Mail Art and the Storm Part2

 View from my kitchen window this afternoon. We left the screen in so it caught the drops and gives a nice filtered look. The rain isn't torrential but the wind has picked up. Hello Sandy!

#86

I thought this would be nice for yesterday's storm watch.

#87

This minimal Mail Art works nicely for me. I really do like working with 3 elements to see how I can make an impactful composition. I think this one works nicely. The man is from the background of a still for the movie " A Bout de Souffle" (Breathless) by Godard. I remember seeing that when I was young and being so impressed with it. 


This is what my side porch looks like usually. My honey has hung a striped cloth to divide the area closest to the back door, with it's chair and a little table, from the back of the porch.

Here's what happened today with the wind blowing. The wind lifts the curtain every time there's a gust. Now you can see what's behind the curtain. The yard furniture was brought it so it didn't get tossed around, and there are our recycle bins, plus assorted other stuff.   No porch sitting today!

 Ingredients for making cookies, yesterday.

 Here they are, crunchy oatmeal cookies.
Today, I made pumpking muffins. Must keep busy baking. Come on over and have tea with me!

Mail Art and the storm!

 This is the scan on my old Epson scanner - which has just gotten very tired!

 I scanned this postcard on our HP printer/scanner that is new-ish. What a difference. Wow, I hadn't realized how tired the Epson was.

 This is Mail Art #85 (scanned on HP) I just made it and dedicate it to the impending storm frenzy. It's entitled  "Sandy waited patiently for her namesake storm, while all about her fretted."

Isn't this pretty? It's our Carillon in Byrd park. We were there on Wednesday night  with lots of other volunteers, for our assignments for the Rally for Obama on Thursday. The sky was beautiful, the flag lit up, the lights at the top, so dramatic.

And my little old-school phone still takes a good photo, right?

The storm is due to land on us on Tuesday. I'm off to the market, hopefully there is still some food and flashlight batteries left. People get so intense preparing for storms.

Catching up on Mail Art

#78

#80

 I don't know what happened to #79? I may have forgotten to scan it.

I'm having a great time with the old postcards. Can you tell?

This one was sent to my daughter, cause she's a tap dancer. She got it today and said "Yay!"

#80a

#81

#82

#83

I'm not sure this works the way I wanted it to, but it's amusing none the less. The feet look too forward in space from the man, as we used to say, closer to the picture plane. What do you think?






This one tickles me. The towel looks like it's soaked up some of the lake water, right? The hand holding the trees was added first but more was needed. The boy was perfect!








Okay, so let's just say, this is my current favorite. The bits came together perfectly.  Someone commented on Facebook that I kept getting better and better so I sort of clenched up. The pressure was too much.

#82 isn't as strong, but I think I made up for that in #83. Opinions, anyone?

An Orange day, Mail Art included.

 This fits with my "orange" theme today. It's my #79 Mail Art. I've written on the back something about Betty liking to watch the boats at sunset. ha ha ha

 This is the second card I made today. What fun, having so many vintage postcards is so fun. This one is something about Marlo not realizing how chilly the water was before she decided to get into it.

 Our "shelf" on the pole is ready for Dias de los muertes or Halloween. Cute, right? I put the skull and bones pin in it this afternoon.

 I took a walk around the block to see the shelf and the trees and deposit a bunch of my mail art into the mail box on the next block. There weren't many clouds. Here's a small puffy one. The trees are so pretty now.

 These two orange ones are so gorgeous. The one in the back is quite tall. In between is a tree that is leafless already, or dead! The orange is KNOCK-OUT beautiful on this sunny day.

 Standing under an orange leafed tree. How fabulous. It just makes me feel in awe. The sky so blue, the leaves so orange. Is it like this where you live?

 The post box is in front of Retreat Hospital, which is across 2 streets from my house. They have the small grounds around it covered in these flowers. I stopped to take this photo after dropping the Mail Art in the box.

 When I returned home, Groucho was waiting for me, so I sat down on the bench. She hopped up and sat next to me wanting to be petted. She has some orange mixed in with gray.

My back garden is looking better and better, more ORANGE please! And my new hydrangea plant is doing quite well, also.

Mail Art +

#78

 I didn't go minimal or maximal, I altered a vintage card again. I couldn't help myself. These tap shoe feet had to be used. I love the idea of a giant tap dancing on an empty road with an Indian dancer looking on. As usual, I amused myself.

 More from the Chihuly exhibit. These pieces are called Persians and they're in the ceiling of a short corridor. I wanted to lay down on the floor and look up, but too many people to do that. So beautiful.

 Sarah L. was traveling in Vienna and came across this gallery. Pretty fun to see my family name in BIG letters on a gallery.

Here I am with the REAL HiMonkey. I was so happily surprised by his arrival at the launch of The Alternative Speakers bureau last month in New York City. I had no idea that he'd be there. Wow, what a treat!

Mail Art & Glass

 The Dale Chihuly exhibit has been installed at our museum (VMFA) and last night was the members' preview.  You can see lots of beautiful photos of this exhibit on both links.

Amazing. The installation is gorgeous, the work is very beautiful, the quantity almost overwhelming.  Here is a boat full of glass, on a reflecting surface.

 I love these big open shapes. We were amazed at some of the pieces that we'd never seen before, like the room of pieces based on Native American baskets and weavings. I can't wait to return to see this again. 

#77

This is part of a room where the glass was in the center in a long display area, set on a reflective surface. It was incredible. So much to look at.









And here is the Mail Art piece that I made earlier in the day, yesterday. It seems so placid after the profusion of color and shapes in the Chihuly exhibit!

Maybe today I'll make something with lots of parts - or go even more minimal. Hmmm.

Mail Art & more

#75

#76

 I'm having a really fun time tearing up old postcards and figuring out what to do with them. This one is a good one for remembering Silent Spring, the book by Rachel Carson. It was published 50 years ago, and warns about the over use of pesticides.






For this card I used the front of a card from Florida, and parts of the back side of 2 other cards, from different places and times. This is about time, travel, memories.  I couldn't let those back sides go to waste.

 This is a view looking up the hill from the area by one of the stages at the Richmond Folk Festival last weekend. I like the juxtaposition of the "mansion" on the hill and the lit up booths below.

 I forgot to show you the cake that we ate at the dinner with friends. Cyn made this - one of those flour-less or egg-less or something-less cakes that are so dense and deliciously chocolate. Yum!

 This afternoon I sat in my garden/yard and read. It's autumn, the air cool-ish, and the colors orange-y.  I had apples cooking on the stove; the cooking had been going on for hours! But in the end, it turned out good. I sterilized some jars and ended up with 4 jars of apple butter. I'm freezing 3 to use at Thanksgiving time. This is the first time I made this. Yay for me.

Look who came to visit me - Groucho. She is such a loving little cat, who lives across the alley from our house. She comes in when she knows I'm out here and meows really loudly for my attention. The birds scatter from the feeders and chatter away in the trees until she leaves and they can go back to cleaning out the feeders. What a pleasant afternoon. What am I reading? Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith. I read the first two books with this same character and have been waiting for this new one to arrive at the library. Good reading!

Mail Art, send & received, and some clouds

 This is the page that I did in a collaborative art book that was started by Fleur, then went to Adamandia, and now I've sent it on it's way to someone in California. It was really fun to work on this.

 Look how huge this blossom is! It's on a fence around the corner from my house. A giant!

 We had dinner with 4 friends the other night and had the most yummy food. The main course was salmon wrapped in filo dough. We didn't know it until that night that the woman who made this had been a caterer for 20 years. What?! I contributed some potato soup, which was served in lovely cups with saucers under them. Very fancy though we weren't a fancy crowd at all.

 This is one side of a Mail Art collage that I received from Guido. I love how the depth works so well with the three elements.

You know how I love clouds. Thee were over the old FFV building. One of the few water tanks in town is on top of that old bakery/factory, which is now empty. 

Mail Art and so much more

#71

#71a

 Friday, I worked on some watercolors again. I'm feeling a bit less wimpy about them, but still, so pastel-y.  I like this one a lot more because I was able to get that purple ridge line, and then get that sort of reflection thing on water.

#72

#73

#74

This one is a big bolder, color wise, but still not quite there. I did a bit of pencil work and added dots. When I feel like the results aren't strong enough, I add dots. In this case, the dots are all the same color but change based on the background. Oh my, an Albers experience!





Saturday, I decided to tear up some postcards before we went off to the big Folk Festival. I found a good quote about landscape painting and put that up with the image on my Facebook page.









Then in Sunday, I decided to do the same - tear of old postcards. This one dealt with water, and I found a nice water quote to go with it. Oh there are those ubiquitous dots! In this case, I used them as connectors.








Today, more torn vintage postcards. In this one, the cards are like paintings and I wanted to make some visual connection between the lake and the road. I'm not sure how successful that was, but I like the way this looks.

 On Saturday and Sunday it was so hot at the Folk Festival. HOT! We couldn't stand being in the sun for long. Only listened to Roseanne Cash for 15 or 20 minutes before heading for shade. That hot! But Monday morning, while walking over to the dentist's office, I saw that over night, the leaves where turning autumn colors and falling to the ground! Wow! Overnight!

 I spotted this gorgeous tree a couple streets over this afternoon. Gorgeous, right? Autumn is arriving!

 And of course, autumn means apples in abundance. I got a half of a bushel and started to make apple sauce. I think apple butter is next.

Here's last weeks abundance from the farmers' market. It was the last week of my CSA, but this week I got some beautiful string beans and some beets there.