Sunday, June 16, 2013

Since Death is Inevitable....

"How Then Shall We Live?"

My ATC's for June celebrate the fact that my father would have been 100 years old on June 20, 2013.





I made 53 cards (because I was 53 years old when he died in 2001) and used old 3x5 sample cards that Dad stored in file cabinets under the cabin which my husband and I just cleared out this month. TOR took the metal to Boulder to be recycled, and I sorted the cardboard and pills, and then used some of the more interesting samples for my ATC's.

I made folders for each card: Here is the Cover:


And here is the inside Cover using the image of lung surfactant:


On the back of the ATC's, I practiced drawing the six basic skeletal elements of the head, which is an exercise found in Tom Richmond's book, "The Mad Art of Caricature! A Serious Guide to Drawing Funny Faces."



On the reverse side of the card, I printed some of the words we came up with last Sunday at Death Cafe & Art Salon. I am adding words to this list as they come to me.


Here is the front and back of card #28/53 pictured above:




Before going to the Art-4-Art Trading Session at the Lyons Depot Library, I drove to B and visited our family home which was coincidentally being opened to the public for the first time during the Historic Homes Tour. It was surreal to listen to a docent talk about our family as occupants of the home and to hear our names and our family habits being shared with visitors to our house, except that the house is no longer owned by our family. It was eerie to hear about my childhood, it was as if I were already dead and forgotten because the docents didn't know who I was and I was just lurking about like a ghost in my sister's and my old bedroom (which had been remodeled by the new owners but was still recognizable).

I cut up a postcard to Dad from a drug salesman from Geo. Berbert and Sons, Inc., and kept it rather than trading it with anyone. Thought the date (not the postmark) on this postcard was interesting.

March 23, 1963:




Art-4-Art Mail Art: June