Brrrr - snow, old stuff and mail art

 Last night, we noticed that the water wasn't getting hot, hmmm, and then noticed the room was somewhat colder. We felt the radiators and they were COLD! With the temperature going down to -9C, we were thinking we'd need that second blanket. I called the reception, and barely got out "Bonsoir, Monsieur Le Guardien" when he rattled off in French that they knew about the heat and the repair people were on their way. I guess he'd been getting a lot of calls! In any case, before too long we had heat. When I awoke at 7, I looked out the window and saw this. More snow!

 Here's the scene at 9 a.m. You can see that lots of people have walked past our place. And now at 11 a.m. the snow sweeping machine has been by and swept the top sidewalk clear of snow, the streets having been cleared earlier. It's 21F/-6C. brrrr. But we will go out this afternoon. We're thinking maybe the Gobelins factory, which has a display of contemporary tapestries.

 Here's what we bought at the brocante on Saturday. 2 old almanacs and an old diary. They are very interesting.

 Here's a page from one of the almanacs. The best birds to have as pets.

 This is a page in the little diary. Notice the date - yes, that's right, 1896!! Old penmanship is hard to read; I can make out a bit of what this says. It's about buying plants!

 And here's a close up of the lovely yellow lilies that Zoya brought us the other night when she came for dinner. It's like a bit of sunshine!

 Here's the series of photopostcard alterations that I've done. Anne thinks that I shouldn't mail them out; that I should keep them and do an exhibit. I'm a bit squeamish about that because of using another artist's work as the base.

 Altered with three pieces.

Altered with three pieces.  You can see that I've given myself limitations of only three items to be added. I like setting parameters.

If you missed seeing the work I did for an entire year, during my 365MailArt project, you can go to the set on Flickr, here.

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?

Day 365 of my project - whew!

 These three little books contain the record of my output for this past year. A piece of mail art daily, that was the commitment, though some days there were more; because it turned out that I've sent out 704 pieces of mail art this year.

I can't believe that I met my goal, that I stuck to it, and that it's done.

There are a few things left to do. I'll clean up my area, I'll pack up the scraps and bits and send them to people who are still working on their 365 (and doing collages,) I'll scan the received mail art that I've neglected lately and just piled up on a surface in my studio, and I'll organize all of the addresses of my mail art recipients into an alphabetized list. Okay, so maybe I won't do the last item, which seems a bit much. But here goes on what happened over the year: the best thing was that I got into my studio EVERY DAY. Before this project, I'd let myself get distracted and not set foot into my studio for days. I found that a daily practice was very grounding. I realized that making something everyday centered me and kept me from getting depressed about what's going on in/on/ our poor little planet. I had a group that was supportive, and a few people on the same path, at the same speed. I loved that people would be surprised and happy to receive mail art. I never told ahead of time who the recipients were going to be. I loved getting comments and having people make up their own titles, when I didn't post the titles. Not only did I send out mail art, but I received mail art. I haven't counted the number of pieces but as I'm scanning and sorting and archiving, I might get a count. It was terrific to find my mail box full of such fun. There's more, and I might write about it as the days go on, or not. Since I'd just finished a series of 20 tiny landscapes for the Art-o-mat, I decided to continue with that theme.  Here are my final pieces of my MailArt365 project.

There'll be more Tiny Town, folks. I have more of those Utrillo postcards to alter so the adventure will continue until the cards are used up. See you in Tiny Town and thanks for all of your comments and support during the past year. 

Tuesday, day 364

 I took my time doing today's mail art. I didn't want to do it first thing in the morning. I think I was trying to prolong the second to the last day of my 365 project.
I'd had these Renoir ladies for awhile. It was time to make use of them. 

I won't stop making and sending mail art. I did it long before I started my 365 project. I just won't be making and posting daily.  I have many more copies of this Utrillo street scene, so you'll be seeing Tiny Town in the future.  Tomorrow, I pack up my collage bits and send them off to others for their use. I'll choose a recipient for my MailArt365 rubber stamp and send it off (using Random.org) and I'll write up something about what a year of a daily project has been like for me.

My Maple tree & mail art, nearing the end.

 My mini-maple is such a lovely color. It's dropping leaves now and I picked up this one to scan and share. It's such a delicate shape and the color is so rich. The weather has been very warm, like spring, but the trees are mostly bare (except for the big magnolias and the piney ones.)









 Today is day #363, can you believe it. I can't.
I made two altered Tiny Town cards today
and am thinking that perhaps tomorrow
will be a Tiny Town day, also.

The bird card has attracted a lot of attention on Facebook. I didn't post the elephant one so don't know what the reaction would be. I was pretty pleased with how I was able to make him part of the landscape. By the way, there is NO photoshop involved. I cut the pieces to fit the postcard image & glue them down.

I usually don't plan ahead but since I have only 2 days to go, I'm thinking ahead. The last day, I'll make several cards. I know what I want to do and will probably post later in the day so I can take my time with the cards. Exciting!

Done with Art-o-Mat, almost done with year long project!

 Here it is, my favorite of my tiny landscapes for the Art-o-Mat project. I finished wrapping up today and I'll deliver them tomorrow. The opening event for the 10th Anniversary of the Richmond VA machine will be this Wednesday at the Visual Art Center. Very exciting!

 Today's mail art pieces (day 362, omg almost at the end) were inspired by Josef Albers. 

 I was surprised at how much work goes into making small paintings. Really quite similar to making large paintings but I think I want to do more of these, even after the year long project ends.

 My friend Ann called me this morning to come join her at the VMFA garden, but I was finishing my project and couldn't join her. However, when I finished,  I asked C to join me and we walked over to the park. Here are the stairs leading up to the upper level. The water falls runs alongside. It makes a nice water flowing noise.

 Here's the approach to the park, with the VMFA on the right and ahead of us, the berm (which actually is covering the multi-level parking deck) which is a park area with benches, plants, and sculptures.

I love to photograph this building. I liked the reflection in the pool, with the cat-tails in the foreground. The sky was so blue today. It was spring-like outdoors. We sat for awhile at the top of the berm enjoying the view, getting sun on us, saying how lucky we were to live so close to this lovely place.

the Art-o-Mat project and mail art

 This morning, I finished the sides with white paint to give a finished look to the pieces. The labels are on the back. I need to write the series numbers, 1/20 etc, then wrap with the clear wrapper once the pieces are thoroughly dry., probably tomorrow morning. Yay. I deliver them on Monday morning and Wednesday they get loaded into the machine to be kerplunked that evening. Yay, again.

#360

This painting is inspired by a Kandinsky painting that I saw at the Guggenheim. The installation was more than the painting on display, as it included information about how the painting was done, why it was done the way it was, about the time in the artist's life, all very interesting. 

#361

This painting that I just completed, is inspired by the work of Cy Twombly. We saw a large piece of his at MOMA and a selection of his white sculptures.

This is the second painted Mail Art piece for today, day 361 of the project, oh my, only 4 days to go!! It's inspired by the work of Franz Kline. I've always loved the boldness of this paintings and the minimal quality. I stopped myself from doing anything else with this piece, which was done on cardboard from a cereal box. I like the natural color of the carton as the background.

El dia de accion de gracias, thanksgiving day

 I like the way this day is said in Spanish. It's about the action of giving thanks rather than a title of a day. The day of the action of thanks. I wake up every day, feeling gratitude for my life. I learned this from my mother, who at 97 still says that every day when she awakens.

Today, we are having 4 of our relatives with us, to share a meal. Each bringing something yummy to eat.

These are the "Neat balls" that I made, before they were simmered in a tomato sauce. I'll post the recipe to my recipe blog this weekend.

 My honey set the table. These are the dishes we got when we got married. We still like them and have seen them in two museum collections. Oooh, we are surprised we had such good taste back then.







Here is this year's version of the Sweet Potato Pound cake with a drizzle of lemon icing on it.








This is today's Mail Art (day 359.) I used up the left over paint from my sky changing palette. A mini-action painting!

 I am so thankful for the life I've been fortunate to live and for the people who are in my life, and who I've met along the way, and to departed family and friends, who are still in my heart.

Baking day (and mail art, of course)

 Today, I'm making a sweet potato pound cake. Here's the image of the one I made back in 2008 and here's the link to the recipe, should you want to try it.  It's a perfect cake for fall, though right now we are experiencing a very spring like, about to drizzle day.

 Today's mail art play - use commercial postcards from my stash and alter them with only one or two images.  This is series #358 (only 7 days left in the year long project!)  Someone in Finland send me this card in an envelope, so there's no message on the reverse except a translation of the description. It's a vintage card reproduction.

 This is a postcard that I picked up for free in Dublin, Ireland one year.  I titled this one "We took a wrong turn?"

 The background is a Tiffany stained glass window in a chapel in Petersburg, VA. The little Victorian scrap turned this into something like a music box for me. I don't know why, but it did.

This is another of the Tiffany stained glass windows. I added the butterfly and the old man, who appears to be demonstrating something.

a surprise visit

 My little neighbors surprised me this afternoon with 4 eggs from their chickens. They told me that one of these was the 2nd egg produced. They were so sweet to share with me. Aren't these lovely?

 This is our Art-o-Mat machine. On Wednesday, 30 November, it'll get filled with our tiny artwork, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of it's being in Richmond.  Now to finish my tiny landscapes!

 Day 357's mail art. My title -  "Mama said: Pay attention to what makes sense."

This is the view from my studio window this morning. There's a "hole" in the holly tree and I can see the red leaves on the tree across the street. It was a gray day, it drizzled off and on, however, the people in the market seemed pretty upbeat as they shopped for their day of giving thanks meal fixings.  

Day 356 of my 365 project!

There are only 9 more days to go in my year long project.  After a weekend with Tiny Town, I decided to go minimal today and use just 3 things that were within reach and a blank that was cut from some cardboard (carton.) I used a bit of a photo that I found very intriguing; Swans being transported in a tiny boat.

I'm still working on my tiny landscape paintings. I think I have the ground done. I want to work on the skies a bit more, brighten them up a bit. After that, I'll paint white all around the sides to clean them up. I thought tiny paintings would take a tiny amount of time, ha ha ha, silly moi!

Back in the groove and Mail Art, of course

 What a concept. An artist, in this case Gwyneth Leech, sits in a street level window of a big building, and paints on carry out coffee cups. I think they're used ones.

These are some of her cups on display, hanging in the window. They are really beautiful. What a concept, and a convenient portable art project. I loved seeing it and wanted you to see it, too.

 These four mail art cards are ones that I made on my short trip away from home. We took the train up the coast and I carried the blank cards with me, plus some butterfly stickers and purple dots.

 The phrases were in an advertisement in the Amtrak Train magazine. How fortunate that I was able to have 4 phrases, just the amount needed for the cards that I'd be sending.

 This is the 4th card of the series. I made it on the train home and mailed it from Richmond to Norway.

 I've put a basket full of my small purses (aka Pockets) into this holiday market. If you're in my area, stop by and support local Makers, if you're not in my area, support local Makers wherever you live.

 I'm not much of a spirits drinker. I'll imbibe an occasional glass of wine (except when I'm in France, bien sur) but lately I've been exploring the flavors of beer. I try different local brews and am finding flavors that I like. I prefer lighter brews, whites, wheats, having first tasted them in Holland.

This one was a nice surprise of holiday flavor.  Now to try out some of our local brews. More on this in the future.
Back to painting tiny landscapes.