Bird Watcher

Bird Watcher

This postcard has been sitting around unfinished for weeks and weeks. In fact, I had put it on the shelf thinking it would be awhile before I found just the right addition for it.  The woman with binoculars had been sitting on my desk in a pile.  The card and the cutout  just happened to be next to each other this morning and WHAM!  That was it.  Done deal!  Sometimes I think there are elves who rearrange my desk and office while I sleep.  There are several children's books with just that theme.  The Borrower's comes to mind and The Doll People and let's not forget Indian in the Cupboard series. Great reads from years ago!

A Cow Dreams

A Cow Dreams

My friend, Ingrid, who resides in Sweden sent me a care package of black and white napkins over the holidays.  Her gift inspired me to create a piece in black and white. Do you think cows dream like we do?  If so what would be in their dreams?  Certainly not postage stamps and mannequins or even fish!

Crowded Lovers' Lane

Crowded Lovers' Lane

Just how do a dog, lovers, a fairy godmother, a policeman, and an automobile come into this brain to create a new piece.  Too crazy for words!  That is what happened though.  I hope the fairy godmother saved the day and that the couple did not get a ticket! :-)

The Runners

The Runners

Funny how things work out.  A few days ago I started making postcards and I was using my gelli plate and packing tape to do transfers off the gelli.  The transfer only partially worked but a lot of decollage occurred. Love it as quite a bit of the cereal box showed through.  Then I got out my spackling tape....you know the yellow tape for repairing walls..and added some texture.  My new found love, Posca pens from Japan, continued more texture.  Then yesterday morning I thought shadows and letters.  Voila!

This Little Piggy....

This Little Piggy......

The February theme for my international ATC group is circles.  So I added concentric circles in my design. There are seven of us in the group and I made a different one for everyone.  Alas I sealed the envelopes and then thought I should have scanned each one.  Not happening this time.

This Little Piggy reminds me of Wilbur in the book Charlotte's Web, my favorite children's book I might add.

Circus Performers

Circus Performers

I love that the clown is going off the page and that I left it that way.  Usually I cut off whatever extends beyond the boundary of the paper.  The background papers are CitraSolv papers that I was given from my friend Susan.  Thanks Susan! :-)

Jodhpur Memories

Jodhpur Memories

I love everything about India except for the snakes and poverty.  I love to watch Bollywood dancing and I love to discover the latest wonderful film that shares more and more information about this sub-continent country.  Have you seen "Lunchbox"?  It is a must watch.

I began this piece like most others with no clue where it was going to go.  I found vintage ephemera that was mostly off of old match boxes.  Images captured my attention and I printed them and cut them out.  All of a sudden I had a story evolving about perhaps a love between an English gentleman and an Indian woman.  My favorite part of this spread is the bird sitting on the woman's head. :-) This spread is in a journal that leaves me now for destinations around the United States.  It will return in July or August filled with seven spreads.  Bon Voyage!

Sumimasen - すみません

Sumimasen  - すみません 

I may have bit off more than I can chew but I am in three round robins.  Two are monthly and the third is whenever it arrives.  This piece Sumimasen was created for a member of a group that did a RR in 2014. We loved our working in each others' journals, hence we are at it again this year with one change.  We are creating 8 x 8 inch pieces on 90 pound watercolor paper instead of mailing a whole journal.  Each month we send one to one of the others in the group.  In July we will have seven works to bind ourselves.  Each piece folds into a pentagon that measures 4 x 4 inches square with two corners hacked off.  So it will become a 4 x 4 expanding to an 8 x 8 pop-out journal when completed.

Sumimasen means "excuse me" in Japanese.  When I was living and working in Japan in the early 1980's I had to remember my excuse me's as when in another culture one tends to make blunders. Sumimasen is excuse me when you are asking someone for something or calling them over.  There are two other excuse me's....excuse me is anyone home and excuse me as in I am sorry.

One time I could not remember which excuse me to use and so I used them all.  The person who I was talking to broke up laughing.  I covered all bases though.

Bemidji or Bust!

Bemidji or Bust!

A couple of months ago J.K Berry created a Map 2015 challenge which uploaded today on Pinterest.... Map 2015.  It took me until today to complete my spread for this challenge.  I usually do not like to complete something right up to the deadline but this past week was chock full and I needed the weekend to work on this project.

I decided to create a map to Bemidji, Minnesota because in June Brian Kasstle, Thomas LaBadia, and I are descending on Terry Garrett for a week of art in his home in a beautiful birch forest.  Terry invited us to come and who would not want to spend time with three great artists.  So here we all are in my piece Bemidji or Bust!.  I think we all look pretty smart in cowboy hats! :-)

While the Goldfish Slept!

While the Goldfish Slept!

I usually do not have trouble naming pieces of art.  Snap and I have it.  Not so on this one.  I am not excited by the title Power of Exercise.  I thought about Fish Dreams and 41.....nothing really amazing came up.  I am pretty tired after a intense week so maybe that is why I am not coming up with a title that satisfies me.  If you come up with a great title and I accept it, I will send you a piece of snail mail.  So let the entitling begin.

Thank you to everyone who left suggestions for a title.  Reading Carol's entry sparked the title that I decided on.  Thanks Carol.  Email me with your email address please so we can connect for your snail mail piece.....  johnner55@yahoo.com

Postmark, Indiana

Postmark, Indiana

Chance meetings happen.  The year is 1954.  The circus is in town.  A soldier attends on his home leave.  Eyes meet and lock. Addresses are exchanged.   Letters are written over  a period of months. Love prevails.

My Out magazine arrived today.  There is story after story of how couples meet and fall in love.  I was inspired.

Evidence!

Evidence!

Evidence!  What do a beautiful woman, a moth, some bugs (for Claudia), a piece of art, Nice, a ticket stub, the number 3, and an unusual moth or bee (again Claudia)  have in common?  They were all found at the crime scene? Evidence for sure!

Catch a Tiger By the Tail

Catch a Tiger By the Tail

I rarely remember dreams but a few nights ago my dream woke me because I did not want to dream it any longer.  In my dream I was driving on the freeway when suddenly I went blind.  I panicked and that's when I woke up.  Now where did that come from?  Perhaps it is because I had a conversation prior to bed about a friend who has to have cataract surgery.  Who knows, but I hope to not dream about that driving incident again. Catch a Tiger By the Tail is perhaps a dream.  It seems disparate in nature and yet some of it is familiar.  The photo on the right was taken when I went on a photo safari in the University district. I was stung by a bee last summer.  When I was a child I went to the circus. So it goes.....all those little pieces locked up in the brain and randomly come together in the dark of the night.

Duty

Duty

All things come to an end and this is the end of this series.  Duty reflects on when I was in the army and in basic training I kept in contact with the home fires by letters and an occasional phone call. Mail call was the most important part of the day for me.  Letters and packages were handed out in formation.  I loved having my name called.  Sometimes days would go by without anything and then "Arbuckle" was yelled out.  Funny that we did not have mailboxes.  I guess because basic was only about eight weeks it was not efficient to assign boxes.  Now it is just a memory.

The Immigrants

The Immigrants

We are getting closer and closer to the last of this series.  I entitled this piece The Immigrants because I got a bunch of stamps from Finland as a Christmas present and I loved the round one which is actually two stamps.  The blue is the shape of Finland and it is one stamp.  The remainder of the circle is the second stamp.  So I figured I needed to make everyone in this piece from Finland whether they really are or not!  Now isn't that just clever of the Finns!

Keep the Home Fires Burning

Keep the Home Fires Burning

I am reading Madeleine Albright's memoir and loving reading about her life and reading her quotes. One quote that I also found on line was....I have to tell you, my seven-year-old granddaughter said to my daughter, her mother, 'So what's the big deal about Grandma Maddy having been Secretary of State? Only girls are Secretaries of State.' Most of her lifetime, it's true. But at the time it really was a big deal.

What a generational difference that is!  A child who only experienced female Secretaries of State. Thank goodness for such a change.  In my life time I have experienced women who remained at home to take care of the family and also women who worked outside the home trying to balance family and work, another societal change.  I remember that when I was ill and not able to attend school, I accompanied my mother to her job where I spent the day on the bed that was kept in the women's restroom.  It was the only place for me and the only thing my mother could do and still keep her job.

Lost? or Not?

Lost? or Not?

Have you ever been in a long distance romance?  I was and it turned out, too.  Tim and I met at a chateau in the Loire River valley.  He sat across from me at dinner.  He is Canadian, originally from near Toronto, and so I thought we would never see each again after we spent many days touring chateaus and a week in France.  Ha! When I returned from Europe there was a letter waiting for me. We continued to write for months and then spent Christmas, Valentine's Day, spring break and finally another summer together.  That led to a year of commuting back and forth between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. where Tim had relocated to to be closer than the east coast.  Finally, Tim was able to get into grad school at the University of Washington and that was it.  Our long distance relationship which began in 1992 turned into marriage.  Who says long distance relationships don't work.

The Vendor

The Vendor

I just love history especially when there is a story to capture my imagination.  I can get lost when reading historical fiction.  Can you imagine what it would have been like to be a vendor selling off your horse pulled cart in the streets of NYC?  It sort of reminds of the ice cream truck that use to come by my grandmother's house.  Ethel Arbuckle lived in Huntington Park, CA.  We visited many times when I was younger and I never tired of ice cream treats.  There was the thrill of anticipation when you started hearing the music of the truck somewhere on another street.  I was always worried that the truck would not come down my grandmother's way.  I would sit on the curb with my quarter in hand, waiting.  The truck always seemed to find its way.   I loved the vanilla ice cream bar covered with orange sherbet. :-)

Just One Swig

Just One Swig

I am a little late getting my New Year's Eve piece published.  Here it is on January 2.

Perhaps Just One Swig is appropriate for New Year's Eve especially if one is the designated driver.  I come from roots where one family member had a drinking problem.  She never would admit it to others and secretly drank beginning in her coffee cup in the morning and continuing throughout the day.  I have my thoughts on why she needed to escape through wine.

Unfortunately, she was unkind when she drank.  Finally her body could not tolerate the alcohol and she stopped drinking the last three years of her life.  By then she had developed unkind habits with others and, at 96, it was too late to change behavior.  She told a neighbor that she wished she had been a nicer person!  So at least there was some recognition of the behavior.  I rarely drink because of how I saw it change someone's behavior negatively.