The day before My birthday! Mail Art catch up.

#93

#94

#95

#96

#97

#98

#99

#100

#101

You can see a variety of ideas and realizations this post, with Inktense pencil fun, altered cards, collages. For #99 I used part of a show card from our friend Keith Long, sculptor, where I added a face, an arm, and boots. I have such fun altering his sculptures.  You can see that #94 and #101 are two parts of the same card. In one, it was the shape that governed my placements decisions and in the other, it was the color.  #100 was a card someone sent me, a Keri Smith card, meant to be added to.

Any favorites? Let me kmow.

Hearts, Love, Mail Art, and Valentines, VA.

 These little hearts are from a stamp set that I got a long time ago and am happy that I kept. How perfect they are for the day that we're reminded about love, being loving, saying I love you. All of which, we need to be doing on a regular basis not just once a year, right?

 I received some Mail Art recently from Marseille, France - a beautiful painted mermaid. I'll post that here soon, but here's the card that I made in response. I altered a show card - one of Keith Long's wood sculptures. I make myself laugh when I do these alteration. I hope the artist in Marseille will get a smile, at least.

This is for Clyde, my letter carrier most excellent! He's leaving us after 18 years on this route, going to an easier one so he can make it 8 more years to retirement. We will soooo miss him. 

 I had this commercial postcard from the Meatball Shop and don't know why, but the pale flowers and kitty seemed appropriate for it. "You had...." fill in the blank.

photo by Bill Tiernan, Virginia-Pilot 2011

There's a little post office in Virginia, in a place called Valentines, that gets inundated with mail this time of year. The rest of the year, not so much. A few days ago, an article appeared in our newspaper telling about how it's at risk of having reduced hours and maybe even being closed. Lots of rural post offices are in the same situation.
Here's a photo of it that I found on-line. Actually, this is a little store with the post office inside it. You can read about it here.  If you feel like sending a postcard of support, you can mail it to Kathy Fajna, Postmaster, Valentines, VA 23887 - maybe an influx of mail year round will help.

And if you are really interested in Post Offices, check out THIS blog.

Catching up from last week, continued -

 There was an amazingly large dog sculpture on display at the Hirschhorn.
I was so excited to see it that I forgot to look at the name of the artist, but I did capture this photo with a man taking his souvenir image. The man surely gives the dog scale; otherwise, you might think this was just an ordinary dog, right?

 As we crossed the National Mall, the sky was so beautiful, I had to stop and take this photo of the Capitol building looking so white and lovely. I wasn't alone snapping a photo. There weren't so many tourists, since it was Thursday, but whoever was out and about, noticed how clear the light that day.

 At the Hirschhorn, the Barbara Kruger installation is still in place. I had to take another photo to share. Isn't it powerful to see text so large?

 The collage exhibit that we went to see at the Hirschhorn, contained one small room with some Joseph Cornell boxes. This is one of my favorites. 

 I was, also, pleased to see two Ray Johnson collages. Here's one that I took that is fairly clear. These were framed and under glass, to be sure.

#249

This Mail Art memory piece has a photo that I took a long time ago, and a negative strip that doesn't look familiar. It might be from my old friend's photo album. As I was making these, I was having such moments of memories.

#250

This is a found photo. I have no idea who the people are. I like that it is quite small and in duplicate. The film strip is mine, our visit to Recoleta cemetery in 2004 or maybe 2005, I can't remember the date, though I remember the experience. Does that happen to you, also?

#251

This is an altered art card from an exhibit here in town. The birds are there because a Mail Art friend is doing a bird-a-day for a year Mail Art. This is going to her.

This Mail Art is an altered show card, too. It's one of our friend Keith Long's cards, from back in 2008. He makes sculpture from found wood.  We've stayed in his studios, both in New York City and in Paris, thus having the privilege of seeing his works in progress. Then we'd seem them in galleries as finished works. Process is very exciting!

Because I'm emptying out the stored boxes, and clearing things out - gone - I've come across old student work. I saved examples for future classes but now won't be teaching them any more. This is from 2006, a class about color exploration. There is no name on this example so I can't contact the student, sadly, I don't remember whose work it is. I, obviously, thought it was good enough to save as an example.

Cleaning out is cathartic, right?

Mail Art and more

 I am finally feeling like I'm home! It only took two weeks + to get here, however. whew!

Today marks a full week of my new daily practice. Literally, I'm practicing the piano after a hiatus of many months. I'm starting with 15 minutes a day.

And I've started to make some Mail Art again. This #869, an altered art exhibit card showing one of our friend Keith Long's sculptures from an exhibit at OK Harris in NYC. I added only 3 bits to it and it changed the whole effect for me.

 My little neighbors came to see me and welcome us home. They brought art work. This is by Sage, a drawing of her dog, and isn't it excellent!? She is still petitioning us to get a new dog.

Sanita Clogs

 I got myself some new Sanita clogs, since I wore a pair while in Paris and they were very comfortable and good for long distance walking, which was a surprise. These are light blue with some shiny white spots that look like snow.

 I'd admired the Egyptian falcon statue and then got a little statue of my own. This hand crafted pajaro was given to me by my Spanish prof. I'd admired the one she had ages ago, and she found another for me! ¿Que bueno, no?

Virginia Museum of Fine Art

I went to the VMFA a couple of times to start looking at works of art to choose for my Slow Art Day. It takes place on 28 April. If you're in the neighborhood and want to join me, sign up here.

I'm excited about doing this. When I volunteered for it, I had no idea how it'd work out and so far, I have 12 people signed up.  Hope to see a few of you there.