Mailart 365 has moved

Some of the series of thank you notes/ goodbyes to colleagues at the charity I have been working with for the past six years. Fell in love with the fuscia CD I got for a project funded by the Big Lottery and saved it.  Glad I did!

This time I did a blind drawing and added something imaginary to it and then used less naturalistic colour which I heightened in photoshop.

I sent a mailart postcard to my neighbour back in the autumn and she thought it would be the kind of thing that would make a great bookcover when she finished her novel.  Here's what I'm sending her for the cover of her up and coming book.

Think Stipey Goose's birds made their way into my subconscious... more experiments today.

Found a a bag I'd been hoarding (in bottom of box of paper scraps) since I visited my sister in California 5 1/2 years ago - from a winery in Sonoma.  It reminded me of a place in Umbria we used to go when we lived in Rome and I got to thinking about places I've lived and then Joan Baez did her 'inheritence tracks' on Saturday Live (a BBC radio programme) and I thought of the Portola Valley Hills where she lived where I used to go walking when I was at Stanford and then I thought of my home and my family and the  places I visit in my mind and the private world we inhabit...

We got some new chickens and their wings needed to be clipped so they wouldn't roost in the trees and be caught by the fox.  I couldn't resist slipping a few in my pocket.

Still thinking Hockney I found a few good shapes in a tourist map of Scotland.

Thinking of De Villo Sloan's Vispo book pages as I created the framed collage trial for the year 9 group.  The photo I altered is a cropped version of the original. the WW1 letters are a nod to De Villo. I am attempting to create my own visual poetry in response to Birdsong. The poppy appeared because the collaged map had a line that reminded me of a poppy's edge.

The cattails were covered in a hoar frost when we took the kids for a walk along the river.  Back in school many chose the iconic form to put in their journals.  I finished laying out their book this morning and have lots of scraps to delight me when I feel as if I have nothing in my head. My mum is on a trip to Guatamala and I think a landscape I don't know as in my mind as I was inspired by this young artist.

A few things... with cutbacks in arts education funding schools want to 'get the most' out of the artists they have into schools. So someone thought it would be a good idea if I went into a school and worked with 4 groups of 50 children over the course of a day to make itsy bitsy matchbox books - kids between the ages of 4-11 - together. As you can imagine, I have been grumpy about this as the day looms ever nearer.  The topic is FAR EAST FEAST which is quite evocative but do you think 4-11 year olds in close proximity to a UK army base will think so? Luckily this situation is probably good for my own creativity, ultimately, and I have to admit that I like a good passion fruit. I've decided my fall back activity will be a postcard so I guess I'll be cutting cardboard tomorrow.  Oh and this card started as a trial for a mailart call about emotion.

Life in England for teenagers and their parents revolves around UCAS in
England.  While sorting out the studio for USE I found Hudson's (my son) acceptance from UCAS so clearly.  U is for UCAS.  I notice that Dewi has 'G' for Gargoyle.  I was considering that!

Obviously A - Z of all things English, many of which i have adopted as my own.

Took a piece of a collaborative scribble and picked out a few magazine scraps and found a way to create a story.  Think I'll do something like this with kids.  It was FUN.

Determined not to let  stinking cold interfere with my mailart routine.  Can you tell I'm in an ill fog?

So we wanted a light dinner and had lots of things in the fridge on the brink of expiry.  It was my mum's last night in England so I wanted it to be festive. After the meal I noticed that my hands were like sandpaper and there was so much stuff on the drying rack, on surfaces. Funny how complicated simple can be. Tomorrow it's leftovers and probably need to add salt to the water softener...