Fun from Fiji, France, S. Africa and the U.S.

This week was a bonanza of cards from interesting places:

From Honi in New York state, with a bonus snow picture

Card with interesting envelope and stamp from Michelle in the Fiji Islands

Cool New Year’s greetings from Guillaume in France, with an added “Je suis Charlie” on his note.

Beautiful collage from Dee in South Africa

And I few new pieces of my own:

Doodles in pink, blue, teal, purple and green (markers). I’m still playing with doodles and grids, after Joaquin Torres Garcia.

Meditation Altar (water color). My little zen altar as it looks this week; the flowers will be different next week.

Neon Doodle Profile (Doodle app/computer) My granddaughter downloaded an app on my phone. It’s addictive.

Ivy and Winter Sun (manipulated original photo) Our patio on a sunny winter afternoon.

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For the Love (Part 2)

If you missed Part 1, please visit my other blog, the gist of which is that I blog because I love doing it and I’m not very good at promoting readership.

My mother was an expert knitter. She could knit anything: fair isle, fishermen’s knit, cable, dolls with removable knitted clothes, coats, vests. Local yarn shops had rosters of knitters to knit for well-off non-knitters. She refused. She said if she did it for money it was “work.” She gave away hundreds, if not thousands, of items in her  80+ year knitting career. She would charge for yarn, or let people buy their own, but she wouldn’t take a penny for her work.

Fair isle made when I was in high school!

Lacy multi-color from about mid-80s.

 

Someone told me I should sell my post cards at a booth at Austin’s South Congress Artists’ Market. I told him about my mother and knitting. I do it because I love doing it. If I have to worry about renting and running a booth, marketing, parking on market days (!) and everything else it entails, it’s work.

Another reason I’m not so good at marketing myself:  As a public information person before retirement I was responsible for getting my agency’s message out to the media and the public. But the focus was on what the agency was doing, not on myself. I have mixed feelings about attention. I can talk with a live mike in front of me,  and did TV interviews, but I’m embarrassed when “happy birthday” is sung to me.

For 2015 I’m going to learn how to get more eyeballs on my blogs. In the meantime, thank you for your eyeballs, and if you’d like to receive a real, non-digital version of a post card, please send your mailing address to jillybeanswiggins@wordpress.com. International requests are welcome.

I’m still playing with grids inspired by Uruguayan artist Joaquin Torres Garcia.

1950s bathroom (markers)

Shiny New Year (markers, metallic and glitter markers)

Fat Tuesday (markers) Named after I noticed the colors I had chosen.

Stained glass (markers)

Maori art overlaid on a New Zealand map (scanned images)

Good Morning (Gratitude) (Original photo retouched with colored pencils and glitter markers)

This is not upside-down (original photo). Having fun with Texas winter sky.

Another card received from Honi in New York State:

Happy New Year!