Here's a card from the hulaseventy swap.

Hulaseventy postcard swap ...
Originally uploaded by palmer1007.

This is one of my favorite cards I sent out for the hulaseventy postcard swap this month. It has been so much fun not just to make the cards, send out the cards and receive them, but also to be able to see what other people are making and sending and receiving on flickr.
I can't wait to send some in the fall.

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
...
--Wordsworth
(read more of this light, summery wonder of a poem here. i read this over and over and over in high school...it's very airy.)

This summer postcard swap has gotten me back into poetry and artful reading...not just creating again.... hooray!

Edward Hopper.

Let's try to post this again...

Finally, a few moments of time to write about Hopper. Today was one of those days where I really felt like staying in bed for an eternity. (I did in fact lay around the house until 4pm!) I spent time flipping through my notes from Boston, both from my enlightening conference and the trip as a whole. I also walked through, for perhaps the twenty-third time, the book of postcards (or as I think of it, the cheap alternative to the exhibition's book) that I picked up at the museum book store.

The exhibit was set up in four rooms, each devoted to one or several periods of Hopper's visual eras. The rooms were packed with people speaking a multitude of languages, looking at the art close and from afar, dancing around each in search of a better view. I weaved my way through the maze of people, getting as close as I could to the paintings I had only seen in Mark Strand's book and those I had never had the priveledge of viewing. There is something magical about seeing the majority of an artist's life pasted on the walls, in the same place. I felt like I could truly SEE the progression, and the changes, and the strokes, and the beauty in each work as it related to the next.

Someone was saying
something about shadows covering the field, about
how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning
and the morning goes.

More soon, but for now, enjoy the poem above...the link features Mark Strand reading "From the Long Sad Party" of which this stanza is the first. These four lines describe some of Hopper's paintings....look at Cape Cod Morning

baby mia.

baby mia has arrived!! congratulations to my friends and their teeny, beautiful little girl!!

loooooong time.

I'm in Boston. (yes again) And have been for the last five days. I'm here for a work conference and must say, the city is incredible. Last time bad weather stunted our days but I've really enjoyed seeing Boston alone. There's something sad, but totally freeing about traveling and exploring a new place alone. I found myself (an admitted control freak) enjoying the idea of agenda-less wandering. I actually got lost, but for some reason it was funny rather than terrifying.
I have so much to write about the Hopper exhibit at the MFA, my travels, the "growth journey," a concept I have thought a lot about at this conference...and finally, the empowering and enlightening moments I've experienced in these last few days.

to the few people who may ever read this...stay tuned.

Found it.

Hooray! I COMPLETED four postcards last night and have found that those I initially threw out in disgust blossomed into final works. I like the idea of the process...if only I could have photographed each stage perhaps I could appreciate the end product more.

Regardless...I found it. The creative energy is back.

The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful

state which makes art inevitable.

(Thank you Mr. Robert Henri. Inevitable is one of my very favorite words.)

Nothing screams "whatta weekend" like a skull shaped wine goblet.

I found myself sick on Friday...yuck...who gets sick on a Friday? Sick days should be used on a Tuesday or Wednesday, never at the birth of a weekend.

Here's a photo of my sick self, medicinally drinking wine with my two dear friends. If liquid tylenol allegry sinus tasted as fresh and summery as reisling, I'd probably be feeling healthier today than I am, but alas, if you have a skull goblet, you must partake in a night of watching You Got Served (it's true, we watched it) and white wine with your girlfriends.

I've been working on card after card for the hula seventy summer postcard swap and I have to say, I'm not terribly pleased with my creative juices. I need some summer inspiration I guess. I have tried flowers and yellow and even Paul Celan (a poet I formerly despised).

I suppose some of the work is lovely, but it needs to be sticky with Iowa morning humidity and drunk with strawberry lemonade. They should be fresh with the smells new soil and daisies, colored with backyard furniture and croquet, and dripping with sunscreen.

If only my art could be as beautiful as my metaphors.

(PS- Thank you google image search.)

More postcards.

A drawing of my bathroom sink and mirror. I made two of these...sent to Nicole and Chadwick.

Sent to Marisa. I do wish she was here.

it's a beautiful day...

a delicious orange on a splendid day.

free people travel swap!

Here's the package I sent to Laurie in Illinois!

It's a little "Iowa" to send East.

(Iowa gift tags, a sketch book, an Iowa map, a car freshner for the road trip, and a cheesy novel to giggle about along the way.)