A muffin & some Mail Art at Skull Appreciation Day

I really wanted to use the fresh blueberries that my honey had gotten in his berry farm share on Tuesday. I found a recipe in a Cook's Illustrated magazine that I had all of the ingredients for, amazing! The muffins turned out wonderfully delicious. I've posted the recipe here.









June 4th was the 2nd annual Skull Appreciation Day event, held at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia (thus our trip there.) I had posted a mail art call which got distributed far and wide, as the saying goes, and the response was terrific. here are just a very few of them.

The box containing all of them was delivered to me to scan and post on the Skull Mail Art blog, which I'll do over the next few weeks. They are all so good. People do amazing Mail Art.

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.

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.

A weekend in the dark!

 This weekend was the 20th annual French Film Festival. We spend a part of each day in the dark watching shorts and feature length films. The films are shown at a historic movie palace, the kind with a chandelier hanging down from the ceiling and a balcony. The seats are so uncomfortable, and many people bring pillows to sit on. People also pack lunches and dinners. We saw some terrific films and it was nice to meet the film makers, and for me, to speak a bit of French again. Go HERE to see more about one of the shorts that I liked a lot.

 I managed to keep up my practice during breaks from movie watching. Fortunately, we live only a 10 minutes walk from the movie palace (The Byrd.) Do you know this piece of music?

 Here are some lovely irises that we saw on one of our walks home. Everything is blooming early. Someone told us that irises are a month early. Wow!

 Well, that time of year is coming up again. The 2nd annual Skull appreciation event. There'll be another mail art call and you are invited to participate. Click HERE to get the details. I do hope you'll send something. If you haven't made mail art before, do for this event. It's free, there's no jury, and your work will be on display at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia!

Now that the work is on display on the 1708 Gallery on-line, I can post it here. This is the collage that I just completed for the 1708 Gallery exhibit and fundraising auction this year. It's 18" x 24" (45cm x 60cm appx) and is made from torn paper topo maps and thread. It's framed in a simple black frame. I hope it's well received.

Some more Mail Art and Skull event

Gesturing with her paint brush, Helen said, "Tiny Town residents like this color."

 This morning, I did two of my "styles" for want of a better description. Yesterday, I got lots more of these and other postcards at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. Still 10 cents each. I'd met JD for coffee there and when I showed him the 50 cards I'd bought, he reminded me that I was going to use up all the stuff in my studio and not bring in anything new. Ooops! Well, I'm considering the BASE for my mail art cards, uhm, like, uh, necessary to keep doing work? Okay, I could just keep cutting up the matt board, but hey these cards are just too good to pass up. I'm giving myself permission to bring in bases for the work.

Earth

In this card, I've used that Washi paper tape on one of the cards my great-niece gave me, and my favorite view of the planet earth. I have a few more of these cards to use (use up!)

Skull Appreciation Mail Art exhibit

 This is a photo from the preview of the Skull Appreciation Day exhibit. The Mail Art was installed on one wall, and they put my Skull in the center as a trophy head. I thought it worked perfectly that way. The Mail Art was well received and appreciated. I think some people are now interested in participating with doing it. Yay, converts.

You can see the gallery clearly here, as fewer people were at the preview.

This is the start of opening night. The space became so packed that taking photos with anything more than a crowd of people was impossible. The exhibit got rave reviews and there were sales!

We didn't attend the craft event or the big dance party yesterday. I can't wait to hear about those events. Well, Skull Appreciation Day #1 has successfully ended. A sweet thing, we found out that the day was celebrated, a day earlier, by a sketching group in San Diego. How cool is that? Next year, bigger and better, in more locations. Think about doing one in your town next year.

Skull Appreciation Day skull and mail art

 Here is the completed piece. Hopefully, some better photos will come out of the exhibit, with details of the piece. I'll get a better photographer to do that for me.

 The butterflies are cut from a map sent to me awhile ago by a friend in Canada. And the circle are from the 100+ year old map. They're floating above via thin wires, which I poked into some styro attached inside the skull. The movement is nice. I'm pleased with the results though I'd do a few things differently if I had it to do over. One thing, make sure the bottom edge of the base was more even. Next time! Oh wait, I'm not doing this again.   I do have lots of map circles left over so I'll have fun figuring out what to do with them.

 Another altered card. I wasn't sure what I could do with this particular piece of art work, but now I want to stop by the museum and get a few more of these.

Another Buddha smile, on this altered card.

Skully update

I'm pretty excited about this project now. The skull and base are dry and seem to be pretty stable.

I made lots of butterflies that will fly out of the head. Tomorrow, I'll attached those inside the skull. FIngers crossed that my vision will actually be able to work out.

I can't believe I cut up maps that are over 100 years old. I still can't believe it. These skulls will be sold, hopefully they'll be purchased, and the money will go to The Richmond Peace Education Center.

Flowers and Skull Appreciation Day news

 On Monday, I walked around my neighborhood with my camera and was delighted by the profusion of flowers. I hadn't realized how many hydrangea bushes there were. Here's a sampling of the flowers I saw.

We're getting closer to Skull Appreciation Day, and I haven't finished my skull entry. aaagh. Must do it in the next 2 days! Some people had wanted a copy of this poster, so now it's available for sale here.

Saturday Market and some skully-ness~

 I went over to the Saturday Farmers' Market in Lakeside but it was a drizzly day and my Hen & Honey source wasn't there. So sad, with empty basket, I headed home.

 This was the spooky view at Laburnum and Hermitage, with the A.P. Hill monument in the middle of the circle.

 Here's my skull for the Skull Appreciation Event. I cut the top off, and will use that for the base. I sprayed the inside black. I punch out lots and lots of 1" circles from a very old Larousse Atlas (very old, it still showed the Ottoman Empire!) I'm going to cover the pieces in map circles, and the rest is a surprise! These will be sold at the event to raise money for The Richmond Peace Education Center.

 I'm using Golden Gel Medium and it's working nicely.

I also made a square for the quilt that Abby is putting together to auction off as a fundraiser at the event.  I used the last of the Skull-a-Day fabric, that my son had passed along to me. I'd made some small purses (aka Pockets) out of it but still had some remaining. This is for a 12" square.

As you can see, a lot of skull activity going on. Now, I'm going to set up a blog for the Skull Appreciation Day mail art call that I posted. So much skully-ness!!

Skull Appreciation Day events.

It's not too late to enter your Mail Art into the exhibit at this event.  Get the information here.

The deadline is 27 May. Quick, do it, send something!

If you're in the area, stop by. There'll be things for kids to do, and a fun music event. Skulls will be sold to raise money for charity, a quilt will be auctioned off for another charity. Bring your own skull over to the festivities at Gallery5 in Richmond, VA, USA.  For specifics, clik HERE.