Saturday in the City

Some days it is just fun to walk around in the beautiful sunshine and look at art.

Saturday started out with a trip to the farmer's market - those beautiful huge piles of asparagus, artichokes, garlic chives and all sorts of produce are art in themselves.
Then, a trip to one of my favorite SF spots
San Francisco Center for the Book
to see the fabulous Hedi Kyle show. It's up till July 17, 2016  and if you live anywhere near SF you have GOT to see it.

Here are some photos to tempt you into going -- or, as a consolation if you are too far away to attend.
And, you can call or email the SFCB and order a catalog of the show too -- tell Nina I sent you.

While I admire and love the beautiful books in the display cases, my personal favorites were the touchable books. You can just sit on the couch and look through a number of little books that it seems she just carried with her and filled up with day-to-day stuff. So cool....

The Touchable Books

Supermarket fruit stickers never looked so good...

My personal favorite was the tea bag tag book......Dori S, I thought of you, my tea-loving friend...

Take a look at Monica's Artful ReCrafter blog (on my sidebar) -- she went to the Hedi Kyle opening and posted photos on her blog too.

You can't have an art day without having lunch...

After the morning looking at Hedi Kyle's work, we spent the afternoon at the
Hunter's Point Shipyard Open Studio

I think I love looking at the artist tools as much as I enjoy looking at the art...

It is such fun to wander all around a big building filled with artists and art and fantastic views out the windows of the SF Bay...

Go, if you can, and have a look around.....

Hedi Kyle (detail)
The best part of a day like this is that feeling you are all filled up with art and want to rush home or to your own studio and make things!
I sure have that feeling. I am inspired and ready to go to work.
But I just found out the Vintage Paper fair is also this weekend -- how could I possibly have not known that?
Hummmmmmm........
Should I stay in and make things? Or go browse the VPF? (I really do have more than enough paper to work with).
Sometimes there are just too many fun things to do!
What are you doing with your day today?

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A Little of This and A Lot of Art

I've always got something going on here.......one day when it was too hot to do too much of anything I stayed in my studio and whipped out a postal zine...
always fun to do.

I made fifteen -- they take a while because I glued in real stamps and rubber stamped them -- I like to personalize them and not just xerox.
The first fifteen went out so fast I had to whip up a second set of 15....

Packed up the mail art kit and took a super-fast trip down to LA. I was down and back in the blink of an eye but I did manage to work on some LA-inspired pages for my own altered bookI love starting the day in a hotel room with breakfast and glue!

I have a thing for avocados!

There are so many fun spots in the LA area to eat (even if you do have to drive all over the place to get to them).
Avocado BLT at Tops.

Back home at the wonderfully messy work table -- I took out ALL the paper ephemera I dragged back from Spain and Morocco and I am determined to use it all up! I finished the travel journal about 98%, made a small collage book and an origami wallet that I filled with Spanish and Moroccan business cards....this is a well documented trip.

Some torn posters from the trip.....

I made some more pages to send to my special friend Dori to add to the altered book I made her for her birthday.
She is a little Texas gal, transplanted to CA, so here is a Texas page....

And, she likes tea.....

Altered book page for Dori

So, there you have it -- lots of things being made around here...

And, of course, some good mail going out too.

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My mail has been coming at 6 and 7PM!!!!

That is just too late in the day if you ask me. OK, no one did ask me but really....
It's another warm SF day today and I better go to the studio and make something.
It's a Maker's Sunday -- what are you all working on there days?
Have a good one!

Altered Book for KSP

Well, now that April 1st has passed and my pal Kelly P has her birthday surprise, I can post these photos of the book I made her.
She likes horses.....and that's no April fool!

Tucked some Year of the Horse lucky envelopes into a little pocket

I gelli printed some pages and added as many horse postage stamps as I could find...

Yup, she is another Aries.....and that is pretty close to looking like a horse...I think.

Added a couple of pockets because...well...you always need pockets...

And, I found some cool old photos of people on horses at the Vintage Paper Fair..

A horseless carriage!

So, there you see it! These books are a lot of work but really fun to make, if you are so inclined.
They are easy too so don't be afraid to jump right in.

My pal Monica is ready to pummel me....I am holding up our origami posts on our two blogs. I have worked on my origami wallet post twice and was ready to publish it when I had my "tester" try to make a wallet from my instructions on the blog.....FAIL.
Even though he can put just about anything together, including stuff from Ikea, he couldn't make the wallet. He could ALMOST do it but he says the directions weren't clear enough.
Soooooo
I guess I will work on that darned post  some more.....but it is very tempting to just go ahead and post it -- you creative types just might figure it out...
In the meantime, the altered books are pretty and maybe you'll get inspired to try making one.
&
The PenPal/mail Art Exchange post was kind of a bust....I was surprised because I am always hearing from people who are looking to trade mail with. I honestly thought lots of folks would sign up for trades. Go figure.
I will leave it up as a Featured Post for a while in case anyone is interested.
And, that's all the news that's fit to print, folks.
See you next time!

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