Mail Art, Mail Art, Mail Art - So much fun!

2016-#2

2016 #3

2016 #4

 The first pieces of 2016, except #1 which I posted previously.

I altered a card that our friend sent to us to tell us of his open house. He makes wonderful ceramics.

2016-#5

2016 -#6

Here I altered a very old postcard from Russia when it was the USSR. There are postage stamps on the reverse but the card was never used.










I got into adding big people again, so it seems! Here a figure over looks a lovely landscape in Arizona, USA.










I still have a few card left from the time the fine arts museum had a huge sale. It was when I purchased all of the Tiny Town postcard. It took awhile before I could find the right thing to alter it with. I think the woman looks quite splended in the grapes. Don't you?






Here's another BIG person, walking in water. I"m called her Big Martha for some reason. It was one of my grandmother's names, and I've been thinking about her a lot lately.
She came to America as a young woman but I can't find much information about her or her background. Oh well.

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.

Saturday night Mail Art catch up

#215

#216

#217

 Gosh, these look nice as a little grouping.  An altered Picasso postcard, a bird in a gallery looking at an image I inserted, a Matisse woman looking out at us for International Woman's day! These are for my 365.2 Mail Art project.

#65

#66

#67

These next three are for my 365.3 Mail Art project - an altered Picasso postcard, an owl hanging out in an architectural setting with an altered window, and a mother and child from a 1956 National Geographic Magazine in recognition of International Women's Day.

















These are the cards Wednesday through Friday of this week. It's already late on Saturday and I've not scanned my cards for the day. I just finished making them, running late today because I've been busy finishing up some knitting, while watching episodes of Firefly on DVD. A very relaxing Saturday!

My African violets are so gorgeous right now. That green plant in the foreground is my miniature rose bush. I don't see any more buds on it, but I'm hoping for another little rose eventually. I am liking these flowering plants very much.

Mail Art and the storm!

 This is the scan on my old Epson scanner - which has just gotten very tired!

 I scanned this postcard on our HP printer/scanner that is new-ish. What a difference. Wow, I hadn't realized how tired the Epson was.

 This is Mail Art #85 (scanned on HP) I just made it and dedicate it to the impending storm frenzy. It's entitled  "Sandy waited patiently for her namesake storm, while all about her fretted."

Isn't this pretty? It's our Carillon in Byrd park. We were there on Wednesday night  with lots of other volunteers, for our assignments for the Rally for Obama on Thursday. The sky was beautiful, the flag lit up, the lights at the top, so dramatic.

And my little old-school phone still takes a good photo, right?

The storm is due to land on us on Tuesday. I'm off to the market, hopefully there is still some food and flashlight batteries left. People get so intense preparing for storms.

Mail Art and more NYC

#53

#54

#55

 Okay, I'm going through a phase it seems! People in the lower corners of the compositions is trending! As well as, dots! and a bit of Washi tape thrown on for good measure, at times.








The women in these two cards are from very different eras. I love that the hair styles are similar.  I'm using cardboard cut from cereal and cracker boxes. I'm so fond of the color and texture of that.








Here I used two pieces of paper that were right at hand on my table. The black paper and the woman were perfect together. I added random text to make a sort of poem. The woman is so happy doing her job, whatever that is. Well, maybe not "happy" but wait, she's a model. Of course, she's happy. She's pretending. I love old advertisements.





This photo was taken at the top of The New Museum located on Bowery St. in lower Manhattan.

 I was pointing north west and captured a bit of the building surface. It was so cool to look down on the street and to look across Manhattan, and yet not be TOO high up.  We saw an excellent exhibit on holograms and "Ghosts in the Machine," which was very cool!

 Here's the window of a tiny shop - with the name there and a subtitle of Shop Mom & Pop. There were all sorts of handmade items, mainly made by people in New York, or in the U.s. Everything from Soaps to Childrens' toys. Very cool little place. If you're in the West Village, stop by and say "Hi."

We were so happy that we saw these sculptures, after having seen the exhibit at the Whitney of the work of Yayoi Kusama, and also, the windows of the Louis Vuitton shop in Chicago (remember that post?) 
These sculptures were in the park along the Hudson River. There was a sign saying NOT to sit or lay on them. ha ha ha ha, who reads signs?! People were really enjoying these. Click HERE for a link to see more of the park and a building on 14th St. wrapped in her work.

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.

#88 series, the letter Y

"Why"

#77 series, the letter N

 Some days everything falls into place. It just happens.

 The letter "N" series is based on two things, a composition by Gauguin  (a self portrait with a yellow wall behind him and his image in the lower left) see below, and the dictum "if you have 4 things, use three.

The mat board was blue and I saw it as a really good background for these simple compositions.

I saw this painting in an issue of France magazine this morning and it just got stuck in my head when I went into my studio. What an inspiration.

#74, 74a & 74b, the letter K, and our garden

 I had more of the playing cards to have fun with, and how perfect for the "K" day. Also, someone in Belgium put out a mail art call "The King" so this was perfect for that call.   I love this woman's pose and so does the king.

 This beauty comes from the 1949 Photography magazine. What a look and notice the king looking at her. She's going to someone with a "K" in their name.
I didn't cover these with laminate. I may coat them with matte acrylic, however.

 In this king card, I liked the way the woman and the king are facing the same direction. She is definitely enjoying what she's viewing but can't tell about the king.
She's going to Europe, where it looks like she came from. What do you think? What country?

 Today we had three workers continuing the backyard/jardine makeover. I'm pretty happy with the way it's going as I can visualize the end result.

These men worked so steadily and accomplished so much in the time they spent back there. They'll be done more quickly than we thought. How nice. They're from Guatemala, which I may have mentioned, so I'm getting to practice and, hopefully improve, my Spanish. Today I learned the work for bathroom sink.

#73 & 73a, the letter J

 "J" is the letter of the day, and these two women, from back in 1949 (scored an old Photography magazine over at Whiting's Vintage Paper) just seemed so full of joy to me.

In #73, the background is art work by an artist from Uzbekistan, what he called a paper etching.
These are being sent to people whose names contain the letter "J."

Mail Art & more

#24

 I'm really excited about combining all the bits that I've saved for ages into these little compositions. You can see that I've saved faces, stamps, and butterflies, and there'll be more with these during the 365 project.

#24A

I can't just make one. I put a couple of the bases out and then go at two or more at once. It's just so satisfying.

A surprise.

I bought a box of Clementines yesterday. This morning Chuck showed me what he found in the box. It's some figure, maybe Manga? One arm is missing, and both legs. What is it? Anyone know? My guess is that, since the container only has some plastic netting on it, a child put this toy into the box, or accidentally dropped it in.  Funny.

Mail Art and Christmas lights

Grove Avenue houses

 These neighbors keeping adding more and more lights each year. I learned from a friend who lives across street from this display, that they now turn it off at a certain at night. They used to let it go all night, which was disturbing people's sleep! It's pretty impressive.

#21

This card is #21 but I thought it was #20 because I had a "20" in my little tin. I forgot to affix it to yesterday's card. Oh well. Anyway, today was a busy Mail Art day. I created two this morning. Then this afternoon, while hanging out with Noah as he was doing a book signing of his 365 book, I made 2 more.

I've been saving faces from paintings for awhile. I really like using them. This one, in 21A really draws me into it. Such a sweet look.

#21A

#21B

 I brought with my traveling Mail Art kit to Fountain Bookstore, and one of my tins of scraps. I was happy that I had a few butterflies in the tin so that the two cards looked like a series.

#21C