My New Best Friend

American Typists are Swinging!

New addition in my art studio.....

This beauty moved in on my birthday -- extra wide carriage and SCRIPT keys.
Swoon.
I think this one looks like it just rolled onto the showroom floor. Someone either didn't use it much or took really, really good care of it.

I am in love. I bought these large joss paper sheets a while back thinking I could type on them
and they wouldn't fit into my Royale typewriters carriage....

Well, they sure fit in this one! Having great fun typing jumbo letters....

Have you noticed how red and black just seems to go so well with typing?
And I bet this babe knows all the tricks.

Tricks like how to clean your typewriter....and where to buy ribbons....

World's greatest Typists are mostly MEN?
HA
I'd put my mom up against any of them. And I'm a pretty fast two fingered typist myself.
I refused to take any typing classes in high school because no way was I
going to work as a secretary. 
But now that I think of it, playing with typewriters and rubber stamps and office products  might have been a lot of fun.....

Funny, someone in a shop recently told me, ten years ago he "couldn't give a typewriter away" and now they are all the rage. Well, among the mail art and letter writing crowd that is.

Fabulous Photos of Typewriters Back in the Day

Be sure to click this link and see some absolutely beautiful vintage photos of typewriters.
Lovely blog too. Leave a comment for my friend Abraham if you like the typewriter photos.
Tell him I sent you.
And, if you look closely at the photos you'll see my Smith Corona Classic 12 -- with the extra wide carriage in one
of the photos.
Could that one be mine?

There is just something so comforting about a typewriter, don't you think?

A Typewriter Book to put on your Wish List

Here's another link to click -- UpperCase Magazine is going to put out a book all about our favorite machines. You won't want to miss it.
I already sent in my contribution. And I hope you already know about UpperCase.

Well, time to go back to typing....I can't seem to tear myself away. My husband keeps laughing and calling me "Miss Steno Pool". I've been called worse.

How many of you have typewriters?

SEND GOOD MAIL --- GET GOOD MAIL

More Projects From My Work Table

Chinatown Book
Vintage Chinese booklet, vintage envelopes, joss papers, photographs
and hand dyed ribbon -- work in progress...

I thought I'd show you a few of the projects I have finished or that I'm working on.
I love wrapping them up in boxes or with ribbons. They feel like gifts to myself when I come across them on my shelves or tucked in the closet.

Chinatown handmade book project
I've been roaming around Chinatown for years (and years) taking photos, picking up firecracker wrappings and ephemera, hunting down vintage Chinese school booklets
and putting everything in books ....

Chinatown book
Crushed juice box, photos, vintage booklets...

Chinatown book
Here's a "green" page -- Happy Earth Day today.

Boston Journal,  handmade box, nature ephemera
(2001)

Travel journal with box and leaves, pods and acorns picked up in the Boston Garden...

The box has lovely layers -- fall leaves on the bottom, then the journal and on top lots of pods and  acorns....
Opening it up and looking at all this brings back so many memories..

Turkey/Italy  Travel Journal
I keep a travel journal of some sort on every trip I take. Big or small. And I usually collage inside the journal and on pieces of watercolor too...

Turkey/Italy Journal

Collage from the Zurich airport....

Origami Folder
Folder made from Istanbul map to hold all the excess business cards, postcards, menus etc that didn't fit inside the travel journal.
I may make a box for all this to go into or just tie the whole darn thing up with a ribbon.

According to this nifty Postal Chart sent to me by Kelly P -- these smallish Chinese flash cards ( a library book sale find) are not to small to send thru the mail.
I hope that's right....Off they went!

OUTGOING MAIL
There they go now -- some mail going out.

Outgoing Photo Collage Postcard
I made up some photo collage cards with one of my favorite subjects on it.

We all want mail art!

I'm not much for posting personal things on the blog, but as President Obama said in his speech the other night "It's been a rough week".
Watching the news about the events in Boston has been very painful.
My thoughts are with  everyone in the Boston area.
And I lost someone very special to me last week and a person whom I loved very much.
Make sure you tell the people you love that you love them.
I'm grateful I had that chance and would regret it if I didn't. You never really know what is going to happen in this world so don't go to bed mad -- or something to that effect.

So, you all take care of yourselves. make lots of art, send mail, hug people you love.
And thanks to all my friends who have sent me heartfelt wishes to feel better.

At the Work Table

By now I think you all know how much I love to take a trip....I love the planning and the packing (sort of) , the plane ride (amazing, I know) or road trip. I like actually being there -- wherever that is-- and I like being home with lots of paper ephemera to play with. I like editing my photos and printing them and making mail art and collages and re-living the whole darn thing!

So -- come on into my studio and see what I've been playing with.....

OUTGOING
(to Kelly P) I think a letter is always more interesting when it is written on interesting papers and lots of postcards and menus and ephemera is all tucked in....

OUTGOING
....so all of that got tucked in to this map origami folder and put in to a vellum envelope and sent out on its way...

I like to make collages while traveling -- and I do -- but sometimes I am just too busy exploring and having fun to finish them so I bring an envelope of stuff I have torn from tourist brochures and collage when I get back home.
It seems to make the trip last longer.

VIRGINIA
After eating the boxed lunch at Sally Bell's I flattened the box -- and that cool checkered black and white paper -- and took it home.
Reconstructed the box and filled it with ephemera from my trip - postcards, matchbooks,
menus, transit tickets....a nice little souvenir of the trip....(and easy).

Collaged Postcards
Now put me in an airplane seat and give me a SkyMall catalog to tear up and I'm happy.
They have some crazy stuff in those SkyMall catalogs and I know how to use it!
The various airline magazines are fun to tear up too.

Boston
Now -- just pick up free stuff wherever you find it. I took the Dunkin' Donuts coffee bean bags and made envelopes out of them. And these little free booklets (for kids) at the Boston Museum made great little collaged booklets of the trip...

DC page

DC page

Boston page....you get the idea....or you could use the small hotel stationery pads and write a letter on them and stick the pages inside the booklet for a letter? 

These are just a few of the projects I've got going....I am making a book for all my Turkey/Italy photos and a Chinatown book of ephemera/photos in a vintage Chinese school book and I'm making envelopes and collages and writing letters. I sent off almost all of the little art pieces to be hidden in a book. (Still waiting for a couple of you to email your addresses to me so I can send you one).
(Want to see any of that? Let me know)

What are you working on?

Mail Art Meet-up!

Things have been busy around here -- yesterday was our monthly mail art meeting of the
San Francisco Correspondence Co-Op.
And we had a job to do.....

We agreed to work on Tofu's Hide Art in a Book Project
and make small piece of art to send out into the world asking people to hide the art inside a book.
That's Tofu on the left-hand side in front. He comes up with the best ideas.

We all brought ideas and supplies and ephemera and got down to work.

No food or drink in this library conference room -- made it a little easier to concentrate -- but maybe not quite as much fun. We all like our snacks and treats.

A lovely surprise when Dori dropped in. She is visiting from Southern California and has been trading mail with GinaVisione in our group and commenting on my mail art FaceBook page so it was  really fun to meet her.
And I brought Millicent's fabulous hand sewn book ( a birthday present for me!) which Dori is holding -- and as it turn out, Dori and Millicent also trade mail art.
Small World!
Karen's Mail Me Art blog
is also something many of us have in common.

This wonderful work was made by Dori -- who just dropped in to the meeting with no idea of the project we were working on. I think she certainly caught on very quickly,
don't you?

Artistamps by Maureen and cool passport cover too.....

Maureen was busy pasting the stamps into our passports and signing and dating them.
This month's stamp was a beauty! Thanks, Maureen.

My supplies -- My idea for hiding art in book was to use some old library catalog cards and some of the "Due Date" stamps in collages....you know...book art....(thanks for the supplies Kelly P and Jennifer U).

Here are some of my little finished collages. I will put them in glassine envelopes and send them out and ask that they get put into books to be found later on.

Anyone want one? Leave me a comment if you do and I will send them out until I run out.
If you like what you see, you can make some mail to hide in a book too.

Sally W is one of my favorite artists and she brought one very large sheet of joss paper and worked on it....

Then she cut it up into small pieces for the project....
I love how everyone's work is completely different. We set our pieces out and all walked around the table to see what each other made and it was remarkable how different all the art work was.
I wish I could show you everything.

                                                    This Just In -- Update on Tofu's Blog

Besides the Co-Op meeting, there was also the SF Library Big Book sale and oops I did it again and bought more flash cards to play with as well as some books to (gasp) tear up for collage.
I can't help myself.

And then there was the birthday festival!
I may be just a little spoiled but we don't need to talk about that. I took photos of the projects I have been working on in my studio since I got back from my trip but this post about the co-op meeting ended up so long i think I will save them for another post.
I'll show you next time....
Now get busy and make some mail art!

Let me know if you want to hide some art in a book.