Patchwork

Months back my mother came to visit (I blamed her for not posting during that period, which obviously was not so...as my laziness is a documented fact at this point). She left me with towels to wash and fabric scraps. I have a sewing machine (although I managed to bust it in one use...don't worry I won't build the suspense, mother fixed it on the next visit) and I've played around (in my head) with sewing scraps together and creating a patchwork piece for mailing...

And then I thought: Sewing takes too long. (Told you, my laziness is completely documented.)

So I turned to the ever powerful and awesome (as in awe inspiring -- not an '80's Dude. Awesome. Which really is the same kind of meaning but apparently one of my mental differentiations. Well hello stream of conscious, where have you been?) turbo tacky glue!

That's how I ended up with Sophie's Picnic:

With the exception of the glittery (shiny) flowers and frogs scrap book stickers, it's all fabric: ribbon, cloth and more ribbon. It's like a continuation of cutting out elements on ribbons to build something as I did with the Modern Pastoral. It remained unifinished because I couldn't stop thinking that something was missing-- hence the frogs and flowers.

Which kind of took a sweet but interesting little collage all the way to a tooth ache of cuteness and light.

So I sent it to my neice. She's adorable and almost four, and will hopefully like the visual candy (well, visual candy for a four year old).

Aptly Named

So.

In order to expand my knowledge about the whole mailart movement (movement sounds so formal and academic and goes so perfectly with the rest of this whine-fest) I have picked up reading a few random blogs.

(Okay, not so random...google reader really picked them out and they were near the top of the list with a number of followers. Did I ever explain how impulsive I can be?)

Here's the thing:
The pieces they have on the sites are much more professionally arty and infinitely cooler than mine. (Also fewer people obsessed by shiny objects.)  So colored me totally intimidated. I have been urged to mail something out and farther afield than those I know....

But I've always been a chicken at heart.

Inch by inch I'll get to the point where I can knowingly (not accidentally like I did with that first piece) send it to a stranger, until then I will keep looking around at these guys:

Mail Me Art: a British mailart project that was centered around creating the book "Medium without message".


Mail Art Postcard Exhibition: no central purpose just a place to mail pieces which may or may not show up on the blog.

Mail Art Projects: A large group of mailartists contribute to the blog which contains calls and a discussion group.

Anyways.
I need to produce a little more as yet....besides this is, after all, called Amateur Hour.