"you've got mail!"

It was great being told mail was waiting for me on Monday.

Ok... some of you wont know the significance of this mail... so go to the earlier posts on the mail-art show Im assembling for next week's event! There are many cards still coming and if you aren't too far away... there's time to still do something!
Since Monday there is more to collect... what fun! Here is what I photographed on Monday night. I am a little confused as to what my camera is doing at the moment exactly... so I do hope you will forgive the less than clear images that I ended up with... not in every case...( and why I do not know!!)

This was a fascinating discovery as I had not come across this wonderful blogger before... I wish I had taken a photo of the back of the card as it was as delightful as the front really.  Its from Suzanne of sakurasnow.wordpress.com. Some people have such artful penmanship - Suzanne is one of them! She apologised for not providing a strictly hand-made card (not at all an issue for me!)  ... but it is actually a print of a much larger pen and ink drawing she made entitled 'seedling' - she adds this note "be mindful of the good things trying to take root. They're fragile when they're tiny..." 

Heres a little something from Suzanne's blog:

About

On a springtime visit to Japan I experienced the breathtaking beauty of the blossoming cherry trees (sakura) coupled with the excellent tradition of hanami (blossom viewing parties held under the trees). Walking along the banks of Tokyo’s Sumida River one evening, beneath the blossom laden trees and amongst throngs of hanami revellers, the wind picked up briefly and the gusts created a snow storm of cherry blossom petals – it was magnificent and surreal. The name ‘sakurasnow’ was inspired by that experience.

I’m currently based in London Amsterdam, where I work as a freelance designer and illustrator – but this site is intended as a place to explore non-work related personal projects, scribblings and doodlings, as well as a place to document / display / discuss some of the inspirational stuff out there on the web and in the world.

This fabulous image below is from her blog...   thank you Suzanne!! I'll be back to see what your are doing at your wonderful blog!

Well.... the other day I posted this image below with no hint of what was inside.

this is what came out ...

A few of us had the pleasure of seeing this revealed ...the maker is Lisa Mamo of North Carolina and she can be found at Gray Sea Abbey ...Its a wonderful woollen lotus pod that is so pleasingly tactile and has been stitched to the card that on the other side shows 2 seed capsules and a wonderful small poem...  a tribute to the year of biodiversity... Lisa...i wish my pics were sharper... we love the wool...you have to touch it! big thanks Lisa!

Lisa has made a postal stamp that reads 'protect the seedpod' - lots of details in this!

Lisa clearly loves words...I took this from her blog:

Inspiration:

High above the wind-swept roosts of speckled terns, the sea is gray and dispossessed, yet engaged with the promise of something just beneath, just beyond. The capped waves like white barnacles laid down one upon another from years in the deep with the moaning of the Inuit throat songs---songs now carried up from their depths on the winds creeping through the window and lying just above her head and beneath the stars. The birds wing away quickly on their long journey alone. The great whale spouts and sails slip behind the earth’s end. Like thoughts of the sea, the turns of a conch and its long-held secrets flow along each chamber tossed up by the tide and patiently waiting its return. The sea offers up a shell, carefully examined, like life too, is found sinuous, immersed…purposeful. 

(from collected personal works)

And now to the Darling Downs region of Queensland - its perhaps a 90 minute drive from here to the home of  Nicki Laws. You could click to enlarge any of these images for better viewing! Nicki is a textile artist who gathered her fellow artist's group in May to visit the gardens and see the work I was doing. I adored Nicki's work with native flora for making dyes that she brought with her that day and I have stayed in touch with this wonderful group. Not a blogger at this point you can read more by visiting this post I wrote in May. Nicki will be attending a dialogue event at the Open Studio Week next week and talking about what's occurring in her region in relation to environmental sustainability and coal mining - visit friends of felton - to read about a serious matter with vast consequences. Here she has sent something very humorous - and its made of recycled cotton and felt, hand and machine stitched with letter stamps and doll eyes. I can see children lining up in front of this and wanting to take it home! Wonderful Nicki!

...next we go to the fabulous home gardener Em from gardenfool  who is based outside NY city. I forget Em how far your said you travel to get into the city. What I have loved about visiting garden fool more or less weekly for the best part of a year is that I get to see how the garden is growing each week. Em takes wonderful photos and I learn quite a bit on my virtual visits! The photos at the back are of the potager in her back yard - seen over 4 different seasons....the 4th is snowed in....and so dramatic. Go visit the blog to see more of this! Its really worth it! In the front are her 4 postcards of seed-heads and capsules from her garden... Just wonderful my bloggy friend! Delighted you found the time in your hugely busy week to get this all the way over here!

Ah yes!

...now to something special from my friend who wishes to be anonymous who has been an enormous source of inspiration and help ever since she heard I was doing a seed-based project last year! Someone who emails all kinds of links and tells me of fascinating things I may have missed.

I am dissapointed also with my camera in this shot... what you are missing is the stitching all along the edges of the card - and the right-hand bottom corner has a very large seed with the word Precious written across it. And indeed ... it is a precious card. I promise I will retake these photos ! thanks M!

Here we go to somewhere close by Victor Harbour in South Australia... a beautiful part of the world. I recently made a connection with Penny and she keeps herself very busy with 2 blogs - Back Valley Seasons and With my boots and sketch book... and is a lively 70 year old who shared the fact her father was a botanist at the Botanic Gardens in South Australia for many years so she grew up with a distinct love of all things botanical and in nature.

She has sent a card with her drawings and 2 postcards with what she describes as a simple printing technique - i love the freshness of these - Penny writes "seeds, the beginning of life, small capsules, from which so much emerges." Somehow i think Penny would have many stories.... thanks for sending your contribution across the continent penny! 

Late last year I discovered a blog called 'send me seeds pip' and I really took to the name! I liked their

business and it has such a personal and familiar feel to it.... on the spectrum of seed companies...the mean and nasty 'big brother' companies copywriting seeds left, right and centre are at one end and Pip is at the other end... and guess what?  These 2 who run this enterprise are actually sisters!

I wrote to them last year and again for this blogger call-out... they may or may not draw and paint but they create... and blog a bit... so I reckoned they would send a postcard and indeed they have...with bells on! go visit thie blog... its full of vim!

Look closely for their cards have seeds in them! Lovely lemon scented bottle brush tree seeds... so how fine is that?

Pip stands for Pollinate, Inspire, Propagate  and is these 2 sisters Kylie and Sas

PIP is an Australian partnership formed between two sisters, Sas and Kylie Allardice. After many years of traversing the land, and gaining worldy experiences in permaculture and gardening, Sas Allardice imparted her new found wisdom and passion on her sister, Kylie. Sas helped Kylie grow her first vegetable garden! Kylie was enthused. She loved cooking, and now had her very own organic vegetables to cook for her family and friends. But what next? The first harvest died off, but her sister Sas was busy helping many other gardens grow.

"I wish it was easy to know what to plant, and when. Even better, I wish someone could just send me what I needed to plant, at the right time each season."  Kylie didn't have confidence to keep her garden growing. And with a busy food marketing career, she did not have the time to stay up to date with her gardens needs. And so the Send Me Seeds Pip, idea was born!  Sas and Kylie aim to help Pollinate, Inspire and Propagate gardens all over Australia and the world! This little seed has just been planted... help it to grow!

 

The journey now brings me back to Brisbane - to a local blogger you must visit - Sandra Pearce who lives not too far from me I think!

Sandra writes: "My postcard features a monotype I printed during my art residency at Coochiemudlo Island in April.  The monotype was inspired by the morning kajak trips that Cathy and I made through the mangrove forests surrounding Coochie.  Often we would see the mangrove seed pods floating by, which made me speculate about the journeys these pods make on the tidal currents within Moreton Bay.  Within the monotype there are mangrove seedings, the moon influencing the tides and ocean currents, and floating lines representing the journey of the seed pods."

This image certainly has the qualities of a mangrove area... I walked through a Mangrove boardwalk taking photos last year one Sunday morning delighting in the unique atmosphere and vegetation... so its

lovely to see Sandra's interpretation of this important habitat. Gorgeous colour sense - as seen above and below -with her text as well!

tidal place

tidal time

retreat, surge

drifting

well... I hope you find a moment to visit these inspiring people's blogs and a BIG THANKS to all of you for the great inspiration you've sent in for others to see and enjoy!
... with gratitude ... Sophie x