A Ritual in need of special attention!

Jane Lewis reminds me that Monday mornings has its own special ritual...somewhere in Sudbury, most Mondays, you will find a group of people who love to draw the model.  They are covering the windows with plastic, stretching a sheet over a bed sized piece of foam, carrying furniture from the hallway, unpacking their charcoal, pencils, ink and pastels while preparing for the arrival of the model. We have a series of different models and Sue organises the whole thing brilliantly.  Some models have been coming since the group began.  It is a very special gathering. 

There is a ritual to the process: we sign in a book, pay our contribution, look intently, make as little noise as possible, hoping to capture the model in some way while she moves from pose to pose (before tea). We look at each other's work, refill the kettle and discover each other as another week passes. After tea there is always a twenty minute pose, but someone always forgets this 'rule' and it's been that way for twenty years.  I agree with Jane, our life drawing group is the quintessential ritual!

What a fabulous idea, and what a beautiful piece of mail art!

No 1/3 from Ruud Janssen

I was absolutely delighted by this fat envelope from Ruud.  Although I have had a few pieces from Ruud in the past, this piece had all sorts of surprises and felt like correspondence, something thatmakes me feel connected in a special way within the network. Although I am posting this here, you will see that the last piece is clearly for my Ritual Mail Art call!  

I let Ruud know as soon as I could that I'd got THREE envelopes from him.  They didn't all arrive on the same day, rather one after the other.  Stay tuned for more unique mail from Ruud.  

I am working in a primary school next week and have managed to warp the project towards codes and characters, following on from my spy notebooks, perhaps.  Carina sent me something which inspired me in one direction and the TAM stamps fit right in too! 

I nearly forgot to point out the ENVELOPE Ruud made me with his magic pen. Look carefully at scan 2 and you will see I have a haptic letter!  Thanks so much, Ruud! Now do I send on a scan of the  Robin Crozier piece?  I am so dumb in these matters! And of course I'll slip delu fox into tomorrow's conversation.