The Mail Art update post.

The Strong Product

 The first four are my #260 series that I did yesterday. They're my default style, layers of colored paper and a circle.

The No-Homomorphic Lemma

 The circles are cut from photos of closeups of things, like ferns and oil slick and mushrooms and such.







I can't remember what these were but I thought they were very cool. They give a lot of depth to these cards.

Hypercubes are Sparse

 The asemic line is 9B graphite. I sprayed the cards with Matte fixative to make them a bit water-resistant and keep the line from smudging.

The Direct Product

I entitled these with mathematics related words, which I totally don't get but were in the index of my neighbors new book.

Projeções e Camadas (Projections and Layers)

 The circles appear to have a relationship to outer space, when they're really inner space (microscopic views.)











 These last two were created this afternoon. The top circle was punched out of the top layer of paper, so we can see the lower layer color showing through. However, the illusion is that the yellow circle is on top of the brown, right? I like that effect. The asemic line was done with an ink brush pen. It's title is in Portugues because I'm sending it to Portugal.

Three Fundamental Products

The hole was punched in the top layer of paper to expose the color below. The pink-ish circle is what was removed. The line, which I really like for it's delicate-ness, was done with the ink brush pen.

My #250 series, the JonnyZFest & a new purse/tote

Playing in the waves?

I'm really enjoying using my 9B graphite stick. I worked on a large sheet of watercolor paper again, then went over the lines with a brush and water. The color circles are from old silk screen colored paper. I wanted a feeling of the sun today and when I was finished, I felt like the sun was up, or in one case, coming out from some clouds,  and it all felt like playing in the waves.

More playing in the waves

 These cards are all being sent out to new members of the International Union of Mail Artists Hopefully, they'll all be happily surprised to find then in their mail boxes all around the world.

 This is the postcard that came last week, announcing the JonnyZ Festival, which I'll be participating in, vending my sewn creations. My Etsy shop, Fritzi, has only four items in it, but my house has LOTS in preparation for the festival.

This is one of the new bags I've made. It's roughly 15" x 15" (38 x 38 cm) with straps that go over the shoulder.  The fabric is a really sturdy Ikea cotton dated 2005. A big red acrylic button is the closure. These new bags have a small pocket inside for a cell phone or your keys. They're an upgrade of my totes, in that I've added the pocket and a strap closure. I'd like a new name for these, cause they're more than a tote, but not quite a purse. Hopefully, I'll come up with something soon. I plan to start working on my display and signage on Wednesday. Any ideas? I'll take suggestions.

A real Tiny Town, mail art and more

 When we visited New York City in July, we went down to the area where the city began as New Amsterdam. There was a wonderful bronze sculpture of the area set into a tiny park by the Staten Island ferry dock. This was it, the tip of the island of Manhattan, a small village, little houses, farmland.

 Looking at this village, and then up at the buildings around me, was such a strange experience. This Tiny Town represented in the sculpture became this tall, densely populated island. Wow! I mean, really, Wow!

 I was sorting through old photos, pre-digital days, when I came across several packs of photos from my old art foundation teaching years. I'd used them to remind me of what the students had produced. This photo cracked me up. It's from March 03. Since the students are wearing masks, they are unidentifiable (except one guy's face wasn't covered so I put a paper dot on it.) I wonder where they are, these now grown up people? They were for the most part 18 years old at the time of the photo.

 More of my Minimal 1 + 9B graphite series #246

 Again, I used a large sheet of water color paper, made lines with the 9B graphite stick and then worked with water on top of the line.

 I wanted a simpler look than in the previous series and I think I achieved that.

The circles were cut from the 1965 McCall's magazine and again, I was pleased at the way I was able to integrate them into the composition.

Mail Art, Asemic book project, and more

 Yesterday, I went minimal with my daily mail art. I needed to do that after doing several, to my eye, busy series.

 Today's daily mail art is also minimal. I used the rule of THREE. I picked up what was, literally, at hand, and placed it on the blank.

 These felt very satisfying to me, as they were very calm. And I'm needing to stay calm as I'm embarking on another stretch of sewing sewing sewing in anticipation of this year's Johnny Z Fest. I'll be doing a table of my purses/pockets again.

 This is the back cover of the chapter that I did for a project initiated by a couple of people in my union (IUOMA.) We had to create something asemic, 8 pages, to go out to 15 people. Daunting! 16 people per book. The numbers were daunting.

 This is the front page. I looked at examples of asemic work and tried some handwritten stuff, but it just wasn't me. So I cut up type.

 This is the page 2 and 3 spread. I wish that I'd done something to link across the spread but I didn't. oh well. I glued each strip of type individually; I was amazed at my patience.

 This is the center spread, pages 4 and 5.

 This is page 6 & 7 spread.  I had the pages copied and I added something to each page so that no two are alike. The chapter is folded to open, book like.  I've received 6 plus my own chapter, so I've got lots more to come. I hope no one backs out of this. We'll learn how to "bind" the chapters into a book from Cheryl Penn, a book artist, from South Africa. I sent out the last 7 of my chapters today, to artists in the U.S., the Netherlands, Canada, and Brazil.

 See the cute kitties? A young mother cat and 2 kittens found their way to my son and STBDIL's house. They have two rescued cats of their own, but have been caring for these outdoors. They need homes  badly. If anyone is near my hometown, or knows anyone near my hometown, who might give one or all a home, let me know. They're mighty cute. I wish I could take them.

A former student of mine is now a graduate student at Savannah College of Art and Design in fiber arts. He was in town for a bit this summer and was doing embroidered portraits at Quirk Gallery. My honey and I had ours made by him. He does this with free-hand machine embroidery. Amazing to see him work. He made me thinner (love him) and my honey a bit wider than he is, but, all in all, quite a likeness. Check his work out, here.

#210, Panda news, Dove update, and my asemic book.

 This card went off to a mail artist in Chicago, who has one blog focused on fish. I found that the entry for poisson was still in my old Larousse (that I cut up) and this fish image is from an old drawing (like 1708) of a sturgeon fish that existed in Jamestown, Virginia when it was first settled. The background is an oyster farm in southeast Asia. See Adamandia here.

 Here's Ace with the second to the last Panda Pocket. The last of the 1970's era Panda Pockets was sold and sent to Michigan. That's all folks. I saved a tiny piece to make into a tiny pillow for N. It was the fabric I purchased at his request, to cover his nap mat for school. It's exciting to see people enjoying my Pockets and especially to know that the Panda fabric (made in America, now a piece of our history) is being used. I've put up a few other Pockets in my Fritzi shop.

 I'm participating in an Asemic book project. Here is what I've done for it. I made 8 collages using strips of text cut so that they can't be read, made compositions using flat color grounds on black background. I individually glued down each strip of text, which took more time than I thought it would. I couldn't create 16 books (x 8 pages.) I copied the work two per sheet double side. It's on heavy stock, which worries me as I hope it won't interfere with the binding process. I like the way the compositions turned out. Now I'm added a letter form to each and every collage, so that no two books are the same. Rather none of the books are the same. I'll have the first 8 ready to mail by the end of the week. The rest will be send by the deadline, 22 July. I know this would be a challenge when I took it on, and I felt stretched by it, but that's a good thing. 

Here's our dove, as of yesterday. See her little eye looking at me?

Now back to work on my asemic project.