Another Kind of Desktop

Budapest

I can work almost anywhere -- which is good since my studio is still all torn up. I have a plan for setting up my Gelli block in my kitchen in Saturday and letting those paints fly...or drip..or whatever.
Here are some desktops where I've worked during the last year or so....
I like the way they look.

Portland, OR

A cappuccino or coffee is always nice to have on hand. And paper ephemera. Lots of ephemera.

Prague

I actually don't pack up much to bring with me on my travels about town (or far away). I like to tear paper rather than cut and mostly I bring glue sticks and double stick tape....and madly pick up stuff as I move through the day....

Santa Barbara

St Petersburg, Russia

There wasn't as much paper around to pick up in Russia...but what I did find was super cool since I loved the way the Cyrillic writing looked.

Portland

Istanbul, Turkey

The Turkish writing is very cool too. And so was writing while listening to the Call to Prayer coming in through the open windows.....

Washington, DC

Los Angeles, CA

Palma, Italy
Sitting and writing by the fireplace in Parma was wonderful until the bug bit me!

Boston, MA

New York City

Seattle, WA

Pasadena, CA

Milan, Italy

You can always get coffee in Italy --  Grazia Dio!

Budapest, Hungary

I like taking it on the road. Packing my mail art kit is a lot more fun than packing clothes. And I love picking up every scrap of ephemera I find and tearing it up and pasting it in to my travel journals, collages and postcards.
I love the look of a happily messy desktop while on the road.

Am I alone on this?
How many of you cut and paste while traveling?
Keep a travel journal?
Make mail art?
Set up a work table in every hotel room?
Anybody taking a trip?

Tell me what your desktops look like!

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.

Bella Italia (Part Two)

Here we've got some "Mail Box Portraits".
I'm quite captivated by these lovely red POSTE boxes.

Often there are two together -- I think one is for mail to be dropped into
and the other must be for the letter carrier to pick up to deliver?

Another pair...

A single -- are we noticing anything here?

A surprising amount of graffiti around Venice -- and I don't appreciate it  all
over those beautiful red mail boxes.

Here's a lovely box without -- the red contrasts nicely with the grey, don't you think?

And here's a box with graffiti -- still, it has a certain charm.

A pilgrimage to the mail post office in Venice didn't work out too well...

Sadly, it is closed and all boarded up. I imagine the Italian post offices are having similar
problems as the USPO's are. Sad. And with all those stationery shops we saw you'd think people were sending mail.

Love the two choices! I guess my postcards will have to go into into the
PER TUTTE LE ALTRE DESTICAZIONI

Are you all getting tired of post boxes yet?
Then maybe we'll  buy a few more postcards.....

And we can sit with a nice cappuccino at breakfast time and write them out and then drop them into one of those red Italian beauties.