Staying indoors - heat advisory!

#108

#109

#110

 Last week, I was away from home for a few days with my Mail Art traveling kit. I took a few things with me - some circles, some black paper, a butterfly.









I picked up a brochure while away and cut little figures out of it. Perfect for Mail Art, right?

#111

#112

Some action going on here.  A pet sphere going out for a walk?












Nice striped dress!
My favorite thing, making - creating the illusion of transparency. Upper left.  What do you think? 









I had this face in my kit, from a brochure I got at VMFA. Did I make it a bit mysterious?

Here's mi corazon. Yesterday, she was in my studio, staying cool, cause we've got A/C. She took out a bunch of my old rubber stamps and made some art for me. She made paths and connections, she told me. She had a lot of fun and even used my date stamp when I told her what it was.

Catching up on Mail Art - before the little trip -

#285

#286

 I was feeling kind of out of sorts before a train trip of several days, and wasn't sure if I'd have a theme for my Mail Art before I left.

I had a hand, I had some words, and then I had a kitten - okay, so it works! And everyday, I make Mail Art.

#287

Simple - just some torn map strips, a circle, and a butterfly sticker.











Here I'm playing with some scraps of topo maps, creating new pathways, lining up disparate roads and waterways. I added some words just because.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#288

More map connecting. Here I didn't add any words. The map paths just were what they were.

  Bizoo is betting too big to hang around my neck and quite heavy. He doesn't know that and still wants to ride around this way. He'll be 8 months old on the 8th of November. Still a kitten, right?

I was going through old photos when putting albums back on the shelves. Here's one of my mom and her sisters. It might have been taken in the 80s. All are gone except for mom and she's the oldest. That's her on the right.

Mail & non-Mail Art +

#23

 I'm catching up on all of the Mail Art that I've made so far.

#23 is going to a Mail Artist who is celebration a birthday and like skulls. I found some very tiny skull images that I liked a lot. I hope he enjoys this card.

#24

 I'd gotten a few postcards at the Guggenheim, Bilbao, including this one of the interior. We weren't allowed to take any photos inside. I decided to alter the card before I sent it, as it really wasn't all that interesting unless you'd been to the place. I decided that it needed an invasion of postage stamps to make it more lively.

#25

Someone sent me a lovely postcard of a vineyard in the Napa Valley, in California. It was fun to find bits to change the scale. I might add some shadow under the large man to integrate him more into the landscape. 

 This looks like my Mail Art, but it's not. It won't get mailed anywhere. I made it for the VMFA studio school faculty exhibit. I wanted whatever I put in the show to relate to the workshop that I'm teaching. My honey will frame it for me in a simple black frame, mounted on a cool gray background.

 Here's something fun that I did yesterday with a friend. We went to look at cars. She's going to buy a new one. These are her favorites. I think the cream with the brown top and racing stripes might become her's. Don't tell her that I told you.

I loved the way the clouds looked yesterday afternoon. Actually, I like the way clouds look any day, any time.

I shot this through the windshield using my little flip phone. Not bad! 

Good news to report!

 I'm very excited to report that my CD collage, the one that I was seen putting into the post box, arrived safely in Thessaloniki, Greece after a 2 week journey. Yay for the postal services of both countries. Yay!

This is card #870. I'm going to start on Tiny Town again, using the last of the cards slowly as I'll be so sad to see the series end. This one is about Phoebe checking to see if there was anything new on Main St.

The yard looked like wonderful with the pink blossoms all over it. It smelled so sweet, too.

Now the tree is almost bare of flowers, leaves are poking out, the yard has been swept up three times, as the leaves get slippery and start smelling less than pleasant. BUT oh how pretty when the petals fill the yard at first.

 Here's the pie we had for Pi day. I was going to make a lemon pie as Monkey had posted a delicious sounding one, however, I needed to go out for lemons, and I needed to finish a piece of art work. So Papa made the pie and my honey picked it up, and I stayed up until 2 a.m. finished the art work. whew!

Here's a "tile" that I created for a project for a library/s in Florida. My friend Juli sent me the blank. I was so busy turning the tile around looking at it that I ended up working on it with the music upside down!!! I wonder if some eagle-eyed person will notice that.

Monday, I'm taking the train to D.C; a meet-up with someone I've been corresponding with for 10 years and another visit to the National Postal Museum. I think I'll make some mail art while I'm there.

Mail Art for Myrna

Art for Myrna

Peace for Myrna

I spent most of the afternoon lying down, speaking on the phone with family and friends. After awhile, I decided to make Mail Art. These two were created in memory of Myrna. 

Mail Art

 #7 was sent to someone in the Netherlands, not named so it'll be a surprise. I love the face on this image. It's from ceramic vase, the woman was holding a bird in her hand, had on a long dress with a flower print skirt. I could only fit the top on the postcard. I love the look, so sweet, so open, sort of surprised, happy. This might be one of my favorite cards.

Card #8 is one of my color experiments. I think this one worked very well as the small blue rectangles really do seem different, even on the computer screen.  I'll do these experiment cards periodically through-out the 365 project.  I have one more card to post from home, then on to the ones that I'll be doing away from home. I may not have access to the internet so posting may wait until early next week. My own anticipation of what I'll do is exciting to me.

Mail Art

 Here's #4, a butterfly, which went off on the 4th of Dec. to someone with whom I've had correspondence for awhile.  I didn't have a little round number 4 to put on it. It's been great to use the numbers that I saved ages ago in a tiny tin. I think they came off of a little calendar. I have enough now to do the full 31 first days of this project. After that, hmmm, I'll be rubber stamping maybe.

 The color experiment, based on Josef Albers interaction of color, came out sort of okay on this card. If you stare at the space between the two color swatches you can kind of see that the rust color rectangle on the left is brighter than the one on the right. Can you see that? Kind of see it?

I really like the way this card turned out. It's going to a person with whom I've corresponded and I "discovered" that one of her Mail Art on going projects involves fish. I found the image in a book about Virginia wild life. Unfortunately, I didn't cut out the label telling me the name of this fish. Can anyone identify this fish?

Smitty, the Market, and some more sewing.

Here is Smitty contemplating going down the stairs. I think it must look like something really scary for him with his bad eyesight. We actually carry him into the yard. He's so cute still, and sooo old for a dog. We walked around the block a couple days ago and he had to lie down a few times and my honey carried at the end of the trip.

The heat is so hard on the veggies. These are photos from last Saturday when it wasn't so hot. What will be this week, oh boy, we may not even have Market on Saturday as BIG storms are predicted. Did I mention the temperature? It's now 98F/36.6C, yes, hace calor!! 

Yesterday, I had such a fun time making more Purses for Change. Really, I have so much fun doing this. Today, my honey helped me choose names for the ones that I put in my Etsy shop, Fritzi. I've decided that I'll name them all (a la Ikea.) Here's one that has a butterfly on the back of it. I call this PfC (Purse for Change) Lara. Got any cool short names that might work for PfC's or for Pockets? Send them to me.

Elflog & more

I didn't have my camera with me when I spotted this butterfly on my neighbors flower, but I did have my 'phone...didn't it take an excellent photo? I was so happily surprised. The flowers framed in the fence are in another neighbors yard. She grows beautiful roses, too. On Friday morning, the shelf was empty except for the smily face sticker and the Make Art mini-poster. A FOUND Cat flyer was on the pole. A quiet day at the shelf. I decided to show you the view from the west, including the bus stop sign so you could get a better idea of the relationship. Later in the day, on my second dog walk, I put some thing on the shelf and took down the FOUND flyer since the cat is now back with it's family. Oh, another thing, on Sep. 27, I found something I'd left on the shelf, a paper item dated Sep. 17, further up the block on the sidewalk. It was pretty shabby looking, like it'd been walked on for the 10 days it was lying there. Curious!