Some recent Mail Art, my cat, my grand, and my mom!

#8 - 2015

 My husband did another Artists Coloring Book project and I made a collage for it.

Pages from the book were printed and posted during the exhibit and viewers were encouraged to color on the prints.

After the exhibit came down, I got the colored on prints which I promptly cut up to postcard size (did that with C.s print, too.)

Here are a couple of them. I added some color and mailed them out, encouraging the recipients to add more color.

#9 - 2015

 Here's BIZOO! He's getting Bigger and bigger. He still loves to lounge on this scratching pad.

 Here's our grand-girl, Z, on one of our trips to the museum. We found a lovely, quiet spot to hang-out and eat a pretzel or two, with a nice view of the Boulevard. She's wearing a huge sweater, her choice, with the sleeves rolled up. It's dark gray with a black skull on the front. She's making a fashion statement!

Estelle at 18.

And here's Mom! She celebrated her 101st birthday on the 19th. She lives nearly 3000 miles away from me, but nearby family celebrated with her and she enjoyed the attention.

What do you think about living to be over 100 years old?

Good Grief! A month has gone by?

#210

 What a busy month it's been.

I was knitting lots and lots in preparation for a pop-up shop, making finger-less gloves, giving myself some sort of on-the-job wrist stress!

But it all worked out well, as my Etsy shop is empty, the pop-up shop sale was a success, but I still have a few pairs mitts at NEST! Stop by there if you're in RVA.

Mail Art still happening, too.  #210 has a throw-back look, doesn't it. I'm making lots more using the prints made for both C's and my pages from the Artist Coloring book. Fun to alter, as I've said before.

#244

#237

 I made my "Peace" cards again this season. Adding swashes of Inktense color to them.

I numbered them but didn't scan them individually except for this one. So far this year, while not doing a piece of Mail Art daily, I managed to make over 250 pieces, with a few more to come. My experiences with my 365 projects has made my practice of getting into my studio such a normal part of my life. There's no question that I'll go in daily and make something, even if it's not Mail Art.

We celebrated one night of Chanukah with friends, at Perly's Deli. We enjoyed a little carafe of bubbly, and a whole lot of delish food. If you're in our neighborhood, go there and eat!

We were delighted by our grand's delight at all the candles. Our niece & nephew hosted their annual gathering with many candles and excellent latkes.

It's been a wonderful year, full of lots of enjoyable experiences. How lucky we are and we know it!


Happy and healthy New Year to all of you, just in case it's another month before I post again.

Here's a photo of Bizoo, contemplating the world outside.

Mail Art and knitting and SPRING!

 I've had this Gettysburg, PA battlefield postcard for awhile. It's got a message on the back and was originally mailed in 1941. How to alter a postcard of the bloodiest battlefield in the U.S.?
It felt good to put the little musician (or big by scale in this case) there to play a commemorative tune. One day, I'm planning to take a road trip to Gettysburg. Have you been there?

 In my knitting group, I'm challenging myself to learn new things. I wanted to learn to follow a color change pattern.

I made the small hat, or rather it turned out child sized, first. I made the color changes too tightly, but Zinn looks great in this hat and she liked it.


I plotted out a pattern on graph paper and using only two colors, made this slouch hat. It's worked on a round needle. I'm pleased with the results and, Voila! It fits an adult head!

My next challenge is to learn to use double pointed needles. I've found an easy fingerless glove pattern to work with.

Did I show you these cute little baby hats that my sister makes? I put them in my Etsy shop.

I sent my sister the slouch hat pattern and the circular needle. I'm excited to have her try something new, too. I hope she's excited about that.

Spring is here! These Star of Bethlehem plants always make me happy. I dug up some of the plants several years ago from a nearby alley way and planted them in our front garden. They spring up amongst the rocks and look so friendly.

 Okay, so I spoil him by not immediately chasing him away from the laptop. It's sort of my way of seeing how BIG he's getting. Still growing, oh my.









Yesterday was drizzly and chilly, so I decided it was Lentil Soup time again. This is a fabulous recipe, which I've posted before. it's from the cookbook Veganomicon. Even if you're not a vegan or even a vegetarian, you'll enjoy this recipe. It can be found on my recipe blog HERE.

Enjoy!
    Let me know if you make the soup.

More from the past 13 days.

#273

#275

#276

 Here are the remaining 7 postcards from the past 13 days since I posted.

They are a mixture of collages, some usig old photographs that I "inherited" from a friend. I feel like I'm saving her memories, and sending them out to other people to keep.

I do not know who the people in the photos are.

#277

#278

#279

#280

I like the juxtaposition of the circles and the eye.











This might be my friend in her carriage.














A bit of Manet here.












This is a Roman woman from either a fresco or an encaustic. I love that face. I feel like I know her.










And today, I just felt like using some bits of paper from a paper sample book. It seems right for autumn, though we've had  couple of really hot days here.

An entire week later....

#253

 I received a tourist postcard from someone in the Mail Art Union. I HAD to alter it, and I sent it back to the sender like this. The original is of a Mission Church. Yes, that's a building. I really did change up the scale, didn't I?

#254

I've been emptying boxes slowly. One that I opened had albums of photos from my deceased friend. I'd forgotten about them.  In an aged envelope there were some photos and some bus transfers from 1933. Amazing. I used one of them to make these two Mail Art collages, and used bits of the envelope, too.

#255

#256

I decided not to tear any others up until I found a place that might want them for historical purposes - like the CTA museum, if there is one.
This piece of Mail Art, uses random text, and 2 pieces of paper. So minimal.

#257

This one uses random tex & letters, plus two pieces of paper. So minimal.

#258

I decided that I needed to commemorate the chilly day, yesterday, with some autumn colors. My friend died leaving behind her box of colored paper. I decided that I'd use them, and my  own. I refuse to die with unused colored paper!!

#259

The paper is like Color-Aid brand but it was another name. I forget which. The paper has aged and is fragile. It marks easily so I have to be more careful with use of adhesives. I'm determined to use it all up.

 Here's Bizoo asleep in the chair in my temp studio area. He stretches out and is SO long. And his tail is like a lemur's, right?

This is the banana bread I made last week. I was planning to make a banana cake but grabbed the wrong recipe and it was too late to change once I'd started. It was quite tasty and had chocolate chips in it, but it was on the dry side, more like a bread, which is was. Next time, I'll be more mindful and make the cake version.

Mail Art, of course, and more, of course.

 This is #237 of year three. I used only 3 paper scraps and one small circle, but am soooo pleased at how the space is changed up by what is on one of the paper scraps. I just love it. The illusion of transparency and of depth and all sorts of things. Love it!

This is #238. Three scraps of color paper again and one small black circle. This is very flat, very one dimenstional, but I think the black spot creates a bit of ambiguity.

This is #239. Three pieces of color paper and a circle, again. This time, the angle of the purple changes the dynamic of the piece though it's still very flat. 

Just when we thought we had it all together again, except for emptying the boxes, the toilet seat broke. This face says it all, kind of an Oh, No, expression, or a scream with eyes in the headlights.
It's sort of how I feel when I look at all the boxes. I've gotten some emptied and that is good. Also, sad, cause one had some things in it from my deceased friend. I didn't realize that I still had those things.  So it goes. 

Here are some fun things that I rediscovered. In the box to the left, is a wardrobe for the Snoopies. To the right, is Elizabeth, who was one of M's early playthings. She was made by Fisher Price, who no longer makes such cool dolls.   When I took my little daughter & this doll to my class one day, a student asked why she had a doll like this, meaning brown skin, I assumed. I think I answered something like - because she chose it. Much later, the student who has children of her own now, said that this had a profound influence on her. It opened her eyes. Wow, who knew what a doll could do!

 I took a break today to do some reading at the kitchen table. Bizoo had his own idea of what I needed to do. So what did I do, I took a break and petted him and listened to his purring.  Why do I have a pencil in my hand, because I was underlining words that I didn't know (reading short stories in Spanish.)

On Saturday, we went to an 80th birthday party of a dear, long known, friend. He had a western theme and people really got into it. The band was Honky Tonk, the music good, and my honey and I even danced a couple slow dances together.

I got this photo of our grandgirl today. Stripes are a big part of her wardrobe, as are skully things. Pirates, skulls, yes, that's about right.

I came across this book in one of the boxes. I'd forgotten about it, a cookbook that I'd gotten from Barry Zaid many years ago, 1976 probably. In fact, I think it was my first vegetarian cook book. I was going to get rid of it, but it has really good recipes. I remember making many of them. It's very worn, from getting water logged in Barry's car some how, and from my using it a lot. I think I'll just keep it. Maybe I'll even make that bread recipe again.

Mail Art, the mess, and, of coure, a little more.

365.3 #234

#235

#236

 This is the last of the water color pieces of Mail Art until I can find my water color paper. This is another attempt at doing an over head view of the shore line along the Chesapeake Bay.  I want to try more of these.







So yesterday, I had to go back to what was at hand, color paper. 4 colors.













For this one, I did the color pieces first. It was very minimal and I wanted more, so I added the circle on the right and the random letters & number. In the end, it makes me think of some kind of scientific equation or explanation.

This is the view of my hall and front room on Friday morning. The painters were starting to work on the rooms.

Here's the very front of the room. It looked like an art installation. This is still part of the water damage we had last June. But as of today, it's all taken care of, the work is complete.

Except for this - the boxes came back from storage and have to be emptied. Most of the stuff goes into my studio - and they're stacked up in it. See Bizoo inspecting the site? Wish he could help me clear out the boxes.






Here's Bizoo with a "friend." 

The shelves in my studio and the tv/guest room had to be painted, so we hired a terrific handy man, who helped us before. He's a musician, actually. He had his ukelele with him and played a bit for me. Wow, what a nice treat. Newly painted shelves and live music.