Mail Art, clouds, rain, New Year

#43

 Here I've altered a painting by one of my favorite painters, Richard Diebenkorn. I don't know that he's appreciated my dots, but look, they're "flavourful!"


And here's another painter that I like - Kandinsky, who is featured in Mona's thoughts. An altered Mona!

#44

#45

I got an  inquiry from Chris in Brisbane, Australia, about my circles. Did I use a punch and I do! She was going to try to get one. In the meantime, I decided to send some punched out circles to her.  I altered a Max Ernst painting with circles, tucked it in to a sheer envelope with some circles and taped it shut. THEN I remember that I hadn't scanned it. So here it is scanned in envelope and I LIKE the way it looks. The reverse is the address, of course. I hope it gets all the way to Australia okay.


This card was made for Laurance's grandmére in Nancy, France. She said that gram liked to fish as a young woman so fish would be nice. But I thought a rose and an old movie star would be a nice addition. I hope grandmére likes this card.

#45a

 Oh the sky was lovely the other day. Check out those clouds. We were driving to Portsmouth, and I got this as we were headed to the interstate.

Add caption

 Today is a stormy day. I pulled into the parking lot at the supermarket, looked out the window and saw the flag though the rain. It looked so spooky.



Then I stepped out of the car and the wind was so strong that the flag was totally unfurled!

 We had family over on Sunday afternoon for a big dinner to celebrate the Jewish New Year. The food prepared by our niece was scrumptious & our nephew's apple pie YUM. I made my Neat balls and tried a new barbeque sauce recipe from the cookbook Veganomicon. So yummy. 
Here is my little plate of cut up apples and honey.

This is the flower arrangement that my honey made in a small glass. He went out to the back garden and cut some greens and a hydrangea blossom. It sure looks professional, doesn't it?

The Marche au Producteurs, Paris

On Saturday and Sunday, we went to the market set up in the Village St. Paul. People had come in from their farms and cooperatives down the southwest of France (and some central south) to sell their hand made products. We got soap from Savonnerie Saponaire, owned by Ania and Jean-Sebastien Canaux. J-S waited on us, speaking English, which is helpful. Their soap is all natural and smells great. Can't wait to try out what we bought. We got a bottle of wine from this stall because I tasted the Vin Chaud (hot wine) which was a bit different tasting than the one we had in Brussels, but good. She told me that it was made with their wine (a 2005 Merlot) plus sugar, orange, and cinnamon.) I made it last night and it was tasty and felt good after a long cold walk home from a flea market/antique fair. I got one skein of mohair yarn. It's very fine and natural color. The honey stall had delicious spiced honey cake/bread and almond nougat, which we got on Saturday. They both were so tastey that on Sunday we bought more of the nougat. It was so filled with almonds that was very little of the nougat. I was happy to speak with the woman who made it and tell her how much we like it (in French.) We bought honey muffins from another stand, which were also excellent. The only vegetable stand was a Bio (organic) one and he was doing a brisk business. The produce looked great. Leeks, greens, kohlrabi, lots of root vegetables, plus the man had a case of his home made goat cheese. We just didn't know what to choose! There were stands selling snails and offering samples. The smell of the garlic coming from the steaming pots was so good, though I don't eat snails. There were samples of sausage, pate (see the stuffed geese,) chicken, cheese, wine, nougat, and preserves (confiture.) We bought some confiture to give as gifts to some of the staff here for Christmas.

Happy New Year 5768

Happy New Year - Rosh Hashanah 5768!
I had no photo of a shofar, no photo of apples and honey, no photo of a round challah, just some lovely orchids to remind me of the loveliness of the world, to turn my thoughts toward the new year ahead, to hope for peace, for us all, shalom, salaam, paz. For all of us health, kindness, connectedness, compassion.