Clouds tonight

 The clouds were beautiful tonight.

Mail Art & a 4 o'clock

 This altered CD is being sent to a young person who attended my Mail Art workshop for kids at BBGB. He sent me some Mail Art almost immediately. I think this turned out really nicely. I like the illusion of depth and how the colors worked together to make this sort of a seamless illustration. It's no photo shop, but rather mu usual cut and past. The poem is from random bits of text. If I were the "hang on to all of my pieces" type of artist, I'd hang on to this one for sure. I really like it.  I hope the recipient will like this, oh, I first hope that it makes it through the mail. It's going "naked", not in an envelope.

It's been chilly here, yes, chilly, and gray and drizzly, so no pool for the past couple days. Here's photo of some flowers on my 4 o'clock bushes. This one is giving out two toned blossoms. Pretty cool. I have only 1 yellow bush, which is dismaying as I haven't seen any in the neighborhood to glean seeds from. I like the yellow flowers a lot. I hope my bush produces lots of seeds so I can assume I'll have more bushes in the future in that color. Any ideas about growing 4 o'clocks?

Mail Art & water

#974

 I created this as an example for the children in my workshop last Tuesday. I wanted them to choose a person or animal, some texture, a word and something they could repeat several times. They did a great job! I'll eventually post some of their work.

 

#977

 Here's another of the Louise Nevelson postcards that I've altered. I was right in thinking that it'd be fun to play around with them.









  Here's a boring postcard that I altered. I gave some boring postcards to the children in the workshop with the instruction to make them less boring. They really enjoyed that one.

#978

 Here are some water photos taken at the pool yesterday morning. It was sooo sunny, and we love the way the light plays on the moving water.

Someone remarked that these could also be sky. I think the one above is especially ambigous. Like a science-fiction sky! Right? Some other planet.

Mail Art and water on a hot day.

 I purchased some Louise Nevelson postcards on sale, thinking they'd be fun to alter. This is my first alteration and I really like the way it turned out. I hope Louise would have liked it. We actually met her years ago when she came to give a talk to students at Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn NY,  where my husband was a grad student. I attended because I could, and she was so stunning. She had on thick false eyelashes, white lace stockings, and a turban. Wow! I was in awe.

 I received a "blank" TV from Adamandia, in Chicago, with instructions to fill the screen and send it back to her. What fun! There I am on TV! A collaborative piece of Mail Art. 
Today is the day that I do the Mail Art workshop for children at BBGB. This is so exciting!

The pool was great this morning. The water was a perfect temperature. My swimming is improving, which was my goal for this summer, among other things.
Hopefully, it won't storm tomorrow and we can get to the pool again.

Another week begins, I return to Tiny Town

#972

 I couldn't stay away forever. I'm going to be visiting Tiny Town again, as I find good images to add to it. This one is entitled - "When the BIG tourist season started up again, Tiny Town residents were startled by Eugenia's pale countenance."

#973

Ana in Paris sent me a wonderful piece of Mail Art and in the envelope she included a postcard of one of her art pieces that consisted of circles (or plates?) I couldn't resist, I placed my own circles on top of some of hers. I'm sending this altered piece back to her.

 Saturday, we went to Antique Village on Route 301, in quest of some magazines from 1962. While there, I came on this Fiestaware set. Lovely color. 

 This curious plaster statue attracted me. It's entitled "The Doctor!" Oh I should have gotten it. It could be him in another guise, right? Note the skull at the bottom.  We found magazines for our gift to friends having their 50th wedding anniversary, and I got materials to cut up for collages. We stayed at the place longer than planned as a HUGE rain storm hit the area. It sounded amazing on the metal roof of the building.

This morning, we went to the pool and it was an excellent idea to do that. The water was a perfectly nice temperature. As we were preparing to leave, C spotted something swimming back and forth by the steps on the opposite side. What the heck!! B grabbed a net, ran over there, and rescued a chipmunk. What a surprise for us, and for it!

Now to get back to preparing for a workshop. I'm going to be doing my first ever Mail Art workshop for children at BBGB, our Children's book store. What fun for me!

Mid-week update

 This guy is Mail Art #970. Oh my, only 30 away from 1000! I decided to alter a postcard today, instead of being dotty. The text makes a random poem that turns out not to be so random. The postcard is from the hotel we stayed at in New Orleans, Jan. of 2011. Place d'Armes.

 This dotty card was made yesterday. I like the way only the recipient will know if the dots are punch outs or dots on top. It's one of my minimals. I have to be minimal in some part of my life, since my studio is maximal!!

 Ducky looks like he's alone in the ocean, doesn't he? The water was only 85F this morning and the sky overcast. This photo was taken on a sunny day, as today's photos were sort of blah.

I've posted a few more items in/on my FritziMim Etsy shop. A couple more of the small purses made from vintage tea towels. While I think they are adorable, as well as immensely useful, they aren't generating much interest. What do you think - should I tag them as Tea Bags? Would that get some interest? Or what? Any ideas? I'm going to do a blog post about tea, soon, so maybe that'll get some attention. I have lots of vintage linen tea towels that my honey got for me but don't want to make bags if there's no interest. You know what I mean? Any thoughts welcome.

Starting a new week.

 What a weekend, with unbelievably hot weather. What to do? Make some mail art, that's what.
Here's another altered CD going out into the world. I hope it makes it. I'm sending it to someone on the opposite coast. The last piece I sent her, never arrived. Dang!
This one is called " her smile seemed to see everything. Piano attempted not to stare. For Sure!"

 This is soothing, so cool, so perfect for a hot day. It's going off to someone as a birthday card. Some of the circles are punched holes, some are dots on top of the paper. Fooled you!

 I like these chairs outside of a little restaurant nearby. It was too hot to sit outside of course, but, aren't they inviting anyway?

 Since I was staying indoors to avoid the heat, I thought I'd clean my refrigerator. Also, there was an odd smell in it. It was very satisfying to take everything out & discard odd things. I emptied an old bottle of Liquid Smoke and this is what the bottle looked like emptied. An interesting design left on the inside, residue of smoke? I never found out what smelled, except maybe the blue cheese? I used vodka and water to clean the 'fridge.' It worked great. Have you tried that?

This morning, the temperature was pleasant, the humidity low, and there was a warm breeze. I sat out on the lounge chair with my morning coffee. Here's my view of the bench corner. It's very gray and rain appears to be on it's way.

Since it was cooler, I actually went out in my car (which doesn't have air conditioning) to the post office this afternoon. I mailed this little book, 3.5" x 7", to a Book Art exhibit that will be in Moscow in November. The book is an altered catalog, with 30 pages. I started it in 2008, while in Paris - left it sitting around my studio all this time - worked on it more this past week, and voila Mail Art Booklet completed. I scanned all of the pages in case this doesn't make it to it's destination. Oh I hope it does.