Gray day, some Mail Art, and some sky.

#281

#282

 The other day, someone left a nice comment on my post. She's now included me in a post on her blog - about Mail Art. See it here. 

This postcard includes a photo that I inherited from my friend. She's the littlest girl in the front, surrounded by her cousins.





Today, it's very gray; a rainy day was predicted and we got it! I used some subtle colors from a paper sample book and some random text for this card.

 We've been having spectacular sunsets! Reds and violets that are so intense. There are too many trees in my neighborhood so I don't get the big picture but friends have posted clear shots of the sky on Facebook. Amazing. Does this bode ill or well for us, does it mean that a volcano blew up some where? I remember reading once that some gorgeous sunsets we had years ago were because of that. Anybody? Do you know what these sunsets are cause by?

The photo of the sky above fountain lake, taken last week on the way home from Spanish. I may have posted this before but I really really like it so I'm posting it again.

This was another sky last week. I was driving home from my book club and I pulled into a parking lot so that I could take this photo.

Clouds! Never two the same, right?

The usual, Mail Art +

#16

 As you can see, lower left is still in my mind, and using fewer elements, 3 in this example. I love the minimal-ness. How little can I use and yet make a composition that is satisfying to me?

#17

I had this man for awhile. He's someone famous but I can't remember who he is. The paper in the background is from 1906, a receipt from a French company.  The paper is surprisingly not so fragile as one might expect. This guy needed to be lower right, I wanted him looking off the page. Only 2 elements in this composition, very minimal.

#17a

Here's more of that old receipt. The woman was cut from an image attached to an promo for the State Library of Virginia. Find your ancestors! Not mine, unfortunately. As you know, I can't find out much, not even my maternal grandparents' name they used when they arrived at Ellis Island. 

Mom & family

Here's a photo I took of a large, framed, photo of Mom and her family. I posted it awhile back, probably, but I'm thinking of mom a lot right now. She's 98, and not doing well mentally. In this photo she is to the right of her mother. They, my grandparents,  arrived in the U.S. maybe 1911, through Ellis Island, from Kovno Goberna (that's what grandma said.) She told me that the closest city was Riga. It was all part of Russia back then. I know little about their lives, as they would not share much information about their past in the "old country."   Once my grandmother saw me wearing clogs and told me she wore them in the "o.c." and that she worked the bellows for her father, who was a blacksmith. I'm free to make up any details that I like about their lives. Do you know our ancestry? Or are you free to make up stuff, like I am?

Saturday and another wedding!

 Cheryl Penn, who's a book artist in South Africa, sent me two sets of photos that she'd taken of the top of a table in a painting studio. She asked me to alter and return one set.

 I decided to use a figure that I have multiples of, like this image a lot. I placed her on the photo in a way that I hoped would give the flat surface some depth. I then added a framing device to select a tiny portion of the surface, just as Cheryl had done in her selection of the larger area. I like the way the two images changed the depth and the perception of what was going on.

This is day #326's mail art. 4 bits from a drawer. I have a few more old photos and negatives to play with. I want to use them up before 30 Nov., which is the last day of the project. Yikes.

Here's a bit of information about the stamp in the previous post. My friend, Katerina in Thessaloniki, sent it to me.
It was issued the year our son was born.

 U.S. #1455
8¢ Family Planning

Issue Date: March 18, 1972
City: New York, NY
Quantity: 153,025,000
Printed By: Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Printing Method: Giori Press
Perforations: 11
Color: Multicolored

Earthquake, 23 August 2011

Here's our damage, broken glass in a small framed snapshot. It was on top of a bookshelf and fell off in just the right way to crack up.

Having been in one really bad earthquake in Los Angeles, I feel so grateful that this one, though it felt very strong, did little damage.

It was the most exciting day in a long time. Now we await Hurricane Irene.