Tales from Studio Mailbox

Fabi N. is Fabulous!!

I got the greatest email yesterday!  Remember when I was scrambling to finish my sketchbook?

Well check this out:

Hello (TJ)!

We just wanted to let you know that Fabi N. just viewed your sketchbook (#24474) at Brooklyn Art Library in Brooklyn, NY!

Your book has been viewed 1 time so far.

Sincerely,
The Brooklyn Art Library Librarian

Is that cool or what?  I'm sitting here in Germany snarfing peanut buttered toast and wondering what some fabulous person named "Fabi N" is like.  What prompted Fabi to choose my book from the thousands of others surrounding it?  Is Fabi German?  Is Fabi male?  Female?  Is Fabi N a clever way to spell Fabian?  What did she think when she viewed the Studio Mailbox book?  How long did she look at it?  Did she like it?  Did she hate it?  If you asked her about it today would she even remember it?  Did she take one of my tear-offs from inside the book and will she visit the blog?  Will she find me on Facebook? (My word for 2011 is CONNECT - and don't you forget it)! 

Or will this be the single asynchronous interaction Fabi and I have in this one wild lifetime?  Fascinating.  I could lay around and think about this all day.

Who will be next?

Did I ever show you the accordion perforated tear-offs I attached to the pull-out cards?  Just another shameless attempt at self-promotion.  But will they work?  There are nearly 10,000 books on exhibition with the Art House Co-Op and this was the only way I could think of to give folks a "take away" and the possibility of finding me again.  We shall see...

Blogeburtstag, A Year Long Wrap Up

 Today begins Studio Mailbox's 4th year in the big, wide blog-o-sphere.

*dramtically wipe lone tear from cheek* 

Here's a breakdown of the previous year's events:

• Completion of the first large-scale work of the year, a CYMK canvas.
• Attended the most amazing Drawing Workshop in Venice where I worked through my very first travel journal.
• Returning to Germany, I organized an international postcard project that was installed in the local pharmacy's window.
• I entered the German Copic Marker Cover Contest.  I think we scared them!
• I created a custom birthday commission.
• I officially became a Crusader:  C40, C41, C44, C45, C46, C47, C48
• Participation in Kelly Rae Robert's e-course was a pivotal mark in the year.  I met so many new creative friends and I realized my name "T-A-R-I" might just be because I'm a PossibiliTARIan.
• I learned how important it is to be original.
• My family lost our beloved Grandma June.
• I faced rejection.
• Studio Mailbox got down with Social Media! Check the Facebook fan page.
• Health-wise I went suffered through my second round of oral surgery, German style!  More here.
• Once healed, I could smile huge when meeting a wine queen!
• For every rejection comes a little luck.  My artwork was published in the book Four Word Self Help.
• Oktober is for Oktoberfest!  Don't forget the extra special pretzel imagery too.
• All along, I was packing another travel journal on the side.
• It was time to get down to business.  I had my blog consulted. 
• Studio Mailbox got a make over.
• After many year's work, I finally completed Sampler Resolutionary!
• I took Carla Sonheim's Silly III drawing class.
• In the nick of time I finished my Sketchbook Project and confronted my Flikr Phobia.
• I wrote my first guest post.
• After realizing that I want to try and facilitate more discussions of the posts, Studio Mailbox reached 1000 comments!

Thank you so much for all the wonderful support and fun we had over the last year...

Want a trip down memory lane?

Here was my 2nd Blogeburtstag wrap-up.

And wow, here's the review of the 1st year.  You've come a long way baby.

German Totem

Our friend Lena turned 30 this last week and her wish was some Studio Mailbox artwork.  (Gulp).  Now this is super flattering, but also a little bit hard because you just never know what people really truly want to hang up on their walls.

Lena loves flea market finds and has a super quirky sense of decor.  A big hit in her house is a donkey figure with a movable saddle that when tipped, excretes a cigarette out of it's butt! 

So I felt like I had a lot of leeway with this one.

I decided to craft her the world's first German totem using two photos sized to fit each other.  Both are architectural elements, one a water down pipe and the other is a set of three wooden doors from the side of a building.

totem |ˈtōtəm|
noun
a natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem.

May this totem watch over Lena.  May this totem bring Lena a magnificent sense of empowerment and joy throughout her 30s and beyond.  May this totem keep her safe and healthy and her life filled with love.

And may this totem be a constant source of inquiry, speculation, admiration and/or dislike from her guests so that it acts as a never ending source of laughter.

German Christmas Stockings

Technically there is no such thing as a German Christmas Stocking.  It's not a tradition here.  The only foot-related ritual is covered on the 6th of December as I reported earlier this month.

But what do you do when you have a little Germerican?

And what do you do when your traditions don't even land on (gulp) the same day?  (Let me tell you; the one year that we did Christmas the "German way" on the 24th, I walked around like my dog died the entire 25th.  It was technically "over" according to them but it wasn't even close to over in my heart).

So I dreamt up this idea a few years ago but never excuted a plan until now.  It's strange really, because anything that includes an Edelweiss normally has me pretty committed.  But finally after 8 years of marriage, I decided to invent the world's first set of authentic German Christmas Stockings!! (Tah-da-da-dahhhhhh...)

Each one took around 3-4 hours to make.  I swore, I ripped seams, I conquered.

Here's what you get when you mix an old alpine style curtain, German jacket, skirt and buttons with an American tradition... then seal the deal with authentic Chari-Vari from your mother-in-law.  Now we're talkin' Christmas!!!

The only problem now?  We've haven't got a chimney or fireplace.  Why is it always something?  For now, balanced on the edge of our old antique desk... optimisticly waiting small surprises from Santa.

 

 

 

 

 

Unlikely Friends

Here's the most recent illustration I submitted to a call for artwork and it's based on the idea of unlikely friendships.  So I made a little war-and-peace, good-and-evil, love and hate lookin image!

Choose any two people anywhere in the world, and at some point there is overlap. 

And my theory is that even in the narrowest of overlaps, a friendship has the possibility to emerge.

I wasn't sure if the colors went together well but then I decided I really didn't care.  Color Schmolor.  If they don't go then I just figure it even futher enforces the unlikliness of them being together.

A quirky misfit that somehow works.  It's a miracle.

 

 

Four Words for Kelli

I'm excited to report that my artwork has been published again!  What a sweet surprise to return to Germany and a little package containing Four Word Self Help by Patti Digh.  

OK OK the real book does not have a mannequin wearing a dirndl on the cover, but these quirky visual aids make me feel like I represent my host country.  In any case, it's a seriously cool book with seriously precise ideas all presented to you in 4 word increments.

It was ironic to read this book after returning from the USA where every year the trip seems to become more complicated.  Trying to order a mocha latte at Caribou has become a painstaking decision of choosing between 3 different chocolates. "What did you used to make them with?" I asked nervously.  Seriously.  And Subway.  Oh dear.  Choices of breads, cheeses, toasting, toppings AND dressing.  I wanted to swipe a hunk of bread and go gnaw on it in a corner. 

LIFE COULD BE EASY.

A book made up of 4 word thoughts is not necessarily something I would normally gravitate towards purchasing.  But there's just something to this. LESS is MORE people.  And the goofy thing is once you read it, you can't stop making up your own 4 word thoughts. 

And low and behold, on page 37 was the image I had submitted for the book!  The still life photo is a little bittersweet for me because I worked on this shortly after losing my friend Kelli.  Kelli was the artist who donated her beads for the previous artwork associated with 37 Days.  So in memory of my arty friend, tucked up in the shoelace of this artwork is one of her handmade beads on a friendship pin.  She specifically told me to keep sending her beads out into the world, so here's the first one.

Here's a 4-word thought that would've cracked Kelli up:

BRING BACK FRIENDSHIP PINS.

Gel Transfer Canvas

Remember my post about before and after brayer action?

That canvas has been sitting around for months!  But recently while I was working with images from my Venice trip, I decided to transfer one of my photographs onto it.  Venice is the stereotypically romantic city, and that canvas had all those groovy 80's style hearts on it.  I just felt like they belonged together...

Sometimes it's nice to have UFOs laying about when inspiration strikes.  So maybe it's OK to have "a few" projects going in several various stages... 

Germerica

Got my 2nd multi-cultural portrait completed!  And like anything practiced, I think I'm getting better... !  (Woot woot).

The first Germerican (bottom) was for my son.  My husband and I get asked all the time "what" Lars "is."  Sometimes people are shocked "how good" he speaks German!  Hmmm.  Sometimes I want to respond that he's simply "human."  Most of the time I just remind them that he is German. 

The photo I used in the first portrait was faceless.  It was a picture I took from the back before his first haircut, documenting the little scrappy curls.  The portrait wasn't about my specific child... it was more about people's ideas of identity and nationalism.  That concept of "how German is he?" Or if he's "more German than American."  As if these things can be measured AND assuming it would remain static throughout his life anyway.

Well we have friends who happen to also be a German-American couple, so I offered to make their son Noah his own Germerican portrait.  The photo I had was from the front this time. I made bolder, bigger wings and did a little more embellishing.  I also intentionally made the background more yellow to tie into the German flag. 

Something that might be of added interest to those of you who like symbols; the stars I use are also culturally appropriate.  The 6-sided star (which is basically two equilateral triangles overlapped) is the Star of David.  This is the star I see here in Germany in most designs, at holiday time, and in children's crafts.  At first this was strange for me because as an American, I viewed this star as being specifically religious.  Where here in Germany, it's not necessarily intending to have any religious meaning at all... in many uses it's "just" a star.  The 5-pointed star or the Sheriff's star is the typical star you see in most American design.  For me, these little elements are important because clearly, the whole world does not see stars the same way. 

I'm really liking this idea of celebrating our nationalities and cultures.  There's a part of me who's a little scared of those who might somehow be offended but then I remind myself that any artwork that's worthwhile invokes emotion from people.  The intent behind these canvases is merely about the effects of the culture defining the children within it.

 

Verde Mercato

In case you don't recall, before I went to my drawing class in Venice, I smashed myself in the face with a garden shovel.  I spent my week there stuffing my discolored cheek with ibuprofen but got quite a bit of artwork done anyway.

Since I now associate Italy with tooth pain, I've spent the last days on a sad watercolor I started while there.  I've spent a few hours on the couch with my copic and staedtler markers and watched a bizzarre selection of TV in English praying my face would just stop hurting.  I could make a whole zine from the artwork I've made while suffering from mouth aches.  I would probably name it something like, "The tooth about dental care as a foreigner."

Watercolor just really isn't my thing.  I don't get it, I don't exactly like it, so there you have it.  I do like before-and-after images of artwork because they show how a person can transform something.  The top picture is the "before" the middle "the after" and the last one is the actual market where I attempted the original watercolor.

I remember wondering why I wrote the words out in English, but I was struggling at the time to communicate among the class of Germans.  They would look at me and speak English, turn to the Italians and speak broken Italian, and then switch on the fly back into German amongst themselves.  My brain would start smoking and I just kept speaking bad German to everyone, much to the amused Italians.  Sad but true.  This is just more proof of my lingual identity crisis!!

Blogeburtstag

Zum Geburtstag viel Glueck liebe Studio Mailbox!

Can you believe another year has gone by?  Just like the wrap up on my first Blogeburtstag, here is a summary of what went on over these last 12 months:

Early on in the blog year, I rolled out the concept of being a back finisher, followed by the summer's freshest invention...the frinchie.

Then Studio Mailbox took part in a virtual tour before developing it's own sense of Creality.

Just to make things interesting we finished up the year by taking part in a London exhibition after recovering from a raging bout of wisdomless.

It was this blog year that we witnessed the loss of MJ as well as the loss of my friend Kelli.  

A heartfelt thanks for the 300+ comments that have been left here as well as a sly wink to those of you lurking.  And I grant a ticket to ride this bus to any of the unscrupulous who've taken my words or images without permission.  Be warned: blogyear 3 is going to address ethics, intellectual property and cyber manners.