Winter XXIII

Bird on a wire.*

Cold bird at the feeder.

I started the Winter cards in 1991, so XXIII (#23) confuses the math!  

(See Addendum for pix of all 23 Winter cards, plus the lone Crossroads card.)

Yes - I skipped a couple of years in the early 90s and then,

the postcard after Winter X was called Crossroads! = 3 non-Winters.

So that should make the math right...

I did make a prototype,

but the only difference between that and the final versions

was that I added the perfectly-named 'Ethereal' paper

- a tissue-thin/light fiber paper - to the bottom half of the cards.

The Fixin's

The Steps: The Movie:

The Steps

(a mere 7 steps this month/year!)

I started by tacking the silver paper behind the circular hole in the red and off-white sheet-music paper pieces, and decided to have some fun, since each piece was able to stand up on it's own:

It was going so well, that I decided to continue the fun:

Mustering my troops - my little paper army.  :-)  A total of 170+.

Reminded me of these ancient Chinese Terra Cotta soldiers:

Panels of 12 of the Winter XXIII postcards

Fin.

*Richard Thompson's rendition of this Leonard Cohen song:

**I sent out nice, store-bought cards, but felt like I was shortchanging my friends/loved ones, so I resumed making my own again in 1995.

Addendum - The Annual Winter Postcards + 1

Winter, 1991

 Winter II, 1992

 Winter III, 1995

 Winter IV, 1996

Winter V, 1997

Winter VI, 1998

Winter VII, 1999

Winter VIII, 2000

Winter VIX, 2001

Winter X, 2002

Crossroads, 2003*

Winter XI, 2004

Winter XII, 2005

Winter XIII, 2006

Winter XIV, 2007

Winter XV. 2008

Winter XVI, 2009

Winter XVII, 2010

Winter XVIII, 2011**

Winter XVIII, 2012

Winter XIX, 2013

Winter XX, 2014

Winter XXI, 2015

Winter XXII, 2016

Winter XXIII, 2017

*Crossroads: 2004 was a year of big transitions: I was turning 50, Mule retired after 30 years at IBM, and we decided to get married (after living together for 10 years).

**This was a printed postcard that I'd done for a BCA competition, and which I sent out instead of my usual, individually collaged cards that year because I was hustling to get all my Winter panels done for the debut 'Winter' show (Dec. 4, 2012 @ The Gruppe Gallery) - just didn't have time to make 150+ postcards that year!

November's Postcard of the Month
"The world is always turning toward the morning..."

It's a pity we don't know What the little flowers know They can't face the cold November They can't take the bitter snow They put their glories all behind them Bow their heads and let it go But you know they'll be there shining in the morning...

Turning Towards the Morning, by Gordon Bok*

This beautiful song has haunted my Novembers since I first heard Gordon Bok sing it - while I was visiting his home in Maine - 40+ years ago. It was in part inspired by his friend**, Joanie, who was having a difficult year, and its message is a reminder that everything changes, morning - and Spring - always comes.

I've always thought I would play/sing this song at the memorial gathering for my mother - whose name is Joan, and whom Dad still calls 'Joanie' - some day. Makes me weep every time - I'll never make it through it! (This event is not imminent...)***

Anyway, there were several iterations before I hit on the final version of this month's card.

Since Mule (despite still recovering from his several broken upper-body parts...) and I

were in the midst of stacking our 4 cords of cut/split wood,

Rachel suggested a woodpile theme (thank you, Rachel!).

So I played with that:

 Then I played with the dynamics a bit - adding verticals and horizontals:

Then mitigating some of that white space...

Then some rubber-stamped leafless trees:

Didn't care for how this was developing though, so I started all over,

and ended up with the simpler, more fluid, less grid-like version.

And so...

The Fixin's

And...

Pre-production step: gluing the silver behind the circle opening:

Steps: The Movie:

The Steps

(There were a mere 12 production steps this month!)

Panels of 12 of November's postcards:

Fin.

*Full lyrics: https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Gordon-Bok/Turning-Toward-the-Morning

** "One of the things that provoked this song was a letter last

November from a friend who had had a very difficult year and waslooking for the courage to keep on plowing into it. Those times,you lift your eyes unto the hills, as they say, but the hills ofNorthern New England in November can be about as much comfort asa cold crowbar. You have to look ahead a bit, then, and realizethat all the hills and trees and flowers will still be there comeSpring, usually more permanent than your troubles. And if yourcourage occasionally fails, that's okay, too: nobody expects youto be as strong (or as old) as the land." - Gordon Bok, 1975
***Me and my mother, 'Joanie', as she was in the midst of prepping apples for applesauce last week, in the kitchen of the Memory Care Unit where she has lived for 6+ years.

October's Postcard of the Month
Foliage.

There really wasn't any while I was working on these.

It finally started to pop after I mailed them out.

Magic.  ;-)

The Fixin's

Sadly - I haven't yet found a simple (and free) means of making my little steps 'movies'

now that YouTube has discontinued their Slide Show option.  :-( 

The Steps

Production entailed a mere 10 steps this month

(had I applied each 'leaf' individually, it would've been more like 110!).

Panels of 12 of October's postcards:

Fin.