Filed under: Art, Home, Mailart | Tags: Art, Blogging, Cats, Global Community, Home, Liberate Your Art, Mailart
Clockwise from top left: Svengali, keeping cool in the aloe; Stripey, waking up from an afternoon nap; Google, sunning himself on the futon; dove perching. It’s the dove! Did you guess it?
So we’re getting into that time of year where my posts might be sort of lame…the heat can be a deterrent to getting “out there” shooting much. But there might be a staycation or 2, or a roadtrip now and then, or an imaginary vacation, a midwestern visit, some murals, or some pretty birdies and flowers around so keep dropping by, please…
ANYONE WANT TO SWAP?
Remember a few weeks back when I mentioned the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap and I showed you the postcards I received? I also did some side-swapping but, since that post, I received another postcard from Diane Schuller. Diane lives in Canada and does stunning photography, as evidenced by the below photo.
So if you would like to do a side swap, let me know. I have 2 sets of postcards, this one, and another one. If you specifically want the desert scene, please indicate that. Otherwise, I’ll send you the “surprise” one. You don’t need to send a postcard…if you have a little print, that would be fine, or something you can print off yourself on your printer…anything will do…you can even send me a regular postcard from where you live or somewhere you’ve been…sending and receiving mail is fun. I can do at least 5 swaps, possibly more.
I know…it’s all very boring, especially to a cat.
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!
Filed under: Art, Blogging, Cats, Home, Mailart | Tags: Art, Blogging, Cats, Flora, Global Community, Home, Liberate Your Art, Mailart
These petunias are on my front porch now. Remember when I posted the postcards I received as part of the Liberate Your Art postcard swap? Well, I exchanged a couple more photos with some other participants so I thought I would show them to you, too, since they’re so pretty.
This one above is from Natasha. She’s a henna artist and this is made with henna, can you believe it?
*Oops, see disclaimer below in the comments, I got it a little wrong.
Anna is a talented artist whose blog I’ve been reading for some time. Look at the beauty in those water drops.
This autumn equinox card is from my cousin, Deborah, and has a Mary Oliver poem inside.
I have autumn leaves in my yard, too…
…but they’re fake. I guess you knew that. Hmm, maybe it’s time for a little roadtrip up north? This should be peak fall color season up there.
This is the time of year our pomegranate bush has fruit.
I baked pumpkin bread…from a mix…that’s pretty good for me.
“We got a new rug and matching giraffe. Mom says it’s hers but we almost never see her laying on it.”
Filed under: Art, Phoenix | Tags: Amanda Adkins, Angel Diaz, Art, Calle 16, Colton Brock, Downtown Phoenix, Gennaro Garcia, Global Community, Greater Good, Hugo Medina, Isaac Nicholas Caruso, JB Snyder, Katie Beltran, Kyllan Maney, Lalo Cota, Lauren Lee, Murals, Phoenix, Sebastien Millon, Thomas Breeze Marcus
This is a mural that was done in August at an event called the Great Paint Escape. Several local muralists, many of whom I have blogged about before, participated in the making of this mural: Hugo Medina, Colton Brock, Thomas Breeze Marcus, Angel Diaz, Gennaro Garcia, Isaac Nicholas Caruso, Amanda Adkins, Katie Beltran, JB Snyder, Lauren Lee, Sebastien Millon, and Kyllan Maney. Hugo Medina (curator) and Colton Brock did the hands and Phoenix skyline ahead of time. It represented someone laying on the ground, looking up, and framing the blank canvas of Phoenix with their hands.
On the night of the event, the other artists painted the rest of the mural. While the painting was going on outside, the artists were also painting smaller pieces inside to be sold at a silent auction benefiting Free Arts for Abused Children of Arizona on First Friday in September. That is JB Snyder painting above. I was unable to attend the second event so I don’t know if more has been added to the mural; I’ll have to go check it out again soon.
This one (above) was just done a couple weeks ago on a new bar and gastropub “committed to craft beer,” Angels Trumpet Ale House, in downtown Phoenix. It’s a collaboration between Lalo Cota and Thomas Breeze Marcus. I took this photo 2 days ago and saw today on Facebook that it has had additions to it since then. I shot too soon!!!! Someday I’ll give you an update. In fact, you can see it on Breeze’s blog here.
On the back of Por Vida Gallery on Calle 16, by Angel Diaz. It used to look like this.
This mural (above), Painting Smiles, was painted by Lalo Cota, Gennaro Garcia, others of the Calle 16 Foundation, and children of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Phoenix last May. It was sponsored by Blue Bunny Ice Cream to give the children the opportunity to participate in creating a mural in the center of the Hispanic community, which reflects their heritage, diversity, culture and love for our community.
A wheat paste by Jetsonorama. It is on Calle 16 on the wall next to this mural. And, I have several more to visit soon. I keep a running list of murals to visit and I never get to the end of the list…that’s a good thing.
p.s. I became aware on my last post, much after the fact, that the first photo, which is actually an animated gif of a hummingbird, was not animating spontaneously on all computers. If you click on it, it will animate, but I think maybe a lot of people did not see the animation 
Filed under: Art, Blogging, Mailart | Tags: Art, Blogging, Global Community, Liberate Your Art
I’ve posted this above photo before but I used it recently in the Liberate Your Art postcard swap in which I participated. I affixed an “official” postcard backing to it and mailed 5 of them to Kat Sloma along with stamps and address labels. In return, I got 6 postcards myself (5 from other participants and one from Kat).
I thought I would show you the postcards I received and give the blog addresses of the artists so, if you’re interested, you can check out their blogs.
The blog hop is sort of the finale of the swap and there will be a link at the end of this post so you can visit other participants who also blogged about the swap.
Here are the postcards in the order I received them.
This is from Karen Isaacson.
This is from Judi Shipley. I don’t have a blog address for her.
The above one is from Dana Strickland.
And from Germany, Katrin Klink.
Stephanie Mull sent this one (above).
And the person who put the swap together and mailed out (6 each for all entered) postcards to 193 participants, Kat Sloma, did the postcard above. She does the swap every year so keep it in mind for yourself next year. This is Kat’s post about the blog hop with a video showing all the art.
Aren’t they all gorgeous? I used to do mail art for almost 10 years…sending and receiving a lot of art during that time…so it was fun to experience that again. All the postcards I received seemed to be professionally done whereas my own just had a postcard backing. I was surprised that everyone seems to have “real” postcards. Maybe I’ll get some myself…
This is the link to the blog hop so you can what other participants have to say about it and see what they received:
