Sunday, September 09, 2012

Mail Art, a memory & some exciting news!

#37
 My friend Ang in Illinois wrote me a note on a lovely note card. The front was a modern interpretation of an old National Park poster. I really liked it and decided to re-purpose it into a piece of Mail Art. I altered it by adding figures cut from a photo of a painting that is in our Fine Arts museum. I added a nice circle, which makes a terrific floating planet.

Dots all over Centre Pompidou! Dots rolling wild in Paris!
#36

 Starting in 1955 until 1968, my mother worked in downtown Chicago at a big department store, Goldblatts. She started her career there as a sales clerk and moved up to being the manager of the patterns and trimmings department. It was perfect for her as she was a sew-er. She made lots of clothing for her children, including many stylish dresses for me while I was in high school and beyond.  She was very helpful to her customers, including the ones who worked at a place called The Jewel Box Review. She helped many female impersonators choose patterns and fancy lace or fur trimmings for their costumes. She, also, helped Sister Celine with patterns for full nightgowns, which she made for her convent. what an interesting life Mom had.
 BIG SURPRISE - After the destruction of the last incarnation of The Shelf, the neighborhood children were very upset. Some adults were, also.  Today, while walking over to Joe's Inn for breakfast, we saw the NEW Shelf! Isn't it fabulous. So rustic!
The inside is so cozy and filled with interesting items. I'll stop by later this week to see if anything has changed. How exciting to see this. I hope it lasts a long time.

Update on The Little Library - we drove by the other day and it was packed with books. How exciting is that?!

5 comments:

robayre said...

so, no books in it this time? I love this shelf so much. I've loved the little library shelves, but this makes me think of it as being a cross between those and the "found art tuesday" project Rosa Murrillo started, where she'd encourage people to leave art out in the world for others to find. Whenever I participated I felt like Boo Radley leaving his treasures in a tree knot. For YEARS AND YEARS I've been wanting to make an art themed geocache where people only put handmade items and miniature artwork in it and this box is rather like that, only one doesn't need a GPS to find it. This really has me thinking, and wondering if I could find a place to post something similar. Are there any instructions written on it anywhere?

Beanie Mouse said...

BRILLIANT!!!!!!!

Anke Martin said...

HI Mim, you mom had for sure in interesting life. Thanks for sharing.

And HOW COOL. I would like to have a box like that too, but I am afraid that 'villagers' DO NOT get it. NEW and out of the BOX things is not so amusing to them. YOU ENJOY this little box. Smiles, Anke :)

Beanie Mouse said...

Robayre..... I'd be sorely tempted to make up my own instructions and just go hang it on a pole somewhere...!!!!

mim said...

The books that I put into the Little Free Library were ones that I registered first on Bookcrossing, so this is kinda like a Bookcrossing station. I think anyone can set up one of those.

How did I get into this?

I was asked when I started doing Mailart. Good question. Like many artists, I was making and mailing art without even knowing it had a name ...