Catch up time -

Blue Bird of Happiness, my new ink!

So many things have happened since my last post. I don't know where to begin! So I'll begin with my new body ink. I had wanted to change up the little purple heart for a year and finally was able to do it. It's blended into the blue bird  so nicely. I'm very happy about this. Thanks to my dear friend, Amy, super #1 tattoo artist in RVA.

We left for a trip to Philadelphia and NYC the weekend before last (right after my ink work.) While away, I made only 4 pieces of mail art. Long story made short, I got sick with bronchitis and didn't have much energy, though the trip kept going. These hens went to my little neighbors whose chickens couldn't stay with them.

 I am SO fond of this piece. I used a Miro painting for the background, a Japanese postage stamp on top of that, and the four lawn chairs on top of all, with some stick on letters for fun. I love that it looks like the chairs are in front of a wall mural. Right?

 Skulls were on my mind because we were in Philadelphia at the Mutter Museum for the 2nd annual Skull Appreciation Day event.







Simple works for me - I had a exhibit card that I cut in half. I added the stamp and the two letters. It works. I think it has a nice quality of depth. What do you think?

I'm hoping to get back to making mail art now that I'm feeling better. I'm at #942. I'd wanted to get to 1000 by my birthday; I've only 58 more to make.  yay!

Spencerian calligraphy

My tattoo is based on the Spencerian calligraphy by Michael Sull that my friend Amy found for me in a book about calligraphy. I simplified it from the original as you can see. About a month ago, a friend sent us a catalog that she thought I'd like to use for collage, but instead, we found this glass plate for sale and Chuck got it for me as a treat. How cool is this? No attribution to the image on the plate so we don't know if it's a Michael Sull or an old Spencerian design. In any case, I love having it.

Bonding

My younger sister and I had a bonding experience. We gave ourselves purple hearts. Ever since we each broke something in our bodies spring of 2006 (withing a month of each other), and went through our healing, we talked about getting a tattoo. Lots of talk about what to do resulted in nothing. Then I went to LA for Mom's birthday and, one night, the idea of a heart came up. I'd been thinking about it, after reading my friend Sara's last dialogues with her Mom, where she'd said "follow your heart."









The heart is purple, the droplets are aqua, it's colorful, kinda comic, joyful, and was a good thing for us to do.