imagine:joy

mispel't

2011-06-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

envelope insert from Ron Gordon

I recently participated in an hilarious envelope exchange that likely left two postal carriers tearing their hair out. I am still amazed that these envelopes found their way through the international post, between California and Scotland!

I have seen my last name (Vanides) spelled in all sorts of variations, namely Vanidies, Vanidez and Vanidades - but this sure beats all! I also like Ron's take on Los Angeles.

Somehow the postal service managed to decipher Newtonhill, Stonehaven, U.K. Despite my blatant bastardization of Ron's address, the envelope still arrived in Scotland in less than a week.

The exchange was arranged by Jean Wilson of the Calligraphy Exchange. There is typically a new theme posted each month, as well as on-going/long term exchanges. I love being a part of this group and have received beautiful decorated envelopes from all over North America and Europe. I also enjoy the structure of the themes and mailing dates - gets me to practice my lettering and try new designs.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Lexie

2011-05-31T22:02:00.000-07:00

During one of my last visits with my Aunt Lex, she showed me a picture of a bird of paradise and told me how she had a dream of me painting the flower on her face. She envisioned having her makeup done, putting on a fabulous outfit and taking pictures. I loved the idea and knew she would look beautiful in avant-garde makeup. Unfortunately, her skin was too sensitive from the cancer treatments, and we were never able to bring her vision to life. I did this drawing as a tribute, finishing it over the Memorial Day weekend.

blackout

2011-05-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

a subtractive poem
using a black marker and a page out of a magazine
inspired by Austin Kleon's Newspaper Blackout poetry

thanks to my sweetheart

who always finds gems on the interwebs

ZIG

2011-05-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

Packages always brighten up my mailbox and my day, but I received an extra special treat last weekend. Jane Farr is the artist behind A Place to Flourish, an inspiring calligraphy blog that I've followed for over a year. She recently had a giveaway for several sets of Kuretake ZIG markers, and I was one of the lucky winners!

The envelope and card were hand lettered in Jane's beautiful calligraphy, and the package contained four double-ended ZIG markers: a Fine & Chisel, two Scroll & Brush and one Calligraphy pen.

The Pure Pink Calligraphy marker (far left) has a fat chiseled end, fun for large lettering. I decided to send a card to my Aunt Stas, whose maiden name and married name both just so happen to start with "Van". On a side note, I am in love with these sweet cards, inspired by vintage flower seed packets.

I also used the same Pure Pink marker to address a Mother's Day package to my mom. I snapped a quick iPhone picture before dropping it in the mail - and then blocked out the address before posting it here. :)

Thanks again to Jane for the wonderful giveaway! I look forward to many more of your Flourish Fridays!

Egyptian Book of the Dead

2011-03-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

This past January, my father attended a business conference in London, that just so happened to fall on the week of my birthday. My mom and I joined him for the trip, excited for our first vacation overseas together. When I arrived in England, I learned that my parents had both come down with a nasty cold/laryngitis combination - not quite what we had envisioned for our trip. I spent several afternoons exploring the city solo, learning how to navigate the intricate maze that is the London Underground.

I entered a new decade (my thirties!) on January 13th. I spent the afternoon with my mom, enjoying high tea and sweets at the beautiful Landmark Hotel. We decided to meet up with my father that evening, to finally visit the famous British Museum. When we arrived around 6:00PM, the museum guard informed us that the extended visiting hours had been discontinued due to budget cuts. However, we were welcome to see the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which was the only exhibit open late.

image via British Museum

As we made our way up into the grand rotunda, I imagined how striking the architecture must appear in the daylight, when the sun can filter through the glass panes. After sunset, the space was quiet, intimate and almost sacred, with atmospheric music softly pulsing against the black exhibition walls. At the entrance, I stopped to read the opening quote.

"May the sky open up to you,

May the earth open up to you,
May the ways open up to you in the netherworld."

I was hit by a sudden wave of goosebumps and tears, as my Aunt Alexia came to my mind. She was back home in California and in the very late stages of an aggressive cancer. I looked at my parents and whispered "Is it strange that we are in an exhibit about death?"

We quietly made our way through the rooms, viewing ancient scrolls of papyrus and learning about the ancient Egyptians' view of the afterlife. The deceased had to make a long and perilous journey through the netherworld, in hopes of reaching paradise (the Field of Reeds). The soul, or ba, took the form of a bird, that could travel outside of the body. The Book of the Dead consisted of numerous scrolls, full of spells intended to help the dead protect themselves during their journey. Some large sheets of papyrus could be draped over the mummy, but in other cases, the scribes actually wrote inside the sarcophagus, giving the dead easy access to the detailed instructions. It was amazing to look closely at the strokes of each hieroglyph and think of the ancient scribes at work. The differences in style and skill were evident, especially when comparing scrolls for the poor versus the rich. I was fascinated by the deep mysticism, whereas my parents were both struck by how familial love is universal across cultures and time.

I woke up the next morning in our hotel at 7:00AM, to the raspy voice of my father on the phone. Instantly, I knew something was very wrong.

Alexia Vanides Gentry

My Aunt Lex passed away in her sleep around noon on January 13th, at home. After thinking about the time difference between San Francisco and London, my parents and I came to the realization that we were deep inside the Book of the Dead exhibit when she died. I still can't quite wrap my mind around how one can feel the presence of another all the way across the world. But then again, she had the strongest presence of anyone in our family - it literally filled a room. She was a passionate, irreverent and beautiful woman, with strong Mediterranean features reminiscent of Cleopatra. We like to think that she would have appreciated the ironic timing of our visit to the British Museum.

Back home in Southern California, I keep seeing her favorite flower wherever I go. I don't know if birds of paradise just happen to be in bloom, or if it's her ba lingering. Regardless, it's amazing how the fiery beauty of a flower captures her spirit so perfectly.

(c) Jim Vanides Photography

Atlas Envelopes

2011-02-06T17:58:00.000-08:00

On a recent trip to Out of the Closet, I found a huge world atlas for only $3.00. Published in 1968, it has the "latest and most authentic geographical and statistical information". The book contains nearly four hundred pages of detailed colored maps, many of which are delightfully outdated.

Normally just the thought of tearing pages out of a book makes me die a little inside. However, I couldn't resist using some of these maps for the Mail Art Across the World project. After skimming through the atlast, I decided it would be most appropriate to pick pages from my own country.

I unfolded and flattened a junk envelope and used it as a template over the page:

When working on the California map, I made sure to line up the template so I could pay homage to the San Francisco Bay Area. I may live in Los Angeles, but my roots will forever be in Northern California. :-) Using the DirectTV envelope as my guide, I folded up the new envelope and sealed the flaps with PVA.

Here is the back...

And the front:

And another envelope that highlights the index:

I'm going to give it a day or so before moving on to the lettering and choosing stamps. More to come!

Mail Art

2011-01-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

Checking the mail is one of my favorite evening rituals, and nothing brightens up the inside of a dark mailbox quite like a decorated envelope. I've been participating in calligraphy exchanges for about a year now and have received beautiful envelopes from North America, Europe and Australia. If you dig mail art as much as me, here are two international projects to consider:

[image via Atelier Calligraphie]

I found out about this project through A Place to Flourish (thanks Jane!). This exhibition is not juried and is open to artists and calligraphers of all levels of experience. There will be free exhibits in France, Belgium, Hungary and the Ukraine, all featuring mail art from (you guessed it) across the world. Click here for information and details in English. The mailing deadline is April 1, 2011.

[image via the Washington Calligrapher's Guild]

The Washington Calligrapher's Guild sponsors the Graceful Envelope contest each year, based around an open-ended theme. This year's theme is "Time Flies", which leaves a lot of room for your creative interpretation. All entries must be postmarked by April 30, 2011. There are no prizes, but the winning entries will be displayed online and at the headquarters of the National Association for Letter Carriers. For inspiration, I recommend that you check out the Graceful Envelope archives for some really incredible pieces of mail.

Have you created any mail art lately? Share a link to your work in the comment section!

Finished

2011-01-24T00:09:00.000-08:00

My sketchbook started its travels early. I completed it in London, the day after my 30th birthday and then mailed it out from Los Angeles. The book is now in Brooklyn, where the tour will begin on February 19th. The exhibition will travel all across the US, so click here to see all of the stops! Below are three more of my pages.

Mustaches

2011-01-06T22:29:00.000-08:00

I only have eight more days left to postmark my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project, and I have a handful of pages to go. And when I say a handful, I mean quite a few (I haven't dared to count). Fortunately, I will have a long trip across the pond this weekend, which will give me some good drawing time. Here is one of the latest spreads and two pictures to show the beginning and the end. I don't like to plan out anything before I start sketching - I prefer to draw spontaneously. Looking at these guys again, I realize I may have been unconsciously thinking about by my dad when I picked up my pen. :-)

Cheers!

a bit of bubbly...

2011-01-04T23:40:00.000-08:00

holiday card exchange

hairy developments...

2010-12-29T16:18:00.000-08:00

"There's many a man hath more hair than wit."

-Shakespeare

I have quite a few more pages to go until the postmark deadline of January 15th.

Onward and upward!

Joyeux Noel!

2010-12-25T14:12:00.000-08:00

When my CoachArt student said she wanted to ornaments, I set to looking for project ideas online. I ended up taking inspiration from a simple and lovely post from My Hands Made It. We filled clear glass ornaments from Michael's with various goodies and painted words with gouache. Imitation pine needles, cranberries and glittery leaves... all sweet and cozy under the twinkly lights. Here are three of my ornaments, all photographed by my father.

All images by Jim Vanides Photography

Many Christmas blessings to you!

Left Hand

2010-12-19T02:03:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago, I was making myself a grilled cheese sandwich and thought to myself "I've never burned myself cooking, isn't that great?"

You can probably guess where this is going.

Fast forward to last Friday night, and I'm in the kitchen, pouring oil into a pan to make crab cakes for myself and Mike. I step away to get something from my bedroom and return to a sizzling pan. I turn down the burner, lift up the pan and then, as if in slow motion, all of the hot oil promptly sloshes out over my bare right hand. And then a lot of yelling, cursing and crying ensued. My hand literally felt like it was on fire, so we ended up making a trip to the emergency room that night. A trip to the West Hills burn clinic followed on Monday. Second degree burn blisters are pretty amazing, and the nurse at the clinic seemed surprised that I actually wanted to watch the whole de-roofing process. I guess I should have told her that I studied special effects in makeup school and have been known to take pictures of various injuries. I'll spare you the recent images and will just say that it was a really rough week. :-/

All of my current art projects were completely out of the question, so I decided to experiment in drawing with my left hand in my journal. It's oddly freeing to draw with your non-dominant hand, as the pen moves in unexpected directions.

The bandage came off after six days, and I'm happy to be on the mend! I do want to continue this study in left handed drawing. Starting in the new year, I'll be taking three online visual journaling workshops through Strathmore, so perhaps I will fill some pages using just my left hand. I can't imagine I'll ever become ambidextrous, but it'll be fun to experiment.

2010-12-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

How I love...

a cozy winter weekend,
a fresh box of produce,
long afternoon walks,
thought provoking films,
homemade persimmon jam,
and immersing myself in an art project.

Pages from my sketchbook

Free Association

2010-12-02T21:27:00.001-08:00

As I continue my security blanket project, I've begun to amass quite the collection of envelopes. Here are some favorites that have come through my mailbox (and from friends & relations who are kind to humor my new-found fascination). Let the free association begin.

American Express
Hot air balloons, vintage wallpaper and the circus

AAA Automobile Club of Southern California
Waiting for the Magic Eye dolphin to appear...

Chase
Bubbles and pinwheels.

Bank of America
Pic-a-nic blanket.

Cigna
Happy trees.

Fidelity

Tell me this doesn't totally remind you of a Spirograph design.

The Sketchbook Project

2010-11-29T12:11:00.000-08:00

After much ado with the postal service, my Moleskine has arrived!

I'm stoked to be a part of The Sketchbook Project, a traveling exhibit that begins in the spring of 2011. Almost 30,000 sketchbooks from artists all over the world will go "on tour" through San Francisco, Austin, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Winter Park, Washington DC, Portland and New York. Each sketchbook has a unique barcode, so I will be able to track where my sketchbook is and how many times people check it out. All of the books will be cataloged in the Brooklyn Art Library system.

Right now, the pages of my sketchbook are deliciously blank, ready to be filled from cover to cover. I chose the theme "Face in the Crowd", so I can continue my affair with these quirky little guys.

I'll post pictures of my progress, but for now, I think it's time to let those blank pages marinate while I get some shut-eye.

Good night!

Security Blanket

2010-11-11T15:33:00.000-08:00

After years of recycling my junk mail, I have recently slowed down and fully examined all of my mail. My CoachArt student and I have been doing a lot of collage work, and unsolicited catalogs and magazines have lent themselves toward some really fun art pieces. A few weeks ago I started to look a little closer at the numerous security envelopes that come through my mailbox. I was surprised to see just how many different patterns are hiding on the inside!

As I started to unfold the envelopes and cut them into little squares, I was reminded of my beloved baby blanket, tucked away on the upper shelf of my closet.

Nearly 30 years old, this little quilt is faded and frayed. I still marvel at the patterns in each square - gingham, dots, blackberries, rose buds and tiny wildflowers.

Using my blanket as inspiration, I'm in the process of creating a quilt of security envelope squares mounted on canvas. This canvas is fairly large, so I'm still gathering envelopes with black and white security patterns. This past week, the postman has brought more blue patterns than black, so the hunt continues for a diverse array of patterns. Here's my progress so far:

More to come!

Blackberry Jam

2010-08-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

When I was a small child, my mother and father would take me on a drive up to Portola Valley each summer, to buy flats of fresh, juicy berries at Webb Ranch. I remember sitting at the kitchen counter, watching my parents sweat over huge canning pots, bubbling with blackberries and sugar. Glass Ball jars sat boiling in anticipation of piping hot jam, and gradually, it felt like we had opened every window in the house. After the jars were filled and sealed with a satisfactory "pop!", they were left out to cool and then eventually hand-labeled with my mom's pretty handwriting. My parents made enough jam to enjoy for the rest of the year, and even as an adult, I still have a deep seated love for peanut butter and blackberry jelly sandwiches.

Fastforward to the summer of 2010, and my favorite part of this season is still the fresh fruit. Mike and I joined the Abundant Harvest Organics CSA program at the beginning of the year, and our weekly box of organic produce includes seasonal fruit. I was reminded of how I really needed to learn how to make jam myself. I just spent a wonderful weekend with my mother, in our same old kitchen, learning to make jam. The canning pots, although large, didn't feel quite as enormous as I had remembered, but the heat of the kitchen was the same! We made 22 jars of blackberry jelly and 7 jars of strawberry jam, the latter of which has the sweetest flavor with a tangy end note. And since my handwriting has improved considerably since the age of 5, I got to make the labels. :-)

Cards

2010-05-27T23:47:00.000-07:00

I re-discovered my Prismacolor markers recently and have had fun experimenting with multi-color lettering, using a variation on my regular handwriting. Here are a few of my favorites:

the Graceful Envelope contest

2010-05-20T23:45:00.000-07:00

For the past 16 years, the Washington (DC) Calligrapher's Guild has put out a call for artistic envelopes, based around an open-ended theme such as "Address The Environment", "Greetings from America" and "The Letter P". The guild partners with the National Association of Letter Carriers to put on an annual exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum. I recommend that you check out the Graceful Envelope Contest archives for some really incredible pieces of mail!

The 2010 theme was water, or more eloquently put : "A Stream of Letters". Here's my entry, on a standard #10 envelope, created with Higgins Eternal Ink and Prismacolors. It was a fun challenge to figure out how to incorporate the Forever stamp into the design! I did print the guild's address clearly on the back, so *fingers crossed* the envelope will make it to Virginia.

Plantable

2010-05-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

I recently finished addressing invitations for my cousin's wedding. Here are a few of the envelopes, lettered with a pointed pen and burnt sienna gouache (the addresses are blurred out for privacy purposes). My cousin ordered the invitations through a unique eco-friendly company called ForeverFiances that specializes in recycled, plantable paper! Each invite was embedded with tiny flower seeds, ready to plant in one's home garden or - in the case of us apartment dwellers - a nice clay pot. So sweet!

Beginnings

2010-05-16T18:33:00.000-07:00

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."
-Pablo Picasso

As I prepared to embark on this new adventure called blogging, I came across one of my favorite childhood photographs. My dad designed the easel shown above, and the photo was published as part of a 1983 Sunset magazine article entitled "Easy-to-Make, Easy-to-Store Easels for Young Artists". The picture not only captured a moment in time, but it continues to remind me that I have been fascinated by color, lines and shapes since before I can even remember. Sometimes I have to remind myself to go back and visit with that little girl, as she helps put life back into perspective.