Blog Tour Finale -- Laura Lacamara's Floating on Mama's Song

I have very much enjoyed being part of Laura Lacámara’s virtual book tour this week! Laura is guest blogging again today, the last day of the tour, to announce the winner of a copy of her delightful book, Floating on Mama’s Song.

Thank you Diane, Megan, Tina and René for the wonderful job you each did hosting and conducting the Blog Tour interviews. Many thanks, also, to my fellow interviewees, Katherine Tegen and Yuyi Morales, for your heartfelt responses. It’s been more fun and enlightening than I could have anticipated.


Thanks to everyone who visited and posted comments.  Now (drum roll, please) announcing the official winner of the book giveaway contest:

Janelle, a/k/a “Brimful Curiosities,” gets a copy of Floating on Mama’s Song.

 
Be on the lookout for my next picture book release, The Runaway Piggy (Illustrated by Laura Lacámara, written by James Luna), to be published by Piñata Books on November 30, 2010!

If you missed any of the earlier tour stops, here are links to the host sites:

Monday, Aug. 30 - Floating on Mama's Song synopsis, reviews
Out of the Paintbox - Diane Browning

Tuesday, Aug. 31- Laura Lacámara (author) interview
On Beyond Words & Pictures - Megan Frances

Wednesday, Sept. 1- Katherine Tegen (editor) interview -- Publication day!
Tales from the Rushmore Kid - Tina Nichols Coury

Thursday, Sept. 2 - Yuyi Morales (illustrator) interview
Latin Baby Book Club - René Colato Lainez

Mail Art - The Impulse to Embellish

Earlier this week I wrote about a 20th-21st century mail art exhibit at the Pasadena Armory. I love the creativity, energy and unexpectedness of mail art. In the early days of the mail art movement many of the creators were inspired by the Dadaists and had a rather provocative approach. Some were expressing an anti-gallery philosophy. They were tired of what they perceived to be the establishment dictating what was art, and perhaps their exclusion from that world. The art they created, and the art exhibited in the recent Armory show, was full of vitality and expressiveness.


There is a different category of mail art – actually my favorite – a gentler expression of I am an artist. It’s who I am: I can’t not decorate this letter, this envelope, this postcard.

There are exciting sketchbooks left by da Vinci and Toulouse-Lautrec and other great artists, but also intriguing is the art that has been preserved on the correspondence of other artists and writers. Perhaps these sketches describe the view outside a holiday rental, or what they saw before them in a café. They may have been doodling to amuse themselves, or to entertain a child. But I believe the main reason for their illustrating letters was that the paper before them was blank, they had a pen, and they were artists.

They simply had to.

Cats on Wednesday - Bebe the Book Store Cat

McCabe & Company, Booksellers (founded in 1979) is much appreciated in the San Bernardino mountain community of Crestline by locals and visitors alike. Besides being a great little book store, McCabe’s is popular due to their official greeter, Bebe.

Owner Carol McCabe told me Bebe has “always been a working cat.” Two years ago her previous position at an antique store up the block was terminated when the store closed. Bebe was then known as Baby, but that name was judged to not suit her strong personality. Not able to retire to her previous employer’s home due to her outspoken negative opinions of animals already in residence, Bebe (née Baby) was carried in state up the block to her new home, the cozy and charming McCabe’s Book Store.

At McCabe’s Bebe oversees merchandise stocking, sales, book signings, inventory, and customer relations. She likes everyone, but owner Carol describes her as a ‘flirt’, who definitely prefers gentlemen customers.

Marie Collins, weekend manager and former school teacher in the La Cañada school system, told me Bebe “reads all night.” (She catches up on lost sleep during the day between shop duties.)

Marie Collins and Bebe share a book

Recently Bebe has shown a growing interest in helping ring up sales. Marie told me Bebe, who likes her mouse (the computer mouse, that is) wreaks havoc on the cash register computer in order to reach it. There’s one particular button she manages to step on -- it controls the dispensing of customers’ receipts.

She’s an educated cat. Saving paper? Going green?

Cats like quiet places. And quiet activities. Their presence is wonderfully calming, and they can be extremely charming when they choose to be.

They are perfect book store companions.

International Mail Art Exhibit – in Honor of Judith Hoffberg

No matter how long I know about a museum exhibit, I generally don’t manage to get there until the last day of the show!

This is a very unfortunate habit since I so often wish I could return for another viewing, for more inspiration. It also means I can’t recommend the show to my friends, no matter how much I think they, too, might appreciate it.

I've done it again. I recently visited the Caldwell Gallery at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena -- on the closing day of an exhibition!

International Mail Art was a show comprised of over 8000 pieces from more than 25 countries. The exhibit was dedicated to Judith Hoffberg, who was an editor, archivist, curator, librarian, lecturer. She was, in fact, a great promoter of artists and a supporter of both mail art and artists books. All mail art included in the exhibition has been donated to the Judith A Hoffberg Archive at the UC Santa Barbara Library. Many of the entries were moving tributes to her – they made me wish I’d known her.





My sister makes artists books and we are both long-time fans of mail art, as admirers and creators. We enjoyed this show thoroughly! (There's an excellent slide show of the exhibit on flickr.) The pieces were done in a wide variety of techniques:  collage, rubber stamps, photography to name a few! My favorites were the ones incorporating drawings or paintings.



Mail art (also known as correspondence art) is described in the press release from the exhibit as “art which uses the postal system as a medium.” This means that it might just be art with postage stamps (real or not) on it, or be made to look like or include an envelope, postcard, or package.  Mail.

My personal interpretation is that it is a decorated envelope or postcard which is actually mailed……real mail, but decorated. Of course, few people write real mail any more…..



The modern mail art ‘movement’ evolved from the 1950’s on, but I have long been a fan of earlier mail art I’ve seen (though it wasn’t a ‘movement’ yet). Thursday I’ll blog about illustrated letters of artists and writers, going back to the 18th century. Apparently artists have never been able to resist the urge to draw on a variety of surfaces – and a blank envelope just cries out to be decorated!