularly interesting.

Liebster Award!

Wow, how lovely this is! My mail art 365 friend, Chris, http://auchenflowertowhereever.blogspot.com/ has nominated my blog for this award! Thanks so much Chris (ChrisBris) for thinking of me.
Now the hard part, I have to choose 5 blogs, with fewer than 200 followers, to nominate for this award.   S

#1 my DIL at http://jessicascalin.wordpress.com
#2 Margie of the wonderful fotos  & haiku at http://latebloomerbuds.wordpress.com/
#3 just cause it's so fun -  http://thetoothbrushchronicles.blogspot.com
#4 Bridget cause she provides so much information http://beingwoman.blogspot.com
#5 Roberto posts mail art received and sent http://pirosmailart.blogspot.com

Now, for those nominated - I hope you will participate and nominate others.

"The Liebster award (German for Favorite) is usually presented to smaller blogs as a form of recognition and support. 'Smaller blog' is one with 200 followers or less. As a recipient you are to:"

1. Link back to the person who gave it to you and thank them.

2. Post the award to your blog.

3. Give the award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers that you appreciate and value.

4. Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know that they have been offered this award.

Mail Art, the canal & the bird feeder

 Do you remember those little hard disks that we used to store data from our computer? I have a lot of them left from previous "careers." The data is no longer accessible nor needed.
Last week, I saw that a member of the Mail Art Union used one to make Mail Art. How fun! Why hadn't I thought of that.

 Despite dealing with my cough, hackhackhack, I managed to make several collages using the disks. I mailed the yellow one first. I sent it far, then wished I'd sent it to a nearer destination to test the waters so to speak. Will it arrive? I hope so. This blue one will also go far.

The disk in the center still moves, but the black slider is immobilized by the collage.

 This one is #918. It was sent some where closer. The reverse has a label for the address and a smaller one for the date stamp and number of the piece. There is no return address. I can't wait to hear when they arrive and in what condition.

Sunday night, we met up with our niece and nephew to hear a concert outdoors on Brown's Island. I seemed to have my cough under control and wanted an outing. The is the view looking west as we walked over the bridge to the island.

 This is the view looking east. In the background is the bridge that goes over the island and the James River to southside Richmond. I like this view very much and wish that the entire length of the canal were accessible for walking and picnicing.

This is the new bird feeder. We moved it back so the pole goes through the bamboo leaves, hoping to deter the squirrels. One of them was spotted inside enjoying a meal of sunflower seeds. Two cardinals checked it out but so far, it's not been used. We may turn it into a planter if the action doesn't pick up. I like the way it looks. The orange is such a nice bright addition to the green-ness of the little garden. Do you have a bird feeder? Do birds use it? How do you deter squirrels?