A new month! When did this happen?

#92

#93

#94

 The sky/water series above were created by adding circles to some photographs that a friend gave me. It's rare to have an actual photo to work on these days, right?
I never have any of mine printed. I post to Instagram, or a blog, or Facebook, and that's it.

Working on top of the photos required my Pioneer brand glue stick to get a good adhesion to the surface. We'll see how they do going through the postal services.

Here's Bizoo on his favorite cushion, which I happened to be using in this chair. Soon as I got up, he went for it. So happy!




This is a sticker collage that Z made recently. I have to scrounge around on my work table to find new stickers for her. I'm giving up Cavallini stickers even! She loves doing this and I love watching her compose the composition. She likes to layer the stickers and she doesn't care about right side up or down. I want to emulate what she does. 
"J'ai mis toute ma vie à savoir dessiner comme un enfant." Pablo Picasso

I'm on a roll!

#170

 Since, I'm in a catch up mood, I'll post some of the other pieces of Mail Art that I've made. More of my exploring the Inktense and water color pencils.

#171

I added some collage bits to these, just because. I'm particularly pleased with #172, the way the large circle appears to be part of the water color area.

#172

An acquaintance invited me to submit something to an exhibit in one of her Micro Gallery projects. She wanted 30 items, Mail Art for people to take away. 
 Since I do individual cards, usually, this would have been difficult, but I thought of the prints from another project that had gotten water damaged. I was able to cut away the borders, where the damage was, and ended up with postcard sized works. They're photos that were printed up for an exhibit I had several years ago.
It was called the New Jersey Turnpike Project. I would take photos, not driving, allowing the irregularities in the roadway, to cause the camera to move. The results were such fun. Lots of lights along the strip from the Holland Tunnel to Exit 11, if you know that route.

Here's a photo of the grand girl contemplating the big Buddha, at VMFA.

Yahrzeit for my father.

Fourteen years ago today, my father died. I remember him with words he shared with me, which I'll share with you: Choose to be happy.

What a guy!

A Shameless Plug!

Body of Evidence

A Shameless Plug: My honey is celebrating the first anniversary of the creation of his Body of Evidence  Book Art. 

This is quite exciting and because of this, he's offering 10 of them for sale now in advance of the holiday season. They are amazing, I must tell you this. Really, they are, and I wish you could all see them in person. Check them out at his new site. The link is HERE.  And

SHARE with others whom you think might enjoy seeing this art work.

You can see more of his amazing work on his Facebook Fan page, and his website.

Shameless plug ended.

when I open my eyes in them morning, Bizoo is standing guard.

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.

Catching up from last week, continued -

 There was an amazingly large dog sculpture on display at the Hirschhorn.
I was so excited to see it that I forgot to look at the name of the artist, but I did capture this photo with a man taking his souvenir image. The man surely gives the dog scale; otherwise, you might think this was just an ordinary dog, right?

 As we crossed the National Mall, the sky was so beautiful, I had to stop and take this photo of the Capitol building looking so white and lovely. I wasn't alone snapping a photo. There weren't so many tourists, since it was Thursday, but whoever was out and about, noticed how clear the light that day.

 At the Hirschhorn, the Barbara Kruger installation is still in place. I had to take another photo to share. Isn't it powerful to see text so large?

 The collage exhibit that we went to see at the Hirschhorn, contained one small room with some Joseph Cornell boxes. This is one of my favorites. 

 I was, also, pleased to see two Ray Johnson collages. Here's one that I took that is fairly clear. These were framed and under glass, to be sure.

#249

This Mail Art memory piece has a photo that I took a long time ago, and a negative strip that doesn't look familiar. It might be from my old friend's photo album. As I was making these, I was having such moments of memories.

#250

This is a found photo. I have no idea who the people are. I like that it is quite small and in duplicate. The film strip is mine, our visit to Recoleta cemetery in 2004 or maybe 2005, I can't remember the date, though I remember the experience. Does that happen to you, also?

#251

This is an altered art card from an exhibit here in town. The birds are there because a Mail Art friend is doing a bird-a-day for a year Mail Art. This is going to her.

This Mail Art is an altered show card, too. It's one of our friend Keith Long's cards, from back in 2008. He makes sculpture from found wood.  We've stayed in his studios, both in New York City and in Paris, thus having the privilege of seeing his works in progress. Then we'd seem them in galleries as finished works. Process is very exciting!

Because I'm emptying out the stored boxes, and clearing things out - gone - I've come across old student work. I saved examples for future classes but now won't be teaching them any more. This is from 2006, a class about color exploration. There is no name on this example so I can't contact the student, sadly, I don't remember whose work it is. I, obviously, thought it was good enough to save as an example.

Cleaning out is cathartic, right?

Liebster Award!

Wow, how lovely this is! My mail art 365 friend, Chris, http://auchenflowertowhereever.blogspot.com/ has nominated my blog for this award! Thanks so much Chris (ChrisBris) for thinking of me.
Now the hard part, I have to choose 5 blogs, with fewer than 200 followers, to nominate for this award.   S

#1 my DIL at http://jessicascalin.wordpress.com
#2 Margie of the wonderful fotos  & haiku at http://latebloomerbuds.wordpress.com/
#3 just cause it's so fun -  http://thetoothbrushchronicles.blogspot.com
#4 Bridget cause she provides so much information http://beingwoman.blogspot.com
#5 Roberto posts mail art received and sent http://pirosmailart.blogspot.com

Now, for those nominated - I hope you will participate and nominate others.

"The Liebster award (German for Favorite) is usually presented to smaller blogs as a form of recognition and support. 'Smaller blog' is one with 200 followers or less. As a recipient you are to:"

1. Link back to the person who gave it to you and thank them.

2. Post the award to your blog.

3. Give the award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers that you appreciate and value.

4. Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know that they have been offered this award.

Think Small, Mail Art & more

 I'm participating in ThinkSmall again. In the past, I've entered collages and sculptures, but this year I decided to do something conceptual and minimal. I had a small jar that fit the size limitations. I filled the jar 1/2 full with those circles of map that I used to create my skull for the Skull Appreciation exhibit. They're from pages of a Larousse Atlas from 1911 (or earlier.) I call the piece  "Le Monde 1911" DIY collage/100+year old map pieces.   You can shake it like a snow globe and change the shape of the map stacks in the jar.

 These are for my day 331. I used one of the photos labeled 1948 - Opera Martha combined with my photos from back when I was using film.

 I'm very taken by the narrative that gets set up when I combine two disparate photos.

 In today's pieces (day 332) I used a photo that I took at the Tour de France in 1990, in Paris. It's quite uninteresting. I paired each half with half of a photo of my deceased friend's father and his wife.

 The photo of Phil and Pearl was taken in Miami Beach, Florida, USA. I'm using fragments of sentences from an old art history book as titles. "Phil - His emotions woke in me something of a conscious grasp of the problems..."  "Pearl - Expressive emphasis which breaks down their separate identities..."

At the end of my 365 project, I'm going to give away my rubber stamp to someone who's still doing daily mail art.  I"m asking people to send me their name and I'll assign a number, then select the winner via a random number generator. so far, only one person has said that they're interested. Hmmm. I might not need the RNG.

Monday, a new week starting!

 Little Sydney got picked up last night and we were so sad to see him go, but he was so excited to see his people again! So cute. We have offered to watch him any time. It was such fun to have a pup around.

 Syd's people brought us back some treats from their trip.  A whole lot of spices from the spice market in Istanbul.

 I can't wait to make some safran rice!

 Yesterday's mail art, another photo of that Lake, which I know think is Lake Tiorati. I found that it exists!! It's in New York State.

I'm using up old snapshots that a friend inherited and had no idea who the people in the pictures were. They make such fun mail art. I liked how one of the negatives showed up so nicely as a positive.

Clck on this link for something fun.

Friday, already!?

 This is a detail of a watercolor by my friend who died last Dec. Her birthday would have been celebrated last Friday. I think of her almost every day.  I have incorporated part of this in one of my tattoos, so she's with me all the time.

This card was done for yesterday's daily mail art.
It was day #324. I decided to use 4 things
out of a little storage drawer filled with bits.

















This card is day #325's card and I decided to stick with the same drawer of bits, again using only 4 things.  Having a lot of bits already cut out, and a lot of odds and ends, is very helpful to making mail art every single day. It doesn't take very long, though I think that years of teaching basic design comes into play, well, for sure they do. And keeping in mind, simplicity, and not thinking about having to be perfect. Some really wonderful, fun things a have come out of this year's play. I can't believe it's almost over. 

I buy a lot of postage stamps from the USPS, but every once in awhile, I buy some unused, of course, vintage stamps. I don't ask for anything specific, loving the surprise of what's in the envelope. Check out this one! Can you imagine this getting "published" in our current political climate! Okay, postage historians out there, what year was this?

#193, my honey, and Duckie

Standing very still, she showed off her new hat.

 This past week, I received some mail art from Bruxelles, Belgium, the envelope was the art, and inside was a photo of a tree, a note, AND a piece of Belgian chocolate in the form of a gold coin! The chocolate was a wee melted, seeping out a tiny bit, but I peeled the "gold" foil off and handed half to my honey and we had a taste of Belgium. What a surprise treat. I've used half of the foil on this thank you card back to the sender. Doesn't this Cycladic figure (Greek, 2400 BCE) look darling with her new hat?

86F/30C

We gave ourselves a break from pool exercise today and I slept late. I might need to jump into that pool later today as it's going to be another very hot day. Even a pool with water the temperature of a bath will be refreshing.

Last night was the opening of an exhibit of my honey's photos. These are half of the ones he exhibited in Paris spring of 2009. Our friend Geraldine of Ghostprint gallery, took this terrific photo. Check out her site.