More round mail art and the back garden

"...bright and sunny..."

 Thanks to my friend BeeBee, who sent me some CDs to play with, I'm able to continue my round mail art series.


I tried some big images and I think they work nicely on these. Looming!

"...and a moment later..."

Go roundies go, roll off to your destination. These are being sent to people in the U.S.A. Wish them luck!

I

Re-working the back garden area. With the help of someone to do the work, and discuss my ideas with me, namely our friend S, I'm getting a garden that I like. This shows the stone path in place. Not done yet. Path to be changed up a bit, pencil trees have been moved, pines in back have been removed. It's getting more to my taste. Wilder looking, less formal. I like it already.

Round Mail Art

 Here's one of the round pieces of mail art being put into the post box the other day. I put no return address on it, as per advise from my mail art friend, Dean. This way, he says, the postal service has to deal with it. Dean's the guy who sent me sand from Normandy Beach in a zip lock baggie, from France. And it got to me!!

 This was headed to the mid-western part of the U.S.A.

This one headed to Canada.  I hope they both arrive! I'll let you know.

Richmond Blooms

 I took my camera along on my walk to the Post Office the other day. The neighborhood is in bloom.

 There are lots of dogwood trees in both white and pink.

 These wisteria cover a fence in front of a house that must be one of the original ones built in this neighborhood. It's like an old farmhouse and has a lot of land around it.








The fragrance of the Wisteria filled the area and lots of bees did, too.

 The sun was bright and it made this tulip glow.

I forgot the name of this vine, but I really like the shape of the flowers on it. They were dripping over a fence near the library.

A rainy day in the studio

 Nothing like a rainy day to keep me indoors, so I cleaned off my work table a bit, organized the pens, pencils, papers, etc. and felt so energized that I made some mail art.

In #875, I used old French receipts given to me by a friend, and some old Paris map bits.

 #876 is another with the old paper bits. It feels terrific getting back to this play. I don't know where these will go yet but I've received so much mail over the past few months that I need to start reciprocating.

 While organizing, I decided to test all of my old Sharpie pens to see if they were still working. The test pieces was so happy looking that I decided it would make a nice piece of Mail Art for someone.  It's #877.

 The week before last, I went to picnic on the lawn of the State Capitol building. The weather was so perfect. Look at the beatiful sky! Our Capitol is famous because it was designed by Thomas Jefferson after the Maison Carre in Nimes, France. The side wings were added later. There is a terrific free tour of the building, which I recommend.

 My daily practice continues. I've moved ahead in the Hanon book and have added some short classical pieces.

I spotted this fabulous purple, sort of periwinkle color, gate around the corner. It'd been repainted while we were away and looks really good. Thanks, neighbors, for the visual treat!

End of the week!

 This is one of the pieces of mail art that I took with me on Monday to mail from the Postal Museum. I was playing around with oil sticks. I don't know that this ever dried properly and I hope it made it through the system without gumming up the machine.

 The National Postal Museum. What a treat to see it again.

 This is one of many views of the Jefferson Monument with Cherry Blossoms around it. The sun had finally appeared from behind the clouds and briefly lit up the dome.

 Juli took this photo of me, deep at work on the display table, making mail art.

 It was a very busy week between the D.C. visit and today. Among other things, on Tuesday we went to VMFA with friends for lunch,  and to look at the statues of The Mourners again. So beautiful.  

This morning, I walked to the Science Museum for Spanish Meet-up and on the way back took photos of flowers. Everything is in bloom, or about to bloom. Do you know what this plant is? I don't. It's a bush. The flowers are so pretty.

 This iris is growing against my neighbors fence. Childhood memories are full of irises, because I'd take them from neighborhood yards and bring them home to my mother, to her delight and chagrin. I knew she loved that flower, but she disliked me taking them from the neighbors yards.

Some brilliantly colored tulips.

 I haven't made much mail art this week, as I've piled my table full of papers, including goodies from the Postal Museum. (my excuse, weak as it is, cause you know I make M.A. anywhere.) This weekend, I'll neaten things up and get busy. 

I have continued, however, with my daily piano practice. 

D.C. day & Slow Art Day

 I went up to D.C. on the train yesterday to meet my PenPal Juli. She took some terrific photos while we were at the National Postal Museum.

Here I am stamping the commemorative cancellation on postcards for the exhibit about the Hindenburg and the Titanic. We loved being able to use that stamper.

 Here I am, making mail art on a display table. It was just the right height and was there for people to put post-it notes with their thoughts on the museum and the postal system. I had my mini-mail art kit with me.

 Me, attempting to take a photo of Owney, the postal dog. The glass had such glare on it but Juli managed to get me and Owney together.

I'll post some photos of the Cherry Blossoms. We had a wonderful walk amongst the trees, in the afternoon.

A reminder to anyone in my area. I'm hosting Slow Art Day at my fabulous Virginia Museum of Fine Art.
Isn't this portrait beautiful? What a composition with that skirt taking up the bottom of the painting. I'm thinking that I'll focus on portraits but haven't made the list of art work yet. Here's a link to sign up to join me that day. SLOW ART at VMFA

Good news to report!

 I'm very excited to report that my CD collage, the one that I was seen putting into the post box, arrived safely in Thessaloniki, Greece after a 2 week journey. Yay for the postal services of both countries. Yay!

This is card #870. I'm going to start on Tiny Town again, using the last of the cards slowly as I'll be so sad to see the series end. This one is about Phoebe checking to see if there was anything new on Main St.

The yard looked like wonderful with the pink blossoms all over it. It smelled so sweet, too.

Now the tree is almost bare of flowers, leaves are poking out, the yard has been swept up three times, as the leaves get slippery and start smelling less than pleasant. BUT oh how pretty when the petals fill the yard at first.

 Here's the pie we had for Pi day. I was going to make a lemon pie as Monkey had posted a delicious sounding one, however, I needed to go out for lemons, and I needed to finish a piece of art work. So Papa made the pie and my honey picked it up, and I stayed up until 2 a.m. finished the art work. whew!

Here's a "tile" that I created for a project for a library/s in Florida. My friend Juli sent me the blank. I was so busy turning the tile around looking at it that I ended up working on it with the music upside down!!! I wonder if some eagle-eyed person will notice that.

Monday, I'm taking the train to D.C; a meet-up with someone I've been corresponding with for 10 years and another visit to the National Postal Museum. I think I'll make some mail art while I'm there.