Paw Prints

For the Ephemeral Mailbox Museum

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

A quick doodle last night, with the text “Heading home from her morning walk in the hills/she noticed something wrong… well simply different in the tree.” UPDATE: Bah! The orientation of the card is wrong for the call!

I have to admit, i don’t like the pens i bought very much. I’m not sure what possessed me to buy a pack of 12 highlighters. (Bright shiny!) The “summer” color sharpies don’t appeal to me that much either.

I think this is my first use of the Buk stamp*, and the brown ink seemed to work nicely. My rather generic blue ink pad seems to have dried out. I should verify that it’s the only one before replacing.

Anyhow, mail art, first in a bit of a long while, i think. Off it goes to The Ephemeral Mailbox Museum.

I also note that i’ve been using my little glue-to book extensively, stuffing it with the ephemera i’d usually collect and then stuff in bits and places. It seems a much more liberating way to deal with the archiving and documenting instinct.

* The Buk (Charles Bukowski) portrait was produced by Ready-Made Rubber, P O Box, Downieville, CA, 95936 I believe the art is by Rick Geary.

mail art, glue-to books

Nature book, first entry

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

Several weekends ago i went on a bit of a binge and managed to make three small hand bound booklets. They are not fine exemplars of the bookbinding arts, in part because i made up the binding techniques as i went along.

I’m not sure that real books put so much structural importance on end papers, although i could be wrong. I vaguely remember seeing a technique like this on line, but i can’t find it now!

Just as with the end papers, the signatures are held together with what i shall call “signature end papers.” The most important thing to me was that i could then glue lots of stuff inside and the binding would be forgiving and accept all the stuff. Mission seems accomplished.

One of the books, though, was bound by carefully stapling over a curling ribbon. This is sort of like sewing the signatures to book tape, but not. Still, it’s a cute little orange book.

Eventually, i will do this right, but sometimes it’s more fun to just play around with what little knowledge one has.

I like playing with fire, too.

*”Glue-to books” are a term learned from Live Journaler “Art Journaling”, who seems to have coined the phrase.

bookbinding

Teapot handle repaired

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

This morning, a colleague was complementing the pot while i filled it with water for tea. (Regrettably, not quite boiling, but i manage.) I had noticed that the wire handle had been stretching over the past months, and just as i was explaining how the previous bamboo handle had finally worn out i felt a sudden sag. It seems the wire inside the green plastic coating finally gave out but the plastic managed to only stretch. No catastrophe, but it’s time for a new handle design.

Oncidium Sharry Baby ‘Sweet Fragrance’

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

Oncidium Sharry Baby ‘Sweet Fragrance’

This big beautiful orchid was at the Blossoming Orchid Nursery stall at the Mountain View Farmer’s Market today will a “smell me” tag taped to a leaf. So i did, and, despite my congestion a wonderful vanilla scent greeted my nose. I spent some more time looking at the wonderful selection, but returned to this specimen. It’s a large plant, overflowing it’s small pot with one spike in bloom, one with buds, and one just starting up. The grower and i talked for a while about the plant. He doesn’t recommending dividing it because it needs to be big to bloom, he suggests that it needs to be repotted. Apparently the hybrid needs six years to get to blooming size, so they don’t sell many. The black spots on the leaves are due to the temperature changes in the green house, not a disease. I should fertilize it weekly.

• Blossoming Orchid Nursery, Inc, Beatrice and Charles Lee, P O Box 96, Aromas, CA 95004-0096, 831-726-2429
• Plant of the Week
• Susan Taylor’s notes
• About repotting Which i will need to do after blooming
• “Killer Plants” Plant of the week

Doodle Collage

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

First, there’s sitting down on the floor with the box of big crayons and going through and picking a palette. So many reds! Then drawing on the great big sheets of paper, wondering if it can be filled, detail dots, scribble scribble fill. Capture to share! Too big for a scanner, snap. Snap snap snap snap. And then a game in photoshop, reassemble but not perfectly, but keeping the whole.

Sea Walk Reflection

Originally uploaded by Elaine with Grey Cats.

I’ve made a little progress organizing the source images from the Vancouver trip and purging some of the high res images that were out of focus or boring. I’m imagining that I’ll make a slide show/video to share. I’ve played with iMovie a bit but have never really completed a project. Maybe this time will be it!

This image is one i particularly liked, along with the horizontal version. The sea walk along the north side of the West End with the high rise apartments reflecting in Coal Harbor.