Filed under: Art, Blogging, Mailart | Tags: Art, Blogging, Global Community, Liberate Your Art, Mailart
From Miriam Rogers in the UK.
From Lee Thomson.
From Nancy Jean.
From Tracy Swartz.
From Chris.
From Kat Sloma, creator of the Liberate Your Art postcard swap. Check out Kat’s video of all the postcards from 216 participants!
Side Swappin’
From Deanie Houghtaling.
From Roberta Warshaw.
And this was the postcard I entered, printed by moo.com:
The desert, when the sun comes up…I couldn’t tell where heaven stopped and the Earth began.~Forrest Gump
This was the second year I participated in Kat’s swap. You send her 5 postcards, postage for 6, address labels for 6, and you get 6 postcards in return (from 5 other participants and one from Kat). Like last year, I also did a little side-swapping with some of the other participants that I “know” and may do a little more.
It’s funny because so many bloggers I “know” also participated in this swap; I keep seeing familiar names.
Check out the blog hop below using the link tool and see a lot of lovely and creative pieces! Thanks, Kat and everyone. I love all those I received!
85253 is the wealthiest zip code in Arizona: Paradise Valley. The town has only about 15,000 residents. It has very expensive real estate, with a median home price of $1.74 million, with many exceeding $10 million and some over $40 million.
On my 12 mile drive to and from work, I am in 3 cities: Phoenix, where I live, Scottsdale, where I work, and Paradise Valley, in between, on the particular route I take. Conspicuous consumption is not my favorite thing but, regardless, the town is quite lovely, and home to many well-known entertainers, politicians, athletes, and business people. I get to share their air as I drive alongside their Mercedes Benzes, Beamers (actually Bimmers, I just discovered), and Lexi. With several resorts, it is also a vacation destination.
These sculptures are at the Town of Paradise Valley Municipal Complex and kept catching my eye as I drove by. I’m fairly certain the artist is Jeff Zischke, although I couldn’t read anything on the small, rusted sign next to the above sculpture. I think there may be 4 of these there although I only saw two.
I love all the cut-outs, representing desert life, I guess, and seeing the actual landscape through them. This post from 2 months ago was also about Paradise Valley and one of its famous former residents.
This 20 foot gilded feather is suspended at the entrance to the Scottsdale Civic Center Library. It is part of an installation called Imagination Gives Us Wings by Larry Kirkland.
Above it, a bird-shaped oculus traces the movement of the sun as the bird “flies” across the entryway. The feather appears to have fallen from the bird’s wings.
The library had changed since the last time I was there a few years ago. Many of the surrounding trees and bushes were in spring bloom the other evening.
This is an orchid tree, they’re pretty dramatic.
Do you ever have a blog post that you think is kinda crappy? That’s how I feel about this one. Hope to get some more photos lined up this weekend. The citrus is in bloom here now and it smells heavenly. Happy Spring!
Filed under: Art, Phoenix | Tags: Art, Calle 16, Downtown Phoenix, El Mac, Lalo Cota, Murals, Phoenix
Well, the murals have been here all along, thriving and growing in numbers. I just didn’t get out to take photos of them for awhile due to the holidays, changes at work, life. Now I’ve lost track of where all the new ones are. Although I’ve tried to keep up through Facebook, it’s going to take some doing to catch up on them all.
But Calle 16, which is quite close to our house, was an easy way to jump back in and there have been a lot of additions and changes there. Check out this previous post of mine from almost a year ago to see how some of the murals have changed since then.
The El Mac portion remains unchanged while Lalo Cota changed his part of it, on the above wall.
This particular wall is all new work that was done in December 2012 and January 2013 by several artists.
This is along the back and side of Barrio Cafe. The owner, Chef Silvana, was the impetus for the whole Calle 16 project several years ago.
This wall is also shown in the previous post mentioned above, as it appeared then. So you can see that there have been some overpaintings and changes while other walls remain the same.
If you’re ever in Phoenix, check out our alleys for lots of colorful surprises.
Filed under: Arizona, Art, The Route to Work | Tags: Arizona, Art, Flora, Home, Paradise Valley, Phoenix, Scottsdale
He’d always had a quickening of the heart when he crossed into Arizona and beheld the cactus country. This was as the desert should be, this was the desert of the picture books, with the land unrolled to the farthest distant horizon hills, with saguaro standing sentinel in their strange chessboard pattern, towering supinely above the fans of ocotillo and brushy mesquite. ~ Dorothy B. Hughes, The Expendable Man
Everything that ever happened to me that was important happened in the desert. ~ Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
