Create and Write Postcards - #Resist - Send on the Ides of Trump - March 15

Share this.

Are you feeling scattered and a bit out of it? Want a stress reliever? Make and Write postcards to be sent on March 15, the Ides of Trump.

MAKING POSTCARDS - no larger than 4x6" for postcard rate $.34, write a message and address them 

1) Pull out old greeting cards and cut them to size

2) Cut card stock and on one side...

use markers, crayons, paints and decorate

3) Buy prepaid postage cards 




Write

--a poem

--a limerick

--a favorite quote

--a list of things you want done

--a list of things you believe
--Prompt: Roses are red, violets are blue

Draw

--something or someone you love

--what you want to protect

--the outcome you want

Glue/Modge/Podge

--A ransom note

--A collage of things you want protected

--Symbols of things you treasure

WRITING A MESSAGE - Make sure you leave room to address the postcard

--Affirm

--Request

--Describe your vision

--Point out discrepancies

--Suggest changes

--Be succinct

--Be nice

--Be firm

Send several.

Address:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Creating a Personal Mission - Simple Tactics In Deed

The political stuff has me agitated. (Really? You say, I hadn't noticed.) After seeing the Requiem for The American Dream, I am more convinced I need to do something. The point I took away from is that one doesn't have to do anything huge. It's about convening people, caring for people, and not buying into consumerism and isolationism. So, that may become my mission. I have befriended a refugee family who I've committed to spend time talking with them. That's it. Talking with them to improve their ability to communicate, to work.

I'm having a blast making postcards on the heavier paper samples we received at last summer's Urban Sketchers Chicago confab. I've sent four to representatives, sent a couple as a swap and will save the rest to send on March 15 to Donald Trump.

The interesting thing is that because of befriending the Syrian family, I've tasted food I never heard of, made an unplanned visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, which also took me into parts of the Maggie Daley Park where I haven't been and played tag for the first time in years. One of the kids called me old, but what the hell? It was fun.

With the postcard making, I actually paid attention to the paper types and discovered how much I love the Faber Castell Pitt pens that were given away. The many tones of grey to black, that I likely would never have bought myself, are helping me with value studies. And, as a side note, I'm not just watching tv.

Seriously, watch this documentary either on Netflix or buy it on You Tube for $3.99. And, tell us what you think. I know I will still be thinking about it.

Thinking about making postcards? 

Keep in mind that cards have to meet certain requirements. To qualify for mailing at the First-Class Mail postcard price ($.34), it must be:

Rectangular

At least 3-1/2 inches high x 5 inches long x 0.007 inch thick

No more than 4-1/4 inches high x 6 inches long x 0.016 inches thick

Otherwise they are the same cost as a letter.

Need an address? Google your zipcode with the office, Address Senator 60015. There are other ways, but that's an easy path.

The above info has been fact checked. It took about 1 minute. Why the hell doesn't the whitehouse know how to do that? I think I'll write a postcard.

Your Creativity - Early or Late in Life? Quick or Never Done? Malcolm Gladwell makes sense of it

Are you a Jackson Pollack or a Cezanne... an Elvis Costello or a Leonard Cohen? Is your creativity iterative or a one and done? You gotta hear this excellent Malcolm Gladwell podcast, Hallelujah, if you want to better understand your creative process. And, it's even more poignant with the passing of Leonard Cohen.

I got hooked on the series after watching Malcolm Gladwell on Stephen Colbert. The Hallelujah segment spoke to me and helped me understand my process as more Paul Cezanne and Leonard Cohen. (Ha, I drafted this post two months ago.) It offered a connect-the-dots of ideas about creativity. He began with an Elvis Costello song that he likes and described how it changed when you recorded it many years later a second time. He likened the process to Cezanne who was never finished with a piece of art and contrasted it to Jackson Pollock who found his voice early and had many one-and-done paintings. He then went through a list of people and called them either Pollacks or Cezannes. For another example he used the many iterations of the Hallelujah song which I love and now appreciate even more.

Are you a Pollack or a Cezanne?

The podcasts are all 35 to 45 minutes long just about the time to drive into Chicago.

Nana's Clearing - A Child's View of the Death of Her Grandmother

Nana’s Clearing

Nana is dead.

Ranidae, a squat and jumpy five-year-old with black hair and eyes that Nana called toad skin, slipped out the door and headed toward the park.  Chips nipped from the buffet fell from her backpack at the first landing as she leapt from step to step; she stopped to reposition her load. Rani stuffed grapes in the pocket shaped like a nose and a juice box in each front foot. Into the frog’s head, she carefully layered the napkin she found by the coffee urn, chips from the counter, a tin, and the remains of the bag of M&Ms that didn’t fit in the bowl on the coffee table. Setting off again, she tucked Hermione, her last best friend and frog, beneath her arm, admiring her leg worn and dull from years of helping Ranidae suck her thumb. 

Running and jumping, Rani tried to catch the turtles and snakes that appeared and disappeared on the sidewalk as tree branches swayed in the after-nap sun. Ranidae raised Hermione high above her head, stretching to have the frog hold her hand. She turned right at the corner and right again at the next, never needing to cross a street before reaching Lily Pad Park.

The sidewalk melted into a path with soft shredded bark made from trees that once stood there tall. Ranidae spied the trail marker tree that braves once followed to lead her down the right path. She ducked beneath a branch, used her forearm to ward off another and shielded her eyes, when she turned west, onto a stretch with pickers and stickers that led into the sun. Nana told her that paths twist and turn and a moment in the sun will change to a moment in the shade, and life is one moment, then death. Nothing to be afraid of, she’d add. And, in one more bend, Rani and Hermione would reach the clearing that Nana loved.

The clearing was wide enough to show the sky, long enough for a creek with frogs that croaked as loud as the houseful of grownups she left behind. Ranidae heard from her Auntie Evangeline, who wore round, rimmed glasses and true red lips that Nana had croaked too.

Ranidae stopped next to the creek and sat down - brave-style, Nana called it. She pulled off her backpack and placed it on her lap. She zipped slowly and firmly, as Nana showed her, because the zipper sometimes got stuck going around one ear, and flew to the next, and sometimes got stuck again rounding to the other side of the other ear.  Rani laid out the napkin, placing a juice box on two sides. She made two clumps of candy, two clumps of grapes and two clumps of chips next to each.  She moved Hermione onto her lap, opened the tin and poured Nana on the other side of the napkin for a picnic in her favorite place for things that croak.

###

Painting: Available
Artist: Mary Longe

The Clearing

11x14" Oil, The Clearing, WI
mary.longe@gmail.com

Learn more about the Trail Trees: Great Lakes Trail Tree Society

I'm Not Above Regifting - Poem

I’m Not Above Regifting

I’m assembling a gift for a poet

Books with other’s words

That remind me of…

That are like a…

To inspire, support and show that hers equal and surpass the other’s published works.

I’m not above regifting

I’m happy to buy used, I mean, aren’t words always reused?

Pulling one from the shelf, the flyleaf held a note in red pen saying the poems by the Buddhist monk were sent in peace and love, with a smiley face.

A card fell out from somewhere in the middle from another long ago love. 
How strange to find it. I don't remember it. 

He looked to me with love, he said. I made a smiley face. I did remember how that felt.

He’d filled the void left by the red penning smiley face drawer.

Only for awhile. I thought.

And yet, those old words reminded me

That books and cards with loving notes are like a coffee in the afternoon before an evening out, or 

Like a crimson dot in Mr. Turner’s sea, or

Like a lesson in using brown, red or sweet onions or a leek.

Used, reused and now regifted.

Mary Longe

November 16, 2016

Painting: The Bookstore at the Clearing

Artist: Mary Longe

11x14" Oil

Ellison Bay, WI

November 1, 2016 

Mary Longe

mary.longe@gmail.com

Available