One Stamp Art Exchange: August

My stuff to Gail

Gail's art front

Gail's art inside

Another shot of the inside with two of the flaps lifted

Gail's art back

Gail's stuff to me minus the angel picture (from a cemetery maybe?) because I forgot to take a picture before working on the ill-fated project.

My art front

My art back

Now, I know included in my own rules was to make no judgements, however......this was a mediocre project that I made worse in the process of trying to make it better. I had thought of doing a wash, maybe adding more distress and/or doing more stamping. I even thought of cutting it up into pieces and randomly gluing them onto another substrate or just painting the whole thing black. But even the destructive options seemed like too much work. So I put a cat on it and called it a (misbegotten) day. 

So you aren't left with the mess above, Gail sent an extra piece which was not part of the Exchange but it still used some of the items I sent.

One Stamp Art Exchange: July

Yeah....so....kind of a crazy month. I forgot to photograph the stuff that Gail sent me and I had already tossed the scraps so I couldn't even photograph that and the stuff I didn't use got mixed up with other stuff. Whoops. I will say I don't know if she planned it, but the stuff was very cohesive and I knew straight away what the concept was going to be.

The items in the package that I used were:

• 2 bookmarks from a dinosaur exhibit with a picture of half a dinosaur on each side that match up almost perfectly to make a whole dinosaur (the "hat") hides the only place where it was a little off
• little squares and triangles of decorative paper
• promotional post card of a child's art center
• "Mouthfeel" sticker
• pharmaceutical ad, maybe for migraines, can't remember

My art front

My art back

Gail wasn't able to send her July project. When I get it, I will do an edit and post it. In the meantime, here's a picture of the stuff I sent to Gail.

Stuff I sent Gail

One Stamp Art Exchange: June

Stuff I sent to Gail.

 The envelope could hold more so put in a few more things.

Gail's art front

Gail's art back

Gail's art insert

Gail's art insert back

Stuff Gail sent to me.

My art front

My art front with tongue slid out and word salad poem revealed.

My art back

Production note for my project: I chose one of the paragraphs from the brochure in my "stuff" and chose the word order on the tongue and the other pieces in Tristan Tzara's Dada poetry style. I cut the paragraph up into individual words, put them in a hat (I didn't have a bag an appropriate size readily available) and pulled the pieces out randomly. 

One Stamp Art Exchange: May

Stuff I sent to Gail

Stuff Gail sent to me

My art to Gail (front)

My art to Gail (back)

My art to Gail

Gail's art to me

Gail's art to me

Because I told Gail I wouldn't talk about her art, I won't. However, I would like to discuss on my own feelings that occurred doing my own art project. I actually didn't want to use the Sonja Henie ephemera because it felt "precious" to me. Gail goaded me into using it, but in a good way. One of the reasons for doing this exchange is to NOT deem anything "precious" or "too good to use." My house is full of "art potential" that I'm afraid to use because it is too prized or dear.

BUT

The real reason is I may fuck it up.

(That's a whole can of worms for another time.)

I was nervous at first and I am very pleased my brain processed the fact that if I did silk ribbon embroidery, my initial idea, I would, indeed, fuck up. I suppose if I adhered it to fabric first, it may have been OK, but I didn't want to do that. So, with my fingers mentally crossed, I very carefully and slowly did the embroidery with some sparkly thread. I am pleased I pushed myself to get over the notion that something is too good to use. I now have an association to refer to when I get that "Oh, it's too special" feeling again.

One Stamp Art Exchange: April

I need to figure out a cool abbreviation for this. The best I could come up with was "Onstarex" which is the first two letters of each word. Meh. Maybe I'll just decide not to be lazy and cutesy instead.

Here are my completed projects:

(the pictures are deceiving as the top image is larger than the bottom two, which are playing card size)

Here is Gail's:

front side

back side

So, yes, it was more than one stamp to mail this to me but I think we can all understand the need to create a concept we envision, rules be damned!

ETA: I had to email Gail to say I hadn't received my "stuff" for May and she was distressed that I hadn't received it nor the "official" One Stamp project for April. It seems the envelopes became stuck in her mail box so that the postal worker did not see them or was unable to get them and therefore never got posted. So, the above was an extra project, having fulfilled the One Stamp protocol.

Lesson learned: Sometimes being "polite" does both parties a disservice. The funny thing is, we had had a conversation a few weeks ago in which we spoke about how men tend to be more direct in their transactions whereas women tend to over analyze them: "will I hurt her feelings", "what will she/he think of me?" and so on. While I'm not advocating totally dismissing a person's feelings, sometimes it can be a detriment to be too sensitive.

Without further ado, here are Gail's official projects for the One Stamp Art Exchange:

(this is the other side of the picture above)

Unfortunately, they came on a rainy, humid day and the two pictures got stuck to one another causing the little white spots you see. However, I don't think they take away from the wonderfulness!

I think this is the start of a beautiful, juicy, magnificent adventure!