A Great Mail Day

I took a little rest after several hours of yard work and house cleaning today, and after a quick nap, I checked my mailbox. Oh la la, I got two packages today!
I love Charles Harpers' illustrations - very geometric and stylized. Ever since I got one of his posters from National Park Service long time ago, I have been collecting his books except one (The Illustrated Life) which is simply too big and heavy. The above book is what I got in the mail - small enough to hold with one hand, and I like it very much.And another package from Hannah Grey Curiosities and Dry Goods - very big box. I ordered one "Son of Mystery" grab bag for only $35.00 (plus shipping), and look what I got. I'm very happy with the great selection. Thanks, Shosh!

Oh, I forgot to tell you about the great mail art related stuff that I got in the mail during the past few days - I will tell you about that at a later time!

It has been a while...

It has been a while since the last time I shared cool stuff with you. I have been very busy with just too many things to do. While I was doing heavy spring cleaning, I was sorting and putting things together. I happened to have these ampersands that I found in different rooms in my house, and I wanted to show you the ones that have been added this year to my present collection.
I bought two standing ampersands (metal and fabric covered ones) at Anthropolgie. The black plastic was given to me by Seth; the brass one given by an ArtFest attendee; the rubber stamp ("Ampersand") I bought somewhere I don't even remember; and the round one given by Bee at ArtFest, and the stamped masking tape came from the top of the large metal one.

Springtime is passing by so quickly that I could not keep up. I hope to write the posts on the following items very soon:

1. Cherry blossom trees in Newark, NJ
2. Museum of Modern Art, New York City
3. A Day in Charlottesville, VA
4. Wedding at the Winery in Virginia
5. American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD
6. Philadelphia Museum of Art
7. Weekend Class at the Center for Book Arts
8. Plus a bunch of other stuff.

These will have to wait until I am done with the spring cleaning and other important projects. As always, your patience and loyalty is very much appreciated!

Tagged Again - Third Time!

I got tagged by Dorit Elisha, and so, here's seven more little-known facts about me:

1. More than five years ago, I took ballroom dancing lessons in foxtrot, waltz, swing, tango, rumba, samba, and cha-cha. My favorite one is samba. Can I hear the music well? No, but I do have an excellent sense of rhythm, and I haven't danced for a long time.

2. Back in March of 1996, I attended an all-day workshop on clay animation at Disney Institute. Very labor-intensive, but lots of fun - I still have the videotape.

3. When I had my own apartment, I had over 1,000 cookbooks. Right now, most of them are in rental storage and I'm very anxious to get them out of storage and start creative cooking again.

4. My family used to have a small dog (mixture of terrier and poodle) and he loved pizza, and cupcakes, and anything with garlic.

5. At the three weddings, I was the best man. That's enough.

6. The last time I went snow skiing was when I was a high school senior. I hit a tree right in my neck and lost my glasses. Miraculously, I'm still alive and have never gone skiing since then.

7. During the summer of 1979, I took a train trip across the country from New Jersey to Chicago, Chicago to Seattle (long before I knew about art retreats), Seattle to California, and back home in New Jersey. It was a wonderful trip.

I am supposed to tag seven individuals, but this time, I decide that the buck has to stop with me. :-)

Early Bloomers

Yesterday, my mom and I went out for a Sunday ride, and I decided to check out the iris gardens even though I knew that it might be too early.
The iris gardens contains a very large collection of irises, and I never saw any other collections larger than this one. I saw some color up the hill, so we decided to go up. We walked up the hill and saw the miniature irises in several beds - the first ones to bloom. Note the white arrow on the map above - that's where we saw the early blossoms. I have been to these gardens before, but never saw the ones that bloom during the early season. Here are few of the many pictures (all of them are miniatures) that I took:
I am amazed at the wide variety of the colors as I often think of irises as purple flowers. I plan to go back there in two weeks where the tall bearded irises (near the large tree above) will be blooming.

Trouble with eMails

I found out from several of my friends that they have been having trouble sending me emails. Several of them have bounced back to them and I have inserted a temporary email address in my profile in case you need to contact me. I am so sorry for the inconvenience.

Artist Trading Cards

I have been meaning to show you the ATCs that I got last December from an origami ATC group (15 members) hosted by Anita B. The origami ATCs are swapped 3 times a year - on a quarterly basis. The fourth swap is handled by another person, MaryAnn, for a much larger group (50 members) during the origami convention (to be held in NYC this June). There were no required theme for the December swap, but I noticed three dominant themes were used: Christmas, Winter, and New Year.
The next swap was done last month of March, and the theme was Emotion. It was not an easy one, but I thought the group did pretty good with that.
I also joined an ArtFest 2008 ATC Fatbook group hosted by Bee Shay, and picked up this book on April 2 in Fort Worden, WA.I took pictures (below) of the book "opened" with the cards still inside. All of the cards were taken out, and oops, I forgot to photograph (above) the book "closed" with the cards still inside.
Two pictures above and below show the different images on the black sturdy cards.
Pictured below are the cards taken out from the book above.
The cards below were traded one on one (individually) when I was at ArtFest last month for three days.
I am amazed and inspired by the wide variety of media and techniques used in these cards.

Two Great Days in NYC - Day 1: April 23, 2008

I promised my friends from Texas (Don & Susan) that I would give them a personal tour of the stores in New York City. So, last Wednesday, I took the morning commuter train to Penn Station, and walked out of the terminal and encountered this cool billboard - the bottle and salad are actually inflated. As I was walking on the way to their hotel, I was snapshotting whatever caught my eyes.I arrived at the hotel a little too early, so I went to Starbucks for a cup of coffee and a quiet moment. I finally went to the hotel lobby and found Susan in there. We went up to the room where I greeted Don. We discussed the tour plan for the day - I gave them two copies of the itinerary that I created the night before. Before we started the tour, I showed them the books that I had made during the past four months. About 9:30 am we started to walk toward Seventh Avenue to get a cab that would take us to Grand Central.Before we went into any store in this station, I showed them the great room which they have never seen before. We then went to Pylones which is a real eye candy store - so colorful. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed inside this store.
Don had to go to another store for batteries for the camera, so while we were waiting for him, I saw this unusual book display shelf. We got out and started walking toward Bryant Park on 42nd Street, and the park itself is very green - fresh new lawn. After we went through the park, we went into Kinokuniya and I gave them about 15 minutes to browse. And here are what I bought in this store. That magazine with the cat picture on it - costs me only $1.00 - I'm using for collage. And the next store we went to is literally, The Store Across the Street. After we browsed through this store, we went across the street to Tinsel Trading. And I am glad I went there as I wanted unusual stamens for one of my projects. And then we walked on to Antique Cafe on 26th and 6th Avenue for our lunch. They have great salads.While we were eating, we saw this unusual graffit on the brick wall. After lunch, I took them to Center for Book Arts and showed them the bindery and printing. I saw Rona there - she was printing, and we chatted for a while before I introduced Susan and Don to her. While they were chatting, I signed up for a class (I'm a perpetual student - hopelessly addicted to education) on turning plant fibers into cords and threads ...cool! I have a collection of daylilies in my garden and I want to learn how to turn these leaves into cords. After the registration was done, I took them to Paper Presentations in Chelsea section. All I bought there were rub-ons, and I could not find the decorative paper that my friend, Kecia, asked me to look for. I then took them to Cupcake Cafe for dessert.Look at what we got for our dessert!After we gulped the cupcakes, we got out of the cafe to head for ABC Home & Carpet. Susan has a knack for finding things that I would miss - I was too focused on getting to the destinations on time. If it weren't for her not being with me, I would have not taken many great pictures. The handprint was found on the dirty white van - it looked like someone wet the hand and then put it on the van hood. Cool! Anyway, we got into ABC Carpet & Home and I was surprised to hear that cameras are allowed. Waaaay cooool! After Don and Susan took pictures of the peeling paints, stains, and what-nots on the second floor, we walked down Broadway, through the farmers market, and Union Square. It felt like Saturday - there were so many people outside as it was really a gorgeous day. We continued on Broadway and stopped at Strand Bookstore just for a very quick look, and then we continued down to 10th Street to look at the crocheted reef in the display windows. Oh, wow! I missed my younger days as a scuba diver! Then we turned right onto 10th Street and went crosstown to Bleeker Street, taking pictures on this residential street. We turned south on Bleecker Street and I encountered what it appeared to me a paper graffiti.
We got onto Grove Street and went into the second Pylones store (there are four in the city). After we went through it, we went back to Bleeker Street and walked on to 8th Avenue for The Ink Pad. I chatted with Anna for a while, and I bought four sheets of rub-ons. I then took my friends to another tiny store, House of Curiosities and Cards, across the street. And then we meandered through the street on the way to Chelsea Market where I wanted to show Don the cool stuff they did on the interior walls.After resting a while and then touring the stores, we got out and went to a Chinese restaurant, MaMa Buddha, for our early dinner at 4:30 pm. The place was uncrowded and pretty quiet - what a relief!I was tired and completely forgot about taking pictures of the delicious food that we had. Sorry. After dinner, we took a cab back to their hotel, and then I walked down twenty blocks to the train station for the ride home. Yep, we did walk from 51 Street to all the way down to 10th Street. How many miles did we walked? I dunno, but it was a great day!