Mail Art, Books, and the Scam

#100

 Today is the 100th day of my second time around with making daily Mail Art. I can't believe it! What fun.

#98

#99

I'm enjoying the random text postcard series for awhile longer. I don't know what will come next. I really am just letting it flow. Finding bits of cut out images, picking 3 or four, arranging them to my satisfaction, and that's it. So simple.







I have no stories for any of these and yet they seem like narratives, right? This one, the 99th, is one I particularly like. It just came together. I think that the illusion of depth is so terrific, if I say so myself. What do you think? It works, yes?






My friend, Andrea, in the U.K. sent me two
books to pop into the Little Library. Here they are.

 Here are the books in the Little Free Library. I took two books out that I thought I might like to read, one by Anchee Min, and a hardback copy of 3 Hercule Poirot stories in one book, by - Agatha Christie!

 Here are the labels from the little package that I received from China (I assume it came from China.) This is the company (I assume it's a company) that has a very amazingly realistic Shoe store on-line. STYLETIME.
Remember that name - do not order anything from them. They are scammers.  Pass this along to any of your friends who shop for shoes on-line.

In the package is a sponge. I didn't open the package, but the customs declaration says that's what is inside, and it feels like it.
Also, on-line, when I looked up the company
name -
there are complaints about it and some people noted that they received sponges!
OMG I'm laughing at my getting scammed.

I don't like it. I've dealt with this via a claim against them, which will go no where I'm sure, but I want to keep warning people to be wary.
I have pinned this package to my studio cork wall to remind myself. Be Wary!

Mail Art & a Little Free Library

#11

 My scanner is not showing colors well. The substrate for this is a nice recycled cardboard tan, not as yellow as in this image. Not that it makes much difference, since you won't see the original. I sent that off across the  ocean.  Paper collage & a Turkish stamp!

 I received Poulty Press. I don't know why, but I do. This hen and the compassionate mother statue are from the cover of the latest issue. The Chinese text is from a newspaper. As I mentioned in a Facebook post, I doubt that i has anything to do with compassion or chickens. I just like the way it looked.

#13

Here's another example of my color experiments. The colors are not what they are in the actual piece. How odd.

 The substrates are the same in this one and the one above. You can't tell that in these scans but no matter. I just love punching holes in colored paper. You know that by now, right?

 A few days ago, my honey was driving to the high way, through the Museum District and saw something interesting. He drove round the block so I could see what he spotted.

 A Little Free Library!! I'd heard about these but never thought there was one near me. It's on a quiet street so I don't image it gets much business. I've put the street sign here so that, if you are in Richmond, VA, you can check it out for yourself.

Look at the books in the library.
I have several hard back books that I was going to release through BookCrossing but now I'll bring them to the Little Library.  As you might remember, the paper back books get sent off to the troops. (Booksforsoldiers)


There are so many nice surprises in this world.

Some of my favorite things

Mail

Books!

My back garden

sock monkeys

Sock Monkeys: I made the one in the background for my friend and when she died, he came back to me. He's very old. The one in front was made by a student a MICA (Maryland Institute and College of Art) and I couldn't resist buying it, with it's little hot glue tear by it's eye.

My piano

NRRA salt water pool

My studio & making Mail Art

typewriter

 I brought my old machine out recently and was able to get new ink ribbons for it. It reminds me of other times and places and is fun to use, though I have to relearn how to use it - sloooowly I type my words.

violets

Mail Art & more

 I purchased a wonderful book of sunflower photos at the thrift store for $2, and yesterday, while my honey was teaching his collage workshop, I cut envelopes out of the photos.
Today, I used some of the left over bits to add to my dotty mail art.

 I can't stop punching holes in paper!! When will it end! I have some other ideas for mail art but, I think I'm punch-drunk, or have punch mania. ja ja ja

 I now have a second bird feeder. A round pale yellow one and the birds didn't have any trouble finding it. I snapped this photo with my phone through the kitchen window. The round one has birds in it and the orange rectangular one has a squirrel in it!  Here's where I got the bird feeders - Modern Artifacts.  Food for all on this very hot day. At this moment 99F/37C.

Here are the two Flat Rate Boxes that I've got packed up, almost packed up, to send to some soldiers. I'll send these in honor of the 4th of July, American celebration of Independence, hoping that our troops will come home soon. You can send books and treats to the troops in various ways, in the U.S. by joining Books for Soldiers.  

Some photos from our promenees

 This is a small corner of the huge book section of BHV (Bazaar de l'Hotel de Ville.) Imagine, a big department store that still has a book store in it! Amazing. This is no longer the situation in the United States, sadly.

 This shoe was in the window of a frips shop, second hand and vintage clothing, accessories, etc. What era do you think these are from?

 These are in the window of a small shop on rue Pavee, that carries shoes from Sweden. They just changed up the display to show warm weather shoes. I really like these a lot.

 We stopped into a small cafe by the Metro St. Paul. There are three in a row. We picked the one that looked like it had the most local people in it. Good choice. This is an omelette with goat cheese and potatoes in it. It was quite good and we sat next to a woman, who does photography, and had a lovely conversation with her.

 This is such a lovey line of trees, in the Palais Royal garden. This is the beauty of French gardens, the lines. Around this area, are many shops, including Serge Lutens, the perfumerie. Amazing, small inside with purple walls, and black display stands, and lots of interesting scents.

 This shoe was in a shop in Palais Royal! Can you imagine walking in that shoe? Not me! That said, I'm still attracted to fancy shoes.

After walking around Palais Royale, we walked over to the Tuileries. This line of trees was so typical. The sky was threatening rain, but we were happy to be out walking around. There was a group of men playing Boules, down in the garden to the right of me. They were having a big discussion about about it, with a measuring device.

The air got colder, the wind picked up, we walked quickly to the metro and headed back chez nous, to our warm studio, and some hot tea, with a pack of Serge Luten samples to remember our day by, and lots of photos.

update Paris!

 Here's another photo from Sunday, when the snow fell lightly for 2 hours, then was gone within another 2. Brief but pretty from the window. I stayed in all of Sunday and felt very good about that.

 Yesterday, was so gray, but the temperature was higher, all of 28F. We decided that we'd take a long walk. And we did.

 We went to the post office (of course) and then off to see if the Brancusi Studio was open. Turned out we were way too early so we looked around the area and spotted this DIY store. Two floors full of hardware, lighting, plumbing, house goods, so amazing to see so much well designed stuff and to think that Parisians do so much themselves in the way of fixing up.

 This shows a small portion of the wall paper section. Yes, folks, that is WALL PAPER! They have it printed in all sorts of patterns, too, like wood and stone and Toile fabric, and more. Amazing. Okay, we're like hardware and DIY store junkies.
I spoke to an employee and he said this was a small one. They have ones with 3 or more stories in other places. They're all over the world but not the U.S.

 We went into the other Mona Lisait, the one on St. Martin. I got more Mona postcards for my project and some magazines to cut apart. They have excellent sales on books, oh so tempting.

 C suggested that we stop at Au Trappiste for my moule frites and we did. Excellent. The special is the moule in the basic liquid, frites and a small glass of Stella Artois. C had roast chicken and frites, of course. After lunch, we crossed to Ile de la Cite and saw a very good exhibit at the Conciergerie. I'll post some photos of it soon.  Off to French class!

Here's some mail art I did yesterday. It's an altered photo. I hope the photographer won't be too upset with me. Thanks, Juli, for the cards.

a tiny book

 Back in April, I received book 55 out of 365 from Robayre, who lives in Illinois and make things. I was so delighted to receive this because I love little notebooks and this was handmade!

I wasn't sure what I'd do with it. I kept it on my work table all of these months and now that the 365 project is finished, I decided what I'd do....I'll fill it with little collages, like the small books that I did in Paris in 2008.









Here's one of the double page spreads of my collages. Keeping it simple!

This is the image from Robayre's blog - http://www.robayre.com/news/2011/04/
showing a group of the books before she put the address on them. She put a rubber band inside before sealing it, so we could use it to keep the book closed. How clever, right?

#85 the letter "V" & a new magazine.

 I didn't get to this until just a short while ago, as I had lots of errands to run after my morning clase de español. When I got home, I had many business phone calls to make, then I had to spend time getting our flights for our big trip, then I had to make dinner, as I'd invited my son, and our NDL over. They didn't linger after dinner as they were tired, and so were we, BUT, I had to get to V. How this came to me, I don't know. But I'm happy it did.

I was waiting for my honey to get finished at his somewhat emergency appointment at the dentist, when I spotted this magazine. What a title! What a concept! What a combination! I had to see what the contents were and to my surprise, I found a very engrossing article about an artist in New Orleans (now deceased) that hardly anyone has heard of but did really nice work. His name is/was Noel Rockmore.
There was, also, a book review of Mark Richard's new book House of Prayer No. 2, which sounded really interesting. Who'd have thought that I'd find this magazine so interesting?  Not me.

Another assortment

Better World Books & free chocolate!

81 postcard blanks

tangerines

My friend Susan suggested a new (for me) author and I was able to buy 5 of her books from the Bargain Bin at Better World Books, my fave site for used books because of their support of literacy programs.  The books arrived today with a surprise in the package. A bar of chocolate! It was a thank you from my friends at BWB. Divine Chocolate, and it is yummy, I've already tried it, is from a co-op in Guapa Kokoo, Ghana.  I wanted these books to read when I travel as I can leave them for others to read.



I've signed on to a new project. I'm trying not to feel 'daunted already as it hasn't started yet. My friend Andy, of Real Wall fame, started a 365 Mail Art group at IUOMA and created a blogspot blog for us to post creations. Yes, we're pledging  to make a piece of mail art every day for a year. We'll post our Mail art on the blog and some of us will then mail them out into the world. I'm preparing by cutting out postcard blanks. We'll start on Dec. 1st. If my son could do it, I can do it, right? See my son's new book by clicking on the link to the right, under "Sponsor." His book is really super neat! Very inspiring. How super neat that my own son is inspiring ME!  
I wanted you to see my bowl of tangerines. We got them this afternoon and they echo the colors of the trees on our street right now. Autumn is definitely here.

My book club

I was invited to take part in the same book club that my son is in. He thought I'd enjoy it, since they read some interesting books, and though I'm a voracious reader, have never been in a book club.   Neat thing: my club is a book and cake club. My son, however, brings home popped spicy popped corn every time and everyone loves it.  So the special thing about this club, aside from good cakes,  is that we've been able to do some different things. We read A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and we got to speak with the author via speaker phone! My son did her web site. See it here. That was very cool and we learned a lot. Two books later, we read Ashes to Water by Irene Ziegler who happens to be a local author, and guess what? Irene actually came to the club meeting to speak with us in person. How sweet is that? See Irene's site here. These two books are so worth reading. Check out some reviews of them, read about the authors, read their books. They're very cool women, and good writers. Next book we're reading is Rat Girl. I'll let you know if we get to speak with the author!