What's been going on?

#72 re-d0

#104

#105

 Here are some recent pieces of mail art, including one that I added pieces to related to music. I sent it to a Mail Art call exhibit in Columbia - theme city of music.

#106

Besides, making my own Mail Art, I've been busy scanning mail coming in for the bicycle themed exhibit.  This is in conjunction with the UCI World Races which will happen very soon here in Richmond, VA, USA. Exciting!

Oh I have to get busy posting and making signs and lists of participants for display at the venue.

 We took a few days away from the city. My DIL found a lovely Airbnb for us to stay in at Duck, NC, on the Outer Banks (OBX)

It was a great location, short walk to the ocean, and to the sound.

It was wonderful to hear the sounds of the waves, again. Two of the days, the no swimming flag was up, as the ocean was wild! We were sad to say good bye but are already thinking of our next stay there.

Some alterations.

2015 - #102

2015-#103

I received postcards this past week from friends who had been traveling.

The first was from Iceland.

The second from Colorado.










Of course, I had to alter them and send them back to the senders. Won't they be surprised?

Oh this is such fun to do.
Try it sometime, you'll like it.

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.

A new month! When did this happen?

#92

#93

#94

 The sky/water series above were created by adding circles to some photographs that a friend gave me. It's rare to have an actual photo to work on these days, right?
I never have any of mine printed. I post to Instagram, or a blog, or Facebook, and that's it.

Working on top of the photos required my Pioneer brand glue stick to get a good adhesion to the surface. We'll see how they do going through the postal services.

Here's Bizoo on his favorite cushion, which I happened to be using in this chair. Soon as I got up, he went for it. So happy!




This is a sticker collage that Z made recently. I have to scrounge around on my work table to find new stickers for her. I'm giving up Cavallini stickers even! She loves doing this and I love watching her compose the composition. She likes to layer the stickers and she doesn't care about right side up or down. I want to emulate what she does. 
"J'ai mis toute ma vie à savoir dessiner comme un enfant." Pablo Picasso

Mail Art and more, life almost back to normal.

#89

#90

 Here are a group of artists' show cards that I minimally altered.

I'd spent some time cutting out images, since I spend a lot of time sitting around these days. It keeps me from nodding off to sleep!

 

 

#91

I'm starting to feel more myself, now that I'm going out for physical therapy, and getting stronger. This is a very good feeling, to state the obvious.

I want to share with you some of the lovely trays my honey brought to me for various meals.

breakfast

dinner

 Healthy cookies by my friend Mary.














This is a dinner of food from various friends. Lentil soup from Roshan, with her pasta salad in it, veggie tarte from Beth Ann, cheese spread from Eileen.

dinner

 Here's another dinner with the soup, and cheese spread, plus chickpeas and a bean spread. And my honey gave me 2 choices of crackers!

breakfast

Here's a simple breakfast on a day when I
didn't feel like eating much.

dinner

 Here's another lovely dinner, with the veggie tarte, some of Roshan's rice, salad, and left overs from my birthay dinner (Japanese food.)

You can see that I didn't go hungry during the early days of my recuperation.

And my honey presented everything so appetizingly, didn't he?

Now I'm able to go downstairs and eat at the kitchen table. Yay.

More about what's happened.

 I'm home bound for another week, with in-home PT. I'm doing well, getting stronger, walking with a cane.

People have been so kind and thoughtful. I've gotten cards and flowers, and candy, food, and visits.

My hunny has been very supportive.




And then another thing happened, last week on my birthday, my mother died at noon. She was old, as regular readers of my blog know, but still - on my birthday! It put quite a twist on the day.
She was 101 and left us in her sleep.

She lived 3000 miles away from me, and as I'm home bound couldn't travel there.

So I'm remembering and honoring her memory, here at home.

This is part of the headband she wore when she worked at the Orange Crush stand during the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois USA. It had an orange ribbon threaded through it that tied around her head with a bow at the nape of the next. She must have looked adoable with her engaging smile and big brown eyes.

 

N, J, and Z came over the evening of my birthday and brought me a lovely cake and we ordered Japanese food. It was lovely. 

M came in from NYC a few days after my birthday, and brought me two birthday gifts - they were perfect and just what I wanted.

A felt pigeon by Mother Pigeon  and a vegetarian cookbook The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook. I can't wait until I can get busy in the kitchen.

It's been an interesting summer, so far.
My sad and disbelief goes in and out.

The card from my friend in Ireland says it all, Speedy recovery, happy birthday, and condolence.
So it goes.

What happened!

#84

#85

#86

 4 days after my previous entry, on the 12th of June, I had an unfortunately encounter with a cement floor.

The next morning, I was in surgery and when I came out, I had a new hip.

It's been like a strange dream, I can't believe it happened to MOI!!



While in hospital PT and OT, my hunny brought me some supplies and I made several collages.

That made me feel more myself.

I had a bunch of bits cut out and hunny brought those to me so I had good material to work with.

#87

#88

I'm happy I had lips and hands and eyes, amonth other things, and black paper. How convenient!

All of these are little narratives. All they need are titles, and maybe stories.

#86 reminds me of the book I started by Neal Stephenson, for some reason. It's called Seveneves.















The word is from an envelope that I received. It looked handprinted on it, and I liked it a lot so I saved it.

It was perfect for this collage on the day that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the equality of marriage.