Postcards from the Peninsula

decorating Georgia..., by Carroll

Carroll is one of the reasons I still love swap-bot. Not only is she, and her sister, big fun at parties (a record to melt, anyone?) but she is the queen of smart dumpster-diving, hand-carved eraser-stamps and vintage postage.



an artsy Carroll envelope, hand-carved stamps, collage and vintage postage.

This arrived in the post yesterday. It was perched, in my slot, like a triumphant and motley seagull. It was literally bursting out of the confines of the space. What had already been a long and fantastic day became even more thrilling when I saw it waiting for me last night.

Thoughts on Malls

I am not a big mall-goer, but I spent yesterday afternoon strolling through the Market St Mall just to see, in its holiday splendor, what my mother called "the biggest mall this side of the Mississippi." All of the classic mall stores were there (my American readers will know what I am talking about, and if you don't, you're not missing out). The crowds were impressive. The brass and marble was shiny (and the decor was exactly ripped off from Stonestown, the other big mall). I had exactly three dollars to spend (and loads more style than most of the fashion victims there) so I had no reason to feel bitter. I wondered if my fellow shoppers really believed in the retail orgy they were participating in, in the facades and the surfaces? Did they get what they paid for? Was it as satisfying as they hoped? Was I simply watching the gears and cogs of the great global economy?

It IS a Beautiful System (sort of)

That evening I met up with Dutch and he took me to the H&M to get some of their fabled cheap bras for Christmas. I am writing in one now. And there is a smile on my face. The tag says "made in China." I'd like to be socially conscious (normally I love shopping at thrift stores, but its nice to have a new bra). The corporate website says they are doing their best to be righteous.

Interesting. Maybe I don't have to feel guilty about wearing a new, low-cost, Chinese bra.

Serial Collage

serialcollage, originally uploaded by camille94019.

I have been rather frustrated with Swap-bot lately. Especially the swaps I have conceived and hosted. Half the people don't read the directions, the other half that does gets upset because their partner didn't read the directions and then participants complain to me, and no one answers the nagging emails I send and on and on. So, to remedy the situation, I am hosting another slightly conceptual swap, with even more forbidding scarymean art verbiage.

Fantasy Art Projects

I still want to go back to art school, but since I haven't yet, the next best thing seems to be to torture other swap-botters with my "ideas." I'd love to do series and series-within-a-series of collages. This is the first of, what I hope, becomes a series of a series of swaps. (I am wondering is there a better word for that? metaseries, perhaps? but that sounds like the less euphemistic cousin of a suppository) Half the fun is writing the directions. My goal is to discourage the mindless crafters (of course, none of my readers fall into that category) while whetting the appetite of the thoughtful, interesting artists.

My Idea

Originally, I wanted to take a compositional element and use it in each piece. It turned out I found cool photos of cables. I also found some other texturally interesting scraps, too. The geometric painting, the scrap that looks like TV static and a few others. I ended up working on all of them at once. The process was quite organic-- I found compositional elements (the horizon line, the slanting lines) and tried to reproduce them and change them at the same time (musicians call this a variation on a theme). I ended up using and reusing more elements than I originally planned, but for now, I am happy with the way it turned out.