Mail Art collaborations - a series.

 The cards in this post are a collaboration with my little grand-girl, Zinn.

She's 2 and some months old and is extremely fond of making sticker collages.

She'd lost interest in her "kid" stickers so now she uses my stickers.

 She layers with no interest in direction.
I love that! It's so random looking an yet she does it with intent.

 The past week, she did a number of postcards and when I mentioned mailing them she said that no, they were hers and clutched them to her chest.

I put them in an envelope and she took them all home.

This week, I managed to hang on to a number of the cards, and I added numbers and letters to them.

There's an energy that I love in these.
I wish that I could recreate her style myself, but it's be forced.

For now, I'll collaborate when I'm able to.

This one was sent to a Mail Artist in Japan.
Oh, and I do give her credit on the cards.

Now to hunt up some more stickers for her.

Structures and Mail Art

  I'm very fond of old timey factory smoke stacks. This one is on Hull Street across from ArtWorks. Quite impressive. I don't know the factory that it's attached to, however.

 This structure is across from Plant Zero and can be seen from Hull St. I don't know what it's used for as I've never seen anything being done on it, but I like it and see it as a large sculpture. The electric wires, pole, and lights add to it.

365.2 #270

365.3 #120

 More circles and Washi tape in these pieces of Mail Art. My default when I can't find any images that I like. Actually, I'm running low on images and need to get some old magazines, then I need to spend some time cutting things out.

365.3 #121

These two pieces of Mail art use only 2 pieces of paper for the collage. I cut up an abstract expressionist painting, and these were the scraps left from the main image that I cut out. I decided that I liked the random shapes. These make me want to paint again, for some reason.

365.2 #271

I'm using a coated white cardstock background for these pieces. It's necessary to use a strong adhesive for them. I've been using Pioneer glue stick and it works well.

More catching up on Mail Art

 I think this is hilarious, so I didn't crop out the "fixture." I was at Lamplighter coffee shop last week, having breakfast with a friend. I realized that I hadn't seen the loo that my son had stenciled, so I asked my friend to take my picture in it. I didn't realize until I got home that she left the toilet in the photo. This made me laugh.

#252

#254

#102

#104

#103

#253

These first cards with the white ground were done as a pair. I like the way that the angle cuts make the pieces very planar and spatial. Floating shapes. I'm really happy using these paper samples.









For the cardboard background pieces, I cut paper samples into strips. These were random, but I adjusted a bit to give this a woven look.




































For these last two cards, I used the same strips for each of them but varied the placement and the amount of the color that is in view.  I was experimenting to see if one would look more lively than the other. They seem equally lively to me. Spring, that's what they say to me, spring time!


What about you? Spring time?

More Mail Art and an anniversary

365.2 #236

 Oh I just had to add a bird. It just felt like the day to do that. The gull also needed to be on a light background that reminded me of a pale sky. The red scrap is another of the bits from Katerina.

365.2 #238

365.2 #237

365.3 #86

#87

#88

Here, in the next few pieces of Mail Art, I tossed the strips onto the background. This wasn't as easy as I thought I  would be, as the strips had a mind of their own and wouldn't drop, wanting to stick to my fingers!








I decided that the black background piece really make the strips pop. The other ground weren't as effective.










Here's the other bird piece that I did the same day as the gull. Some days, things just come together!











More randomness.












And more randomness. This is my least favorite of these cards. It just doesn't work as well as the others. Oh well. Tomorrow's another day to make Mail Art.

 This past weekend was exciting in many ways. One of the things that took place, was the 25th anniversary of the adoption agency that I co-founded. In 2000, I retired from the agency. It was really wonderful to see how the agency has continued providing excellent services to families. 

Go to Coordinators/2, Inc. to find out more about the agency.

Here's my face, peeking around the corner of this piece of cake!

The photo on the cake is one that the current Executive Director, amazing Becky, found in our archives. It shows the 3 women who were directors. Myself and Sharon, the co-founders, and Lynn, who we were fortunate to have our board approve as our next in-line director.

We all thought we looked so much better now, than when this photo was taken, but we are all proud of what the agency continues to do. Pat pat pat on it's back!

Sunday - continuing to catch up

#198

 For today's mail art, I used "left over" hole punched paper. I was thinking about how nice this would look. After I put the black background down, it really popped!

#197

Here's another for the Banana Action series.  A banana floating along while water skiers rush by.

#46

The colors in this piece are the punched circles from  #198. Bet you already guessed that. Randomly tossed circles, colors I do not like together, some Washi tape, and voila, a composition. 

#47

The scene is the Indiana Dunes, a memory from my childhood. I put the Victorian girl in the lagoon, since she looked a bit sneaky about something. Surely she'll get a scolding from her ma for this.

#196

More of those awful color circles with a tape of a non-coordinating color. More experimenting. However, in the end, these always seem to work for me.

#48

Here I used the other hole punches "left over" paper.  You can see the circles in use on the previous post. Again, the placement of the black paper as a ground makes the colors really look good. They got lost on the white ground. The funny thing is that after I glued them down, I looked at this and it was like a cute, little face was looking up to the corner to the card. Did you see it?

Sunday - catching up

#197

#194

#44

 I agreed to participate in a Banana action. 11 people signed up so I had to make cards some how related to bananas. After signing up, I was like "what do I do?" Then good mail art friend that he is, Dean suggested: Do what you always do but add a banana. How simple and to the point. So I did.

#45

This is more of my Washi tape and punched out circles play. Randomly dropping circles, this time I decided to use colors that didn't appeal to me when they were together. Somehow, this works.







I think they give a good spatial illusion, and a good example of defying gravity, floating off into the air. What do you think?










I had to get Tiny Town into the Banana Action.  I wrote on the reverse something about the residents of the town getting out recipes that used bananas. Of course, disposal of the peelings was going to be a problem.








I have two old watches. Not so old they're vintage, so they have no value, per se.
Actually, they have no value period. I was told by two different jewelry shops and a jeweler, that fixing them wouldn't be possible. Well, possibly possible if I replaced the works completely, sent the Seiko to the manufacturer maybe, and the other to some one else. Since watches have become inexpensive (or very expensive) fixing them is no long what people do. There are few repairers, and few parts. dang. So what to do with them? I just don't want to throw them into the trash bin. Hmmm, I think I'll pass them on to a person to re-purpose into new jewleery. Dang, is all I have to say. Dang!

Last Thursday, after my Spanish book club met, we stayed on at the cafe to hear the jazz group play. The crowd was large and there was lots of red clothing in celebration of St. Valentine's Day. It was a lot of fun; quite the Best evening.

Saturday catching up

#173

 Here's my random circle collages from the past 4 days. I'm doing two 365 projects concurrently. Why? Because I had a moment of foolishness and flattery. Oh yes, flattery still works. But, since I sometimes make more than one a day, why not.

#23

#176

#26

 Have I mentioned my process for random circles before? I might have. I used this method to teach fundamentals of basic design both at university and at the museum studio school. How I did that is a story for another post.

#25

#175

#174

Making these cards: I choose a background, in the case of these I tore up photos from a book of photos of flowers, close ups.  Then I dropped or tossed random circles on top of that. I allowed myself to move ONE CIRCLE in each case. Then carefully glued them in place.



















As you look at each card, try to guess which circle I positioned. I think you can do figure it out.

#24

Mail Art Out & In

 I had a larger piece of cardboard so I decided to layout 2 pieces at once. I had an idea where they'd be but also wanted some randomness when I'd cut the two out.
I picked out piece of paper from my colored paper pile, randomly, and dropped them down. Then I dropped some circles that I'd cut out last week. I pushed those about a bit to make the compositions work better. The following are the two completed cards.

#33a

I like that there's an illustion of transparency of some sort going on.

#33

Some said that they thought this looked like a bird. What? But then I looked again and I can see that it sort of does. Do you see anything in this random composition?

 This piece is for Jayanna. She acquired 70 targets from somewhere - yard sale? Thrift store? I can't remember. She sent them out to people to do something with them. I, of course, with my supply of circles, went dot happy. The piece is slightly over 8.5" x 11" (22cm x 28cm to be exact.) I don't know why it looks square here. It was fun to do this. At first, I thought I'd color in the squares with different color, but I like the way this turned out. (The person wasn't a very good shot.)

This card arrived from Jeanne, with whom I've exchanged cards for a long time, over many years.