The "case" of the vanishing MAIL boxes...and disappearing First Class Mail...

Since my hubby (or dh) is a retired mail carrier, and I am on very good terms with many of the remaining postal workers at our local USPS, I would like to join in on this exchange, for SURE!!

I haven't even read the terms yet! But it doesn't matter. I will do whatever it takes to participate! I love mail art, I think First Class Mail is the best bargain around, and Click-n-Ship is one of their best new services. I go online all the time and get my packages ready to go; easy, cheap, and all I have to do is drop them off, either on the dock or at the desk. PLUS my office is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Hornell Post Office so I can sneak over there any time, like when I know they won't be busy. So - no lines for me!!

TANGLING with Zentangles... ;0)

Wow. I am using the 20 sided die to determine which tangles - a.k.a. patterns - I want to use in my Zentangle tiles, and it's really cool. Here are some tiles I have just completed!

Doing some writing, interviewing, and of course, ART

How has it become May FIRST??

April zoomed by; the heatwave we had here has made the trees put out their flowers and many have already begun sending out their leaves. It's beginning to look more like early June instead of the first of May.

Wild turkey season began today; Steuben County (NY) sees plenty of turkey hunters out and about. For me, the most thrilling thing about being out in the woods right now is seeing the wildflowers. Trillium is a special favorite, and I've always loved the taste of wild leeks (with the warm weather, though, they might be very hard to still find!).

Last week I met with a local author - Linda M. Holbrook of Canisteo, NY. She has just self-published her first fictional novel based on her own life experiences. "You Wanna Go To Willard?" is proving to be an engrossing tale. She published it through BookSurge, a division of Amazon.com. The Friends of the Hornell Public Library (newly-re-formed group in support of Hornell's public library) will be hosting her at an author's reading and book-signing on Thursday, May 28th from 7-8:30 p.m.

Gotta run to the chiropractor so will try to get more posting done - with some new pictures - later!!

Whirlwind week...

Yes, I know it's not really the end of the week yet; but my last day each week at work is Thursday, so it FEELS like Friday to me, even when I bring work home, like I had to today...gotta finish some invitations for a dinner to be held in late April - for the "Senior Saints." Ended up using a collage of graphics, since the program is to be connected to a slideshow of vintage postcards from Steuben County - the county I live in at present - a very interesting county with much history and plenty of pretty places to observe the world.

I really wanted to print the invites in color, on one side of an ivory-color paper, but my printer decided to be ornery (actually somehow the file bogged it down; I hadn't really thought it was such a big graphic file, but it took forever just to get it to print in grayscale) so the grayscale original ended up being used as the original on the copier. The finished product, in black on ivory, actually looks pretty sweet. I used Garamond italic for the font throughout; I love that italic.

More later. Maybe I can scan a copy of the front and post it...I'll see!

An AWESOME surprise came in my mail today!

Someone - someone special in "my" art world - was thinking of me. In today's snail mail, I received a #10 envelope - with a cool and subtle print of candles on it - full of oriental ephemera! Little money envelopes, a skeleton leaf in a gorgeous shade of red, a decorative napkin, little rectangles of cardstock, a blank postcard of "Amitayus" - "Photo courtesy Surendra's Tibetan Thanka Treasure," a couple pieces of 6x6 scrapbook paper...WOW.

Here is a pic of most of the lot...

I haven't the faintest idea who sent this...the handwriting on the envelope looks a little familiar, but not really. I can't read the postmark, and there is no return address or information inside!! So - whoever my art angel is - I just have to send out "THANKS" into the universe - and cyberspace - and hope they know how much this brightened up my weekend!

Now to make some art with these cool things, and pass on the "favor!"

RAKs - Random Acts of Kindness - are wonderful - but I wish I had someone I could thank!

Artists ROCK!!

Polymer clay-what do you think?

This link is to the new International Polymer Clay Association survey - I don't believe there are many readers of my blog who are clayers, but if you are, please check into the survey and add your answers. They are doing planning for the next two years, and that is always much easier when you know what your membership wants.


http://www.npcg.org/survey/index.php?sid=59188&lang=en

Just to pique your interest, I am posting a batch of polymer clay pins I made once upon a time.

Family can inspire creativity...

Sad news - my youngest aunt - my sister's youngest sister - died last week after a year-long battle with AML - leukemia. She was only 59 - nine years older than I am. It makes you take a long, hard look at what you are doing with your life.

And creativity is - and needs to be - a major part of my life.

Thinking about the world, and metaphorically, how it is like the sea

The following is part of a comment I made on one of my yahoo groups (bell-jar artists) that I felt was important enough for me to post here.

"It seems that the ways of the world toss us hard" (referring to another poster's comment about life);

"I find that if I remember I am significant as an individual, and a single voice can change things, but at the same time, I am a small part of a very large universe, where there are many voices (I DO hear them sometimes when no one else does...), many souls, much creativity that ebbs and flows like tides...(keeping with the imagery deb began with...). I find the metaphor of our soul being a lighthouse very interesting; beyond where our light falls, there is much we do not know about, and we must count on the sea to carry it to our shores...some may be detritus (junk) and some may be treasures beyond measure..."

I love the souls on this list. We may not talk alot, but there is a shared rhythm that gives us a place to seek peace, and understanding, and focus when we lose our way.

Here is some art to help you reflect on how I see my world right now, with the snow and the peace that it provides (as long as I don't have to go out and drive in it!!)

New year, new thoughts, new ART?

Well, I have new alcohol ink stuff to post, as well as the Christmas card I created for my cyberscribes Christmas card exchange, which was a delight - especially in the cards that I received. But I'm nursing a cold, and I haven't scanned the items, so you (my blog-followers...) will just have to wait with bated (or is that baited?) breath for me to get them scanned and posted.

In the meantime, I want to say that I hope 2009 is an art-filled, spiritually-enlightening year for many of us, as we have to wean ourselves away from the man-made consumeristic products that we can shop for in our malls, and instead look back longingly to items that have the handmade element. We can create our art without divesting ourselves of our nest eggs (although, I will admit, that I have acquired ALL of the colors of Tim Holtz's alcohol inks - that was my Christmas gift to "me" - now I just have to figure out how all his creative names relate to the actual colors...lol!). We can use wire, rusted car parts, rusted bottle caps, snippets of fabric (or, old garments retrieved from the local thrift store), leftover paints, pages torn from books and pasted onto recycled board, pictures torn from magazines that are retrieved from waiting rooms (too old to be of any use for actual news...) - all these are ways we can find material for our art.

So - let's not let the poor economy get us down! Instead, let's do our homesteading at home, in our artwork! We throw away so much that we can re-use to CREATE! My challenge to you is to focus on one piece over the next week, and link it to this blog!