D.C. day & Slow Art Day

 I went up to D.C. on the train yesterday to meet my PenPal Juli. She took some terrific photos while we were at the National Postal Museum.

Here I am stamping the commemorative cancellation on postcards for the exhibit about the Hindenburg and the Titanic. We loved being able to use that stamper.

 Here I am, making mail art on a display table. It was just the right height and was there for people to put post-it notes with their thoughts on the museum and the postal system. I had my mini-mail art kit with me.

 Me, attempting to take a photo of Owney, the postal dog. The glass had such glare on it but Juli managed to get me and Owney together.

I'll post some photos of the Cherry Blossoms. We had a wonderful walk amongst the trees, in the afternoon.

A reminder to anyone in my area. I'm hosting Slow Art Day at my fabulous Virginia Museum of Fine Art.
Isn't this portrait beautiful? What a composition with that skirt taking up the bottom of the painting. I'm thinking that I'll focus on portraits but haven't made the list of art work yet. Here's a link to sign up to join me that day. SLOW ART at VMFA

A few more in-coming

Positively Postal (aka Scott) sent me an envelope full of goodies from the U.K.

 PTRZIA TICTAC sent me an envelope with a postcard and a set of her lovely artist stamps. What a treasure.

 Wenchkin is now doing a daily mail art project using her amazingly good silkscreen process. For this mailing, she folded the wings and antennae so they fit into the little envelope. I got the fun of unfolding them.

This is Owney, the Postal Dog as a plush toy. I bought this for my honey at the National Postal Museum and, using tags that H got for his assemblages, I recreated the little tagged jacket that the real Owney wore as he traveled with the mail. Cute, right?

More D.C. memories

 This was the decoration on the gates leading to the main Smithsonian building, the Castle.

 The weather was so nice, perfect for walking around D.C. I love how yellow this tree is and that's the Smithsonian Castle building.

 This is a painting by Gerhard Richter. The illusion is so fabulous. We'd walk close up and back again, just to admire how good this was.

 I finally made it to the Postal Museum!

 This is Owney, the postal dog, really, it's the real dog, taxidermied since forever! He's got on his "jacket" and collar full of tags showing all the places he'd been.

 These hand carved stamps were used to cancel the postage stamps. Postal workers would make their own out of corks.

 This is a small postage stamp, an engraving, considered to be a very beautiful stamp in it's day. (Size, about 1" x 1/2")

Here's another sky photo that I took from the car window as we headed home. The beautiful weekend ended with a beautiful sky.