Process for #43 series

Base board

Start of adhering papers to board

Board with all paper bits adhered to it

resulting 4 cards

 This is the process that I described in the previous entry.  I thought visuals might be nice.










I limited myself to three different pieces of paper from my stash.
















I covered the base cardboard allowing the original affixed labels to remain visible.

I turned the cardboard over, and cut it into as many standard postcard sized pieces as I cold with as little waste as possible.

#43 series

"Random"

 I was worried yesterday that I wouldn't be able to do Mail Art that I liked today. I was just so pleased with Yesterday's cards. What to do?

"Random"

"Random" (al azar)

"Random"

Here is was, only day 43 and I'd be done!?

Then, this afternoon,  I listened to a radio interview with Noah (my son, the 365 guru) and he said that it was just about making something every day. That took pressure off of me. I didn't have to make art, or something that I liked, I just had to make something.

I decided that, rather than think about what I was going to do, I'd use a technique that I shared with students in my studio classes, for making an edition of Artist Trading Cards.  It involved randomness.

I had a large piece of cardboard, the backing from an old framed photograph. It had labels on it. I covered the entire piece with bits of three different pieces of paper from my stash. Then I turned the cardboard over and randomally cut 4" x 6" (11.25 x 16.5) pieces from it. I managed to get 4 of those sizes, and some scraps, one of which is a nice little 4" x 5" collage that I'll keep. When I turned the cards over, I was happy with the results. I only needed to add another piece to one card to satisfy my compositional taste.  Voila, random!  Oh, yes, #43 will be sent to someone
who has supported and encouraged me. He's smart, fun loving, creative
and inspiring, and more.

#42 series for my MailArt365 project

H.H. Tribute

 I recently learned that there is a Fan club for Hannah Hoch. She's was a collage artist, or photo-montage artist, associated with the DaDa movement. I like her work very much and decided that the piece I wanted to send to the fan club would be a tribute to her. This series is entitled "H.H. Tribute."

#42a H.H. Tribute

#42b H.H. Tribute

#42d H.H. Tribute

 The "a" card is going to the Fan Club. The #42 card is going to someone special in my life, who always encourages and supports me, and has amazing energy, wit, intellect, oh I could go on and on, but I won't.

#42c H.H. Tribute

More happy mail box day - in and out

 I received mail from several people today, happy mail box, for sure, happy me!  I like the saying on this one. There have been many times in history, recently too, where people have thought differently and you know what - tried to ban some art. Guess they forgot this saying.

 This is part of the front of a very richly encrusted rectangular piece of mail art. It was great to see how this mail artist took so many bits and pieces and made a "whole" out of them. Very nice.

 This is series #41. I forgot to put the number on the actual one until after I scanned it.

 This is #41, with the parrots. The recipient will recieve the card WITH the number affixed to it.

As you can see, I just couldn't stick with the color experiment theme. I had to add birds. So many scraps to use up. I'm only on day 41 BUT I've already sent out about 79 cards and it doesn't look like I've made a dent in my stash of paper! aaaagh.

Good Mail Days

Andrea's mail

 I've been really fortunate to receive some terrific Mail Art. Some from people who are participating in the MailArt 365 project and some from my long time mail friends. What a joy to get real mail, right?

 This is my #40 series. I'm using up the big sheets of solid color paper that I gleaned from a design or art magazine at some point. Big sheets of color, exciting. I stayed with just color, kind of experimenting, and trying to be somewhat random. I wanted it to appear that I just tossed the bits onto the paper and glued them down.

 But of course, you can see that is NOT how it turned out. I had to control what was happening.

 I like the way the spatial changes take place. What's on top, what appears to be a hole in space, what's the background, some ambiguity going on, I hope.

 This one really pops a lot moire on this page than in person, I think. I'll have to wait to see what the recipient thinks. Since I made these over the weekend. They just got mailed today.

This is a 4" x 6" standard postcard, so why did it turn out so small? I had the same setting as for the #40 series images. So strange. The same with Andrea's mail. Small. hmmm. This one came from one of the MA365 group. Nice!

My #39 series & a unique 1 of 1 card.

 I'm not feeling well today. A cold caught up with me on Thursday afternoon and is now quite at home with me. I'm sneezing, and coughing, the usual cold symptoms. I used my day indoors to do lots of Mail Art pieces and used up a lot of colored paper from my stash.

 The backgrounds were from large pages from an art magazine that were solid color. A real treat to find them ages ago. I decided to do random color experiments. Not sure what they mean or conclude but fun to do and look at. Very random.

 This one had a portion of a quote on it and I like the way it sounded like a poem when I said it out loud, so I left it on the piece.

 This is the one I labeled #39, the others are the a, b, c ones of the series. I'm sticking to this method of numbering, I think I like the way it keeps me organized.

This is a special card for my artist/musician friend in Chicago. She said this quote the other day while we were chatting on the phone. I remembered that I had an image of it. Some artist had put it on Two buildings in New York City as an installation piece.  Have you read the Jon Kabat-Zinn book by the same name? It was very good.

I'm hoping I'll feel way better tomorrow, though I'll be making Mail Art no matter what.

The #38 series and a cool shadow.

Add caption

 I didn't get down to making Mail Art until this afternoon as when I awoke I was feeling like my cold was getting worse. I stayed low energy and pumped myself with homeopathics and tea. By Afternoon, I felt like going into my studio to make some art.  I started with some of my topographical maps as background and then using the 3 rule (a section of color counting as one) I made these three in the #38 series.

 It was fun to find that I had more legs in my stash and more cars. I have even more cars to use up.   It'll be interesting to see what I make at the end of the year, when most of the scraps are gone. Right? I'm assuming that I'll use it all up.

 Looks like this man is dropping down into the convertible!

We're having some work done in our house. Yes, more work. This time, we had the window on the west side of the house covered over with wall board. It looked out on the house next door, only 24" (61cm) away from our house, so we had a shade on it. Now it's just a plain wall and we'll put up a display shelf. When I walked past the ladder today, the shadow looked so nice to me that I had to photograph it.