Yes! I'm still here!

I am so, so behind. For no good reason! Maybe it's the mid-month slump, or the effect of too many projects going on. The last week I've had to prioritize what gets done (and what falls behind), and unfortunately blogging took a big hit. I fell down a bit on all of my projects, although getting postcards in the mail has been the most successful. I missed last Saturday, and then on Monday I was quite dejected about having not sent any that day either, until the evening when I realized that it was a HOLIDAY and there was no mail service, so technically I was still only one day behind, which turned everything around. I mailed two on Tuesday and called it good (or good enough, anyway).

I also learned that at least one of the postcards I mailed never made it, even though I confirmed that I had the address correct. Rats. ETA: the postcard finally arrived - it took almost 2 weeks to get to the middle of the US, but at least it arrived.

Anyway, lots to get through, so get comfy, mmmkay?

Mailed Feb 12:

There's no way to make this look right on a computer, but this is a 3-D postcard. The image shifts a little bit when you look at it from different angles. Unfortunately it just looks blurry as a .jpg. It's also heavy, so I put regular first class postage on it, even though there was no notice that it was needed - and I did hear today that it arrived safely.

Mailed Feb 13:

One of the images from last year's HIDE/SEEK exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum. I sadly neglected to note the artist and photo title. I admit this picture weirds me out a little - I think the guy in the center is wearing a mask,, but it's hard to be sure. The whole thing looks a bit off.

Mailed Feb 14:

"The Nature of Desire", Duane Michaels 1986

This is another image from HIDE/SEEK, and it was the most Valentine's Day-appropriate postcard I had. At least I remembered to credit the artist this time!

"THE NATURE OF DESIRE

Our lives are just one moment,

a breath imagined by the senses.

And that moment is a great thought.

And that thought is a desire,

The urge to being and to be love.

All at once, altogether, the same"

If you're wondering why there's a strange red border, my scanner doesn't like postcards with mostly white backgrounds and will create separate images for the blocks of text and/or photos if I don't use a colored background that shows a bit.

Don't go away, there's more!

Happy Valentine's Day

Sometimes a goofy valentine from your mom can make your whole day:

And on the seventh day, she forgot to post...

Lots to catch up on!

Mailed Feb 7:

Choreographer Wen Hui, photographed by Titouan Lamazon, 2007

Love this picture - I was holding the postcard at all different angles trying to figure out where vertical is, and every time I decided on the right orientation, my eyes would find another possibility. Sent to the creator of the movement challenge, which began on that day. (I'm still keeping up with all 3 projects so far, although I regret that the movement challenge is getting the short end of the stick at the moment).

 Sent Feb 8:

 Oh, I really wish I had multiple copies of this one. It came from that book of so-called "naughty" postcards, and it's my favorite. And I had way too many people to send it to. I secretly would like one for myself as well. But it was sent forth to the wilds of Canuckistan......and geez louise, it now costs $1.10 to mail to Canada?!? Same as to any international destination? I call BS on that, United States Postal Service!

Sent Feb 9:

One of the groovier Dale Chihuly postcards. While I'm bitching about postage, I'll mention again that these postcards require first class postage. Pretentious.


 Sent Feb 11:

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Riding With Death - 1982

I kept a copy of this painting, which I cut out of a 1987 Vanity Fair article, on my wall for several years. In 1990, a boyfriend decided to get a tattoo of it on his left bicep. Which is kind of wacky, since this isn't exactly an image that translates easily to a tattoo. There's also the ethical question of getting someone to create a copy of another person's artwork without the original artist's permission, although Basquiat wasn't around to grant permission by then anyway.

I remember the tattoo artist did a very good job with the copy, especially scaling it down to fit, but getting the white ink to show up took a second session. I have a feeling this tattoo has not aged well. I'd be curious to know if the owner has had to get the color touched up over the years, or if he got a different tattoo to cover it up.

Discipline

Hmmmm....suddenly I've got three creative projects going that each require daily (or near daily) engagement: the Month of Letters, I started a knitting project that requires a lot of practice between classes, and tomorrow I'll be adding in a movement-based challenge created by a friend from college. The first two are doable enough so far, we'll see what happens when I try flexing my rusty choreographic muscles as well. I suspect it'll take me a lot longer than the suggested 2 minutes a day. I'm not sure why February is such a project hotspot, but at the very least I hope to gain some valuable time management skills.

Back to this project....mailed Feb 5:

I had this problem last year as well - I come up with the perfect postcard, at the wrong time. At least I only missed the Superbowl by a day. I notice there is no signal for what to do if the lights go out for no apparent reason. Nor is there a "Bootylicious" signal. Pity.

 Mailed Feb 6:

Last year I sent out a lot of the postcards I'd been holding onto for decades, but I kept a few. This one was attached to a present sent to me by my Uncle John, probably while I was in college - you can see he wrote on the border, but the other side was blank.

My Uncle John was an infamous gift giver - you never knew what you were going to get, but it was probably going to be memorable. Some of my favorite gifts were from him - a cool Magic Window-like toy with oil instead of sand that I got when I was very young, and the AWESOME book The Cosmo Girl's Guide to the New Etiquette, given in the early '90s with no irony whatsoever, sparking my nascent feminist outrage and fueling a very angsty performance piece in college. It occurred to me out of the blue a couple of years ago that the book is completely written tongue-in-cheek. Oh.

My Uncle John passed away last year, and I can only hope I honor his legacy by giving gifts that are as interesting and memorable as his, even if occasionally they fail fantastically (such as the black satin Hard Rock Cafe jacket I received in 1986, which my rotten brother made worse by crowing to everyone about
what a status symbol that was and how cool I'd look at school. I wanted to curl up and die, I'm so sure!). My nieces could weigh in on that one....but this postcard could only go to the excellent Dang Ramona, who enjoyed packages from Uncle John during college almost as much as I did.

Slide Show redux

I made a point of not sending any postcards from my recent travels the first couple of days, but I did get a bunch of cool postcards in Amsterdam and Ghent, so I'll just apologize in advance for the periodic travelogue. Or not - because my trip was really cool!!

But I'm getting ahead of myself....

Mailed Feb 2:

shoot, I forgot to write down the artist and title of this, but it had to do with Jackie O. I just liked the festive swankiness of it.

To be mailed Feb 4:

This is where the travelogue begins...
On my second day in Amsterdam, I was wandering around and walked past a small shop with these groovy postcards. I got about 20 feet away and decided to go back, since all the other postcards I'd seen were typical tourist shots (and there will be plenty of those eventually). The entire shop is devoted to selling the work of this artist, Mark Raven. There were t-shirts, coasters, posters, and up a very tiny spiral staircase there was a gallery of his prints. I spoke to the man in the shop - who was an artist himself, but not Mark Raven - for quite a while about art and music.

And I don't think this counts toward my Month of Letters challenge, but I wrote this postcard traveling from Belgium back to Amsterdam, intending to mail it as soon as I got home. Except I just found it and popped it in the mail today.

I liked Amsterdam a lot, but I LOVED Ghent, the subject of this postcard. I stayed a couple of blocks from where this picture was taken, in the old part of the city, and it's unbelievably lovely. The people of Ghent were also exceptionally friendly and helpful. I loved Ghent so much that I cancelled my plans to go to Brugge so I could stay an extra day. GHENT!

Off and running...

Mailed Feb 1:

And so it begins...........

Month of Letters, year 2

It's February, which means it's time again for the Month of Letters Postcards!! I'm more prepared this time - the US Postal Service increased postage just last Sunday (sneaky), so I had to get new postcard stamps and a bunch of $.01 stamps for the ones I already had. Postcard stamps are still ugly and there is no choice on design - and why don't they make forever postcard stamps?!?

A few months ago I was reading old letters and realized how much I missed real correspondence. Most of the letters from friends were written over a period of days and often made reference to phone calls in the middle, so they weren't the only opportunities to touch base. But it certainly feels like the easier it is to communicate with each other, the less we have to say. So I'm hoping to step up my game this year and include at least a few letters during this challenge. We'll see how that goes - sometimes it's hard enough to fill a small postcard, the idea of writing pages and pages seems daunting. Not to mention that my handwriting has gotten appalling.

Now I just have to get cracking and send the first postcard!

Month of Letters Challenge