thoughts of tristero

A couple of hours after posting the paprika card below, I came across this image of a post box, from my last trip to Budapest. The box was in the sprawling railway park in the city. Each time I see one of these European 'post horns' I am reminded of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, which I used to reread obsessively while living in Japan. The plot veers from comic to cryptic to sinister, as the questing heroine, Oedipa Maas, is drawn deeper and deeper into the machinations, real or imaginary, of a shadowy postal system called Tristero.

paprika

I started making this altered card with Mozart's birthday (that would be January 27) in mind but it morphed into a little something about paprika, the sublime spice. Orange paprika is supposed to be the hottest. And, while Mozart may have felt the most love in Prague, he was no stranger to Budapest and Bratislava.

the street

I sent this postcard off to Germany yesterday, prompted by the threat of snow in the air. It's long been a favorite. Alfred Stieglitz took the photo, which is titled The Street, and published it in a 1903 issue of his photography quarterly Camera Work.

fantastique

A card made by Mrpotani.

two from sandy

Two postcards made by Sandy Sapienza, who just keeps rolling along. I particularly like the newsprint trees at top.

the pizza birds waited

This hilarious altered card is from PostMuse. It's funny, too, in that pizza is a 'theme' this year. After Christmas I got a call from an old friend who runs a pension in Obama, on the coast of the Sea of Japan. For years he and his wife have also been running a successful pizza take-out business, so successful that they now plan to expand throughout western Japan. The pizza is good but whenever I stayed at the pension I was usually more interested in the local fish and oysters fresh from the ocean.

more winter

Another little nod to winter. This one will go to another old friend in Tono, who could probably use some 'bear' love.

pf 2011

Artist Jozef Bajus, visiting Slovakia last December, took this image in his father's greenhouse and turned it into a striking New Year's greeting.

altered winter

I'm sending this to an old friend in Tono, Japan, who long ago used to have horses, as many farmers did. The ones here are the wild ponies of Assateague.

three shows to start 2011

Art, Memory, Place, on at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University, from January 10 to March 26, commemorates the 100th anniversary of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. It was the worst industrial accident in New York City history, and fourth-worst in the United States, claiming the lives of 146 workers, most of them women, who were trapped on the eight, ninth, and tenth floors of the burning building. Management had locked doors to stairwells in order to keep tabs on workers, while firefighting ladders at the time reached only the sixth floor. Many women plunged to their deaths. For information on public programs to commemorate the disaster: www.nyu.edu/greyart.

Concrete Improvisations, a show of collages and sculpture by Esteban Vicente, runs concurrently at the Grey Art Gallery.

Mrpotani is one of five artists featured in a show at the Village Theatre Art Gallery in Danville, California.

pf 2011

Czech artist Blanka Sperkova always does something original for her New Year greetings. Here it's a PF2011 banner hung from a window in her Brno apartment.

another altered card

A little bit of America, Bulgaria, and Budapest (a wonderful teddy bear shop called Macimuvek) will head with this card to Japan.

holiday quartet

I keep telling myself I have only three more to go but this morning I think it's four. And I'm now thinking beyond the belated holiday greeting.

This whimsical New Year card from Tono farmer Kato Fumiko lets me know that her husband is still busy building their new house.

Each of these altered cards has taken on a life of its own and halfway through making each I usually know where it is going.

I love Christmas/New Year postcards. This one, shiny with hope, is from a postcrosser in Ukraine.

two more altereds and a rabbit

For now at least the altered cards just keep coming. It's about time, though, to think about the Year of the Rabbit.

b. free franklin

A little New Year homage to Benjamin Franklin, the first Postmaster General of the United States. His personal franking signature was B. Free Franklin, Postmaster.

country life

These stamps from a series on country life illustrate a way of life in Japan that is just about gone. It was already rushing by when I moved to Tono to live in an old thatched farmhouse. By the time I left, mobile phones and the Internet had changed things forever. Even the faces of the children were different.

hope for spring

This card, of a Bruce McCall illustration called Triple Play, arrived last week from PostMuse, who writes that she is not really a baseball fan but definitely not a fan of winter. Thinking about baseball makes her feel that winter will not last forever. Poor winter! The season has barely begun and already people want it gone. I love winter but I'm already itching for spring training. This card put me in a tizzy.

more altereds

I have definitely punked out on making New Year's cards. It looks like it will be all altered cards this month. So far I have put one of these cards 'naked' into the mail, then waffled and put a second in an envelope to send. It's a dilemma.

happy rabbits

happy new year

A postcard from the IronPigs to get 2011 off to a good start. A Happy New Yeat to all!