Living Fantasies: The Party's Never Over - a boekie just for Rebecca of Cranberry Island (Carina Granlund)

Carina's timing is unbelievable!  OK, so anyone would appreciate a travel envelope from Carina, at any time, but only someone who has traveled recently on just about every kind of transportation - well not a pencil or a caterpillar , Carina where do you think those things up?  But really, there isn't anyone who would more of a kick than I got out of Carina's silly, striking envelope! 

Inside the envelope, Carina had packaged the remarkable LIVING FANTASIES inside more paper.  Notice the blackened tooth and the repair work Carina envisages I return to. 

Inspite of the drudgery Carina anticipates, her upturned motor boat makes the optimist in me smile, 'Give future me a hug.'

Clearly Carina is an optimist!  I know she's got an upcoming show to prepare for, but somehow she finds time to make me a boekie to share with my students.  I presume the only thing better than having Carina work with students is to have one of her books to share with them! Go and visit her blog to see what I mean! http://www.carinagranlund.com

The teachers I'm working with are young newly employed teachers and the school is apparently quite target driven, so I hope I can flick through these pages and not get taken to the front desk to show my CRB (the form that verifies that you are OK to work with children)...

Oh Carina, thank the man with the dumb bells! The poetry in the margins is fun to try to say, too.  I'll bet the fellow with the hat has a very unusual accent.

Something x-rated that has been concealed... (thank you)

Silliness,

wordplay, 

 more of my kind of humour, 

and a question... I always get the kids to put some questions in their books! This is a real teaching aid.

See they're already reading and getting gold stars to show their dads.

Thank you Carina for making the R portrait so attractive.  The last time I went into a school the children were obsessed with asking me how old I was (I hadn't slept much the night before), maybe this will trick them into seeing me in a new light! 

 and how did you know we have that same houseboat/shed on Cranberry Island?

Luckily it only has a climbing hydrangea on the roof!

 This is a wonderful unfolding piece that goes in surprising directions.  Guy in the funky sweater likes me too.

 But this is the page that made me laught the hardest...

And yes, the car did break down and it rained and rained. 

Carina's book has a great sandpapery texture.  I wonder if it's clear gesso, one of my favourite finishes. But wait, the spiders are coming, or are they fish hooks?  Whatever they are, they complete a magical, hilarious book that was made just for me! 

Lyra and I are delighted and the students will be too!  Thank you all the way from Elberon New Jersey?

From Kingfishers

I get the occasional thank you from schools when I work with children.  At the end of a project I might be handed a letter or a collaborative book.  As this one was posted,  I guess it belongs here. You can't see inside the books but there is a range of children's asemic writing!

Suus in Mokum - paper zentangle slide

There's been some debate about what constitutes a slide at Val's group: http://iuoma-network.ning.com/group/arty-slides-international?xg_source=activity.  In this 4X4 paper piece, Suus has combined her zentangle style with the feel of large format slides.  It looks like Suus used a metallic pen or tube of paint to seperate the cow image from the zentangle - it feels like the edge of a metal slide.

I love the way she's also created frames around her words. What Suus asks, at first, seems like a silly, funny question, 'why do cows have yellow earrings?' But once you look carefully and see what she's talking about and you read her second question, 'why do they have earrings at all?' you realise Suus is making a social comment.

Although it would have been tragic if this had been damaged by the postal system, this one would have really been doing its job if it were a postcard, traveling for all to see! Still I'm glad it's mine and arrived in its pristine condition. Thank you Suus.

The mail takes a long time to reach Cranberry Island... but eventually Simon's letters arrive

My mother writes that since I left, I have 'received from Simon Warren pages 29, 31,32, 33, 35 of what appears to be a journal about his life with just writing and on heavy 9x12 card stock. Each was mailed separately with stamps and amazing to think the postal people got them here in fine shape. Eileen had kept them out of the box and in a special folder with a yellow card for pick-up.' My friend the post mistress is going to wait a day or two to see if there is more and then my mum is going to put them in a package to send to me.This is the mailboat.  Mail goes on and off the island in sacks and is sorted sometime before noon, depending on the season and the boat schedule. I suspected I might have something arrive from Simon in Maine as when I returned to England I found numbers 28 and 38.    Simon's letter took me to a New Yorker cartoon (May 13th issue)  I'd read on the plane:And as you know, I've just returned from Cranberry Island where some of my year-round peers thought of Cranberry Island as Simon speaks about Tring. They called it 'The Rock'.  As a visitor, it holds delights I can find nowhere else.  It's a bit like England to me because I feel (still) like I'm visiting.  

No Mail on Cranberry Island...

But Patrick says upon his return from Capetown that most of the mail was mine, so look for blogs when I get back to Suffolk: after a ferry to the mainland, a little plane from Bangor, a seven hour lay-over in Detroit, arrival in Schipol including a mad cap search for a hidden postcard, a hopper to Norwich, and a drive through East Anglia and finally to the farm.

Simon Warren and De Villo Sloan consider how we are programmed

No 27 from Simon begins with a topic that is not often out of the news in the UK.  The current Minister for schools has alienated the teaching unions as he steps up examinations, looks back in time for answers and creates new adminstrative hurdles and assessments. 

Meanwhile at one my bookmarked blogs http://minxuslynxus2.wordpress.com, Dark Wall has been responding visually to similar themes. Mink ranger writes: 'Sadly, a “Code Enforcement Officer” of the type suggested here might be a teacher or professor (present company accepted, of course). Anyone who maintains the codified messages of control and conformity.' 

a memory update

Carmela Rizzuto (US)

Viviana Cernjul (Argentina)

Diane Keys (US)

Erni Ilis (Brasil)

Heloisa Sonaglio (Brasil)

Pál Csaba (HUngary)

Ryosuke Cohen (Japan)

Brasil

Claudette Picance  Soares (Brasil)

Lavinia Thys

Maria Da Glória Jesus De Oliveira (Brasil)

Elisabeth Karam (Brasil)

Consuelo Margarida Rubio Debiagi (Brasil)

Am trying to avoid blogging exhaustion, but thought I would post recent memories, mostly from Brasil. I think the pieces from Brasil are from a mail art collective, Selus.  At the next pop up exhibition I'll have a table for people to dip their toe in the world of mail art.  If you want to send work in for the upcoming Suffolk exhibition at Old Barn you still have about six weeks! Please label your work with 'memories' so I know. Keep up with incoming mail art form the memories project at: http://memoriesaremadeofthismailart.blogspot.co.uk