Mail art received

Outgoing
Originally uploaded by la5sol

this week i've been a little, yes, just a little, lazy in regard to the blogosphere. call it crazy, but i know that the countless millions will not be showing up in front of my home with torches and pitchforks demanding in loud unreasonable voices if i fail to post. hence, the sloth, the lethargy, the definite ohwhogivesanish if i don't post. but i did get some nice mail art this week. and btw the picture and the post don't match. that's my outgoing mail in the photo. however, i got some good stuff from alexandre in guaralhos, sp and from test tower in washington and stickers from spence in canada. nifty!

collage brut

Journal page
Originally uploaded by la5sol

my style of collage is an ever-changing technique, but for the most part it is based on found words and scraps of my own art work or paintings. sometimes i like to fill the page for a spill over effect, and other times, like this example here, i play with the empty space around the main image. collage in some of my journals aren't finished for quite a time, i go back and add and take off and cover with paint or more words or images. i use color to bring it together loosely or in some cases, wait to see what develops on the page.

all it needs is you

all it needs is you
Originally uploaded by la5sol

so this weekend was just another example of how if we really wanted to stop the madness and refuse to participate in this mess of a sham called democracy it is possible and it could be, dare i say it?--even fun.
my vision for a revolution is for a weekend long sit down, stop work, bbq party with music and dancing and eating and socializing, a be-yourself or whoever you would like to be...maybe even a costume revolution in full disguise and fun wigs? why not? who says revolution has to be serious? why couldn't it be a hazy smoky lovefest? a 25 bottle of beer on the wall game of quarters with everyone on the block refusing to go out to buy *%it, or drive to work, or generally refuse to create or exchange income? i think if we can not shop on xmas (pretty much, right?) why not use that self restraint and organizing skills to stop the Kist machine and make it take notice to the big sitdown and drop out. just a nagging thought.

to the park, driver

to the park, driver
Originally uploaded by la5sol

or the beach for the naughty husky's Birthday!!! yes, our little dramatic, over the top, emotional little wolfie-poo Nina herself is three years old. time has gone so fast now that she is slowing down a bit, the first year and a half were excruciatingly slllloooowwwwww, with demands for walks, attention, walks, attention, walks and more attention. honestly, i saw that someone on fb was wanting a puppy and i shuddered at the memory of howmucheffinworkitwas. ouf! as much as a toddler! and everyone who knows me knows how much i detested having toddlers. a breed of demonic humanoids that should be sent away to some sort of island until they are able to verbalize needs and conduct themselves properly. and don't think i didn't stay up nights refusing to submit in powerful battle of wills with mine--i gladly went without sleep to make sure no half pint of neurons with vocal cords in training pants was going to outdo me in stubborn-ness.
as if!


but i would have to say that nina was probably the easiest to get to listen and obey, far easier than gigi, who i have to engage in a duel at least once daily until she remembers who gives the orders--nina, after all--in the words of mj is "a lover, not a fighter". that doesn't mean she doesn't try (hence the nickname the naughty husky). it just means that one steely look from me or a strongly stated reprimand sends her ears back and brings her back to good common sense, and quite often, a little tap dance over to me and a kiss on the hand as an apology or peace offering. happy birthday diba!

Don't mind the gap

Don't mind the gap
Originally uploaded by la5sol

sorry for the huge delay in the blogstream. since the weather has returned to semi-normal offshore cloud patterns, the pups and i have been taking advantage and catching up on all the things that we couldn't do while it was too hot last week (although that's hard to believe-the temp has dropped +25 degrees)! we are all catching up on our missed sleep-since it was too stifling to really sleep well-so the girls have been drowsy of late. hence the photo of gigi, on the edge of nodding off with droopy little eyes. i've not the slightest idea where she used to sleep as a stray, but i am guessing it was someplace small and inconspicuous, because she has an absolute fetish for smashing her head into things before she journeys into the arms of hypnos. sleep well and dream of snackies, little goodie gobbler.

Waves of color

Waves of color
Originally uploaded by la5sol

i've been away from the blogster for a few days now. i've been catching up with cleaning and laundry after a flurry of painting to beat any potential heat waves that might have made the painting an exercise in s/m, with the little plastic suit i wear to keep the splatters from falling on me and such and the u/v rays beating down through the window of the dining room. soooooo, i am forced to skiff through ( i love making up random verbs a la l.carroll- 'twas brillig and the slithy toves, did gyre and gimble...) the flickr fotitos. so here's a cool colored mandala made with le pen thin pens in some of my favorite colors- aqua blue and olive green.

Nearly done

Nearly done
Originally uploaded by la5sol

after four non-consecutive days of a few hours each time, the lovely pre-wwII dining room is nearly finished. only one wall and a partial doorway remain to be done, and the room looks fantastic. the moulding, which was covered haphazardly with terribly hand painted birds (bald eagles, no less!) is covered completely and only the filagreed plaster remains, sans feathered friends. what a relief! the room looks like it was meant to, simple in elegance and a calm center of the home. the color really turned out well, a huge bonus, the beige neutral enough to blend with the cool grayish green of the art studio (see photo) and warm enough to compliment the reddish oak furniture within the space. it's quite exciting.

Sunday afternoon

Sunday afternoon
Originally uploaded by la5sol

i did this floral mandala in what i would call a semi-usual style, it was not what i would instinctively have done, especially with the filled in lines instead of blocked out colors. and i also deliberately tried to do something different by not filling in the white spaces of the green lines. it was somewhat frustrating to leave the white spaces as such, i wanted so much to put down thicker, broader strokes of color to fill it all in. but i reasoned that if i wanted to do that, i could always draw the design again and make a blk/wht copy and then go back and do color/texture experiments. i guess this is why people use photoshop, but aside from the prohibitive price, i like to do things by hand rather than mess about with the computer.

Chiens Interdits

Chiens Interdits
Originally uploaded by la5sol

well, they may be forbidden but that didn't prevent us and the girls to play on the mostly barren shores the other afternoon the first day of the heat wave. half moon bay was a lovely 65 in the sun, with a brisk cold wind blowing. the naughty husky Nina and the goodie gobbler Gigi were in their element, running leash free on the sand dunes, galloping like little runaway horses. papi even coaxed nina and gigi into the waves so they could get used to the water, braving the 40 degree pacific coast swells himself, which i thought was pretty darn heroic, considering he was used to the warm mediterranean currents.
the girls were so content that while we went to eat after our excursion, they snoozed in the back of the little ford four door without a peep until we got back to fairmount ridge. with the infernal heat going into its third day, i'm dreaming of the cold winds and stinging sands of la plage.

Via Flickr:
sorry girls no chasing horses today

Collage from Kragujevac!

Collage from Kragujevac!
Originally uploaded by la5sol

while i've been busy painting dining rooms, i received some wonderful handmade collage postcards from the serbian mail artist Petrovic, whose work i love! he has a minimalist but dense style consisting mostly of typeface, one of the most wonderful things in the world, imo.
i love letters, words, script and font design, and to have cyrillic phrases incorporated into art that i can touch is thrilling beyond belief. Thx P!