The Mail Art update post.

The Strong Product

 The first four are my #260 series that I did yesterday. They're my default style, layers of colored paper and a circle.

The No-Homomorphic Lemma

 The circles are cut from photos of closeups of things, like ferns and oil slick and mushrooms and such.







I can't remember what these were but I thought they were very cool. They give a lot of depth to these cards.

Hypercubes are Sparse

 The asemic line is 9B graphite. I sprayed the cards with Matte fixative to make them a bit water-resistant and keep the line from smudging.

The Direct Product

I entitled these with mathematics related words, which I totally don't get but were in the index of my neighbors new book.

Projeções e Camadas (Projections and Layers)

 The circles appear to have a relationship to outer space, when they're really inner space (microscopic views.)











 These last two were created this afternoon. The top circle was punched out of the top layer of paper, so we can see the lower layer color showing through. However, the illusion is that the yellow circle is on top of the brown, right? I like that effect. The asemic line was done with an ink brush pen. It's title is in Portugues because I'm sending it to Portugal.

Three Fundamental Products

The hole was punched in the top layer of paper to expose the color below. The pink-ish circle is what was removed. The line, which I really like for it's delicate-ness, was done with the ink brush pen.

"art mail" from Sage and Nate

 Yesterday evening, as I was started to prepare dinner, the door bell rang. It was Sage and Nate, my little neighbors. They had on their cycling helmets, and I could see their little bikes out on the sidewalk. "Remember you told us about that art mail, well this here's some for you," said Sage." This is what she handed me.

Isn't this the cutest? I love the dog with the curly tail and action back legs, and the smiling sun. The message is quite clear.  Nate has a new dog of his own; Sage definitely thinks we need one, too.

I decided to make them some Mail Art, which I'll send off in the mail today rather than handing it to them. Since they'll show theirs to each other, I thought I'd make a bit of a story line.

I'm so fortunate to have small neighbors who pop in on me from time to time.

Cool water and Mail art

 We went to the pool early this morning and oh boy the water was sooo chilly, but it felt good to be doing water exercise.  Afterwards, I "chilled out" for a bit to read. I'm really engrossed in the bookclub book for this month. At Home by Bill Bryson. SO informative. I highly recommend it. But then, all of his books are so filled with facts.

 The cool water was rippled by the movement of the breeze. No one was in the water, just the gentle wind making it move. Pretty, right?

 Here's another card that I did using the cut up cover of a pad of water color paper. So little needed to make it a compostition.

For today's mail art, I used paper on which I'd printed that atmospheric photo from yesterday's post. It turned out too big, and too dark, BUT it worked just fine when I cut it up. Part is the background and part the piece with the circles. I like the way it turned out. Very spatial and somewhat ambiguous. I'm sending this to Spain for a mail art fundraiser for Multiple Sclerosis research. I hope it gets through the mail unscathed.

Mail art, of course, bean spread and more

 Just a bit of atmosphere on this cloudy day. I took this photo last week. I really like how it looks like a painting or a pastel piece.

 This is today's mail art for my 365 project. I'm using a substrate of pieces cut from the cover of a pad of water color paper. It was such a nice weight that I couldn't just toss it into the recycle bin. It required very little added to it. Title: "Void-Filled #2" and it's being sent far away.

I decided that I needed something made with beans, since I know they are very good for us and have lots of protein and fibre. I put the recipe here.
I spread it on a thinly sliced whole wheat bun, added some spicy mustard and some havarti cheese. YUM! Just what I wanted for lunch.

Now, off to the post office to mail all of the mail art I made this weekend, and to the bank to deposit my earnings from the Jonny Z Festival. A generally relaxing day since I'm not doing marathon sewing.

Post Festival resport and some mail art, of course.

 Here I am, at my table. I got a good spot partially under a tree, which was helpful when it started to drizzle (twice.) I had my four baskets full of stuff, including one with my wool mitts. I wasn't sure that was a good idea on a hot day, but I sold one of the really nice ones made from Japanese yarn (a silk mixture.) I'd brought with a plastic cloth and when the drizzle started I put the display board against the tree trunk and three the cloth over the table. It worked well. I did about the same in sales as I did the previous year, when there was no rain, so I'm quite pleased. And I was, also, QUITE tired. We packed up at 5h15 and went for some dinner but I could barely eat, got home, unpacked the car, brought stuff to my studio, then crashed into bed, fully clothed. I slept for 5 hours, woke and had some tea, read a bit, did the accounting for the sale, then back to bed for another 6 hours. Today, I'm just chilling. Tomorrow, I'll start to post some things in my Etsy shop.

 Here's a photo of the street, looking towards the band area. The band was good, and loud. Note the guy doing a headstand in front of them.

 This is from Friday's time at the pool. Ducky was hanging out by the "cave." 

#256

 I recycled the front of one of my birthday cards. It's one of those very detailed illustrations of a French shop. I was happy to find this gal (from a painting) to alter it with, and give it a French title. I'm sending it to the person who gave me the card. She speaks French. The title: "Quand Suzette a rendu visite à sa mère, elle lui a toujours apporté quelque chose spéciale du Cremerie."

#257

This is today's card.

My fatigue from yesterday prevented me from doing anything that required much thinking or a catchy title. This one is called: "Void-Filled."

Big day tomorrow! Mail art and more.

 This was yesterday's card and I had the best time thinking of a title for it. "The flash from Ray's camera let the Tiny Town residents blind for two days. They were not happy about his visits."  When I posted this on Facebook,  I got some funny comments. What fun.

 Today's card combines a monkey (or orangutan?) with the Cycladic Greek statue again. I've been really lucky to find these animals that the statue can balance on, right? I like making hats for them, too. The title of this one is The Balancing Act: "Yes," she thought, "we can stand like this for hours."

 Here are some cards I got from my friend Andrea, over in the U.K. She is very productive, I don't know how she has time to make all that she does. Inside the cards, she included tags and messages, some of which I send on to others that need a smile in the mail.

 This came from Diane in Illinois. Nice old papers and some silver foil. Diane asked if I'd received the sand, but I hadn't. She'd sent me some sand from a beach that I was familiar with in Chicago. Funny, her sand from 1149 miles away (1849km) didn't get to me, but a plastic baggie of sand from Normandy Beach in France, sent from Paris got to me. That's 6304 kilometers (3917 miles) away. And the stamp had fallen off somewhere. Isn't that amazing?

 The pool was so still this morning. The sky had lots of little puffy clouds in it, and the sun was somewhat obscured. See the reflection of the clouds? We did our exercises and by the time we were done, the sky was clear and the sun was hot.

 This is the mail that I got today from my friend Katerina in Greece. She mails them in envelopes and these two cards have some bits on them that I sent to her.

Here's one of my Pockets (small purses) that I made last year, from fabric & a button, that Andrea sent me. I donated it to the Richmond Peace Education Center's fundraising auction.
Tomorrow is my big event of the summer. I have a table at the Jonny Z festival, oh I've been telling you about this. Well, I'm all ready! The goods are packed up, the display board and signs are ready. The easel and chair have been dusted off. I'll be setting up around 11 a.m., and ready to go at noon. Fingers crossed that the weather will be nice, not hot, not humid, not raining, just nice with lots of people out enjoying the event.

Today's Mail Art, more Pool time, and more

 These are today's Mail Art (#253 series) to which I gave titles from my neighbor's book about maths and graphs.

 These are a bit bolder and I'm not sure if I like their dark-ness.

 The paper is from the 1965 McCall's magazine. I think it was a Larry Poon's painting on display at the Albright-Knox museum.

 I feel that the line quality was a bit controlled. It was as if I were thinking more about it, rather than letting my hand/arm just move in the gesture. I'll keep trying with this type of card. I really do think yesterday's were more of what I'll try to achieve.

 Is this gorgeous of what?! It's the pool water. The pattern is so beautiful to me.

 Here's Duckie, lolling around, enjoying the sunlight at 8h30 a.m.

 This is a view looking down at the basket holding all of my production for the Jonny Z Festival. 63 items!

Here are the hang tags. I made them all this afternoon. The care instruction labels go on the reverse. Tomorrow, I'll put them on all of the items, and work on my display board and signs. I'm on schedule with this event. yay.