And the winner is....

This postcard is going to be arriving in the mailbox of....drum roll please... 

GOOSE WYCLIFFE

Congrats Goose!

(Winner chosen by random.org)

Thanks to all who dropped in and visited my blog:)

Life is a little crazier than usual here, I hope to post soon!

Erosion Project Update and Giveaway!

The background paper for this postcard is from my erosion bundle. The rest is all recycled from various books and projects.  It's not real mail art unitl it's posted so to be in to win all you have to do is leave a comment saying you'd like it to appear in your mailbox!

At the start of the year I signed up to take part in the erosion bundle project.

The aim was to gather some items together and leave them out in nature to disintegrate. The bundles stayed in their position for about 6 months being battered by rain, baked by sun and torn at by the wind.

Finally we brought them in and with great anticipation unravelled them to see what remained.

I was especially pleased with my results!

The challenge was to then make something with the contents of our bundles and display them on our blogs August 1st (yes, I am late!)  and also links to them on the Erosion Bundle Project blog.

So what became of the tea, ginger and eucalyptus dyed papers?

I made the above postcard and a book, with the addition on some map pages as these are my current fixation! I love maps, the more colourful and lined the better!

The string from my project was used to bind it and to wrap around it. The button (found on the footpath) acts as the closure. I've already used some of the string and fabric in Debrina's altered book for the Pulp Redux Collaboration,  such georgous stuff I wish I had double my bundle!

Thanks to Kris Henderson for organising this project!

Erosion Project Update

It's time to unwrap and discover what has become of all our buried/hung/exposed bundles after an amazingly fast 4 months out in the open! I was pretty excited to bring this one in and too see if my predictions were right. So what did happen?

The lovely white bundle above has become...

This pile of Ginger...

became this dark brown stain on the paper....

Top side in direct contact with Ginger, underside of paper shown below. I was surprised to get brown of this shade. I thought Ginger would create rust or mustard tones.

The tea leaves below became...

Wonderful brown patches! I love this shade but I'm a bit worried about it's lifespan

as tea also attracted mold which the Ginger did not.

Vintage brown card album pages wrapped the flattened Ginger and tea piles.

It became much lighter and quite a lot more vintage looking!

The brown paper bag that wrapped the piles and sat beneath the cloth gave me my favorite results!

I'm stoked with this! All shades of fabulous brown and 100% Eco friendly!

The formerly white string and cream velvet curtain off-cuts...

The bandage was also once white, the results here are my second favorite.

I can't wait to put this to good use!

Now I just have to decide what will become of all this! Nature certainly was good to me and gave me plenty to play with. My last few bundles gave me only mild results and I was disappointed. Doing the erosion bundle project for a 2nd year (and Seth Dis-Co project the year before that) has given me the chance to improve on my bundle contents. I guess you could say this bundle was a bit more intellectual than the others! haha. I really thought it out and didn't leave as much to chance. That said the biggest unknown factor was the BIGGEST factor of all...Mother Nature!

Thanks to Kris for hosting this!

I couldn't resist...

Some papers, cardboard and recycled string....

Powdered ginger...

Tea leaves...

Sprinkled between damp pages ...

Wrapped in an old bandage, freshly boiled eucylyptus bark straight from the dye pot

piled on top...

Someone's old curtains have found a new purpose...

As an EROSION BUNDLE on the top of my clothesline ofcourse!

Kris is at it again, hosting another round of the Erosion Bundle Project. I only just found out about this so I am a little behind. It was hard not to over think this project. It should be easy just to put stuff in a bundle and see what happens when mother nature comes to play...but this is the 3rd time I have done this project (one Erosion Bundle and one as part of Seth's DisCo Project) and I have learnt that something just don't erode or disentigrate well in the kind NZ climate! The first year I tightly bound the bundle and found the middle to be mostly dry and untouched. The outer layers were dry and a bit wrinkled but suprisingly little happened. Last year I thought I was clever and made a little book from papers and placed it in a fabric bundle, unbound. I thought that the looseness would really get things going, but I only got some wrinkling and some small mold spots. Then my son got sick and I never finished the project (by making something from the bundle contents.) So this is my 3rd time around. It's not that I wasn't happy with my results, it's a case of this being a learning process and I'm not quite done figuring it all out yet!

I am hoping to end up with beautiful collage fodder, lets see what mother nature has to say about that!

Just quietly, my photos of my collages drove me mad and I've replaced all the ones from my last posting with better (but still not great) photos. Something so flat should not be so hard to photograph!

NEXT POST: OWOH! Jan 31st

Erosion, Death and Secrets

Isn't that a cheery title? That is what todays post is all about though! Or rather, the chance for you to join in a new Erosion Project (think along the lines of Seth's Dis-Co) have your art shown in a Book About Death Exhibition or find out about the Art Secrets being revealed on Seth's blog each Sunday. Interested? Read on:)

The Erosion Bundle Project was inspired by Seth's Disentegration Collaboration project and is similar in nature, excuse the pun. The dates for your calendar are:

January 1, 2010 - place bundle in nature.

In between = share thoughts and photos.

April 15, 2010 - retrieve bundle from nature.

August 1, 2010 - finish art piece using your eroded stuff and rejoice.

The Book About Death is an unbound book exhibition of postcards. Part one is already being exhibited but due to it's success there's an open call for artists to send one postcard or one series of postcards to the organiser for a new exhibition opening 6th of Feb 2010 in Brazil.

The bits you need to know are:

 Individual artists are wanted to submit works, either a single card or a group of cards for exhibition at MUBE.

Ideal dimensions are approximately 6" x 4" either horizontal or vertical orientation, but variations in size are permissible. We would like to ask all artists to be aware that we need to easily install works on the wall, so consider this aspect of the exhibition. Artworks can be handmade or printed commercially. You can mail the card by itself or in an envelope. (Please make a digital capture of the works for your records).

A deadline of January 30, 2010 has been set for reception of all submissions, although we will install any cards received after that date. Digital works are not accepted, sorry. To be included in this exhibition, make a postcard on the theme of death and send it to:

MUBE - Museu Brasileiro da Escultura

Avenida Europa, 218 - Jardim Europa

CEP 01449 000 - São Paulo - Brasil

All works submitted to MUBE will become a part of the permanent collection of the Museum, and will not be returned.

Documentation online of all new works will be made over the course of  the next few months.

FOR INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT : Angela Ferrara (atelierferrara@gmail.com)http://angelaferrara.com/ or http://blog.angelaferrara.com/

Secret Sunday is Seth Apters new project. Be sure to check out his blog each Sunday to find out what arty-secrets your favorite artists have shared. It's also a good chance to discover new artists so there's nothing to loose and everything to gain!

And last but not least, a quick Pulp Redux update! All but one of our books have now been sent and recieved at there respective destinations (although mine was delayed by a search in customs!) and there will be updates on our own blogs as we play. The Pulp Redux blog will be updated when the spreads are completed.