liberate your art - Kat Eye Studio

February 4, 2014 by Kat

A Stack of Letters

Finally, finally! I’ve been anxiously waiting for weeks for that first decorated envelope to arrive, and now I can write a Liberate Your Art postcard swap update here on the blog. The envelopes have been trickling in, but there hadn’t been any decorated ones until this week. Now it feels like the swap is officially under way, and it’s time for a swap update! There is still plenty of time to join us in the swap, if you haven’t already. Just visit the swap page here to get the details and sign up.

Here’s the stack of envelopes I’ve received to date. Pretty amazing to receive this many 6 weeks before the swap deadline! You all are overachievers. 🙂 The very fun purple envelope on the top of the stack is from Tina Wittmer. I am partial to purple lately, so this one tickled my fancy!

I love what Carlyn Clark did with her envelope: Using what looks like a magazine ad, she created an envelope and managed to make the tiger lick the stamp. That’s pretty cool!!

Lynne Foerster added some lovely little hand-drawn details to her envelope. Personal touches like this just make me smile. I almost don’t want to open the envelopes sometimes, for fear of ruining the art!

And finally, a different kind of mail art, stamps from a new country — Malaysia! It’s the first-ever time we’ve had someone living in Malaysia in the swap. I’ll be saving these stamps, for sure.

So there you have it, the first Liberate Your Art blog post for the 2014 swap. I look forward to sharing more in the coming weeks. If you decorate your envelope, you just might find yourself featured here!

And the winner is…

Stephanie Skiff wins the drawing for a print of the The Last Tree. Thanks to everyone who entered. While I expected a number of entries, I didn’t quite expect all of the lovely comments that you all left. Thank you so much. I wish I could give you all a print! (Oh, I guess I can, and do, in the swap!! Join us!)

May 9, 2013 by Kat

Liberate Your Art 2013 Blog Hop

The postcards have been mailed, received, swapped, mailed and received. The Liberate Your Art postcard swap is complete for 2013. It’s time to party a little bit, and celebrate what a fabulous swap we’ve had for 2013!

The Liberate Your Art 2013 stats:
1290 pieces of art
216 artists
11 countries

But there is so much more to the swap than the numbers. Every year a phrase or theme comes to me as I look at all of the art that passes through my hands. This year, it was “connection.” You are all doing an amazing thing, connecting through art. Each piece of art that was liberated represents a connection, or two. I saw these connections sharing love, joy, nostalgia, encouragement, acceptance, color, creativity, beauty, peace, emotion, inspiration, light, laughter, memories, words, and life. You are influencing the world in a positive way when you connect through art.

Of course I had my own moments of connection, too. All of your notes and extra postcards and of course, your art, touched my heart. As I opened the envelopes, I found the art of old friends I’ve been in contact with online since I lived in Italy. I saw the art of local friends, people I see often in my real life, going out to make new connections. And one of the most special things was seeing a couple of postcards from artists where I was with them when they took the photograph they shared, both in the US and in England. Wow. I got chills, from the way these connections reverberate and spiral back.

Who knows how this year’s connections will spiral back to you?

Enjoy this year’s video, which includes one piece of art from every participant. The collection is an amazing tribute to the individuality and expression that comes through art. (Be sure to watch it in HD if you can, it looks awesome! Also note that there is a pause partway through, as the songs change, so don’t stop watching too early.)

And now, there’s one last opportunity to connect through the 2013 Liberate Your Art swap. Let’s hop!

April 8, 2013 by Kat

Fly, Art, Fly!

They are off! The first mailing of the Liberate Your Art 2013 Postcard Swap has been dropped into the post box. With the help of five lovely volunteers, we finished in record time. I’m so grateful for their help!

The final number of artist participating this year is 215. 216 if you include me! That’s 1290 pieces of art that will be liberated into the world over the next few weeks. I love this part!

If you weren’t following along on social media yesterday, here’s the photo story of swap day…

Step 1: Lay out the envelopes (already checked in) with the right mix of US/international so everyone gets one from a country other than their own. Maybe two!

When Step 1 is done, there is a line of envelopes snaking all around my house. In order to keep things organized, our poor dog was relegated to the garage for the day. The postcards would not survive her enthusiasm.

Step 2: Remove postcards from envelopes and distribute them to the five neighbors to the right. Labels and stamps stay with their original envelope.

Doing this step right is crucial, or things can get royally messed up. My friend Rainie came earlier than the other volunteers to help me. There would not have been enough room for more than the two of us in some of these tight spaces! The space was a bit tighter than usual, because our family room is blocked off for construction (we are having skylights installed) and all of the family room furniture is squeezed into the bedrooms. That meant all remaining floorspace in our house was lined with envelopes!

Step 3: The rest of my lovely volunteers arrived ~10am to help with the longest part – sticking on the stamps and labels. After a short training session, they were off and running. The volunteers (from left to right): Rainie, Jeannette, Iris, KC (front) and Katy.

A huge thank you to you all!! In no time at all the finished stacks were growing.

Having done most of this myself the last two years (asking my husband to help when he was available), I was amazed at how quickly this went. Right around noon we finished up, which means that about what would have been 12 hours of work on my own was accomplished in 2 hours with the 6 of us working together. The saying “Many hands make light work” is very true!

The reward for the volunteers at the end: Looking through the postcards. I know, you probably think that we look at the postcards as we work, but if we stopped to look at the postcards as you stamp and label, we would never get done!

So there you have it. Swap Day accomplished in record time, along with a record number of artists participating.

The art in the first mailing is liberated. Fly, art, fly!

April 5, 2013 by Kat

Postal Art

It’s true confession time! I am addicted to postal art. Not just the postcards I’m seeing as I get things ready for the Liberate Your Art postcard swap or the lovely envelopes that a few participants have decorated. I also love the stamps that come off the envelopes. Each year, I watch for interesting stamps on the swap envelopes and cut them off of the envelopes. It doesn’t matter, international or domestic, I love them all. After the swap, I carefully soak off the backing and dry them flat. And then I pack them away. For what? I have no idea. I just can’t let these beautiful little pieces of postal art go to waste. I’ve been doing this for three years now! At some point, I’m sure I will be inspired to use them.

As of Wednesday, 185 swap envelopes from artists all over the world have been received. I’ll do a mail pick up after work today, and then check one more time on Saturday for the last few envelopes. This week has been a flurry of activity for the swap! Checking in envelopes and getting things ready with my volunteers for Swap Day. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to open the envelopes and find an extra card or a little note to me in there. What a bonus! I don’t ask for it, but when it comes I’m always filled with joy and gratitude for that little connection.

Since I was away so much in March, I haven’t had time to do as many posts of the beautiful art that’s coming through on the envelopes. I’ll catch you up on a few today!

This handmade envelope is from Terry, one of the few guys in the swap. I love the gorgeous blue and the matching blue butterfly stamp. Even matching blue in on the cancellation! That can’t have been by accident.

Here’s a hand-watercolored envelope from watercolor artist Mimi. I love the way the various stamps are spread out over the envelope, creating an interesting and unusual composition.

This envelope has texture! Katie added paint and hand carved stamps, turning a boring manilla envelope into a work of art with color and texture.

And finally, the highlight of the year is always receiving Amanda’s envelope. (Sorry, Amanda didn’t provide a link!) She’s a calligrapher, and the work she does is amazing. I love the sentiment too – we ARE saving the post office, one postcard at a time. I’m sure we are helping as I spent >$400 on international postage this week. 🙂

Two days until Swap Day!! The postcards will be liberated back out into the world next week.

March 21, 2013 by Kat

The Envelope Please…

The envelopes for the Liberate Your Art postcard swap are arriving in spades! I picked up the mail at my box after my Singapore trip and had a bag of mail. Yay for liberated art!

I’m not organized enough yet to tell you how many envelopes have arrived or anything like that. I’ve just started to “check in” the envelopes. I can share a couple of pretty envelopes with you, as a tantalizing swap tidbit.

Pretty flowers…

…and swirls are in the bunch.

I thought I would share what swap “check in” entails for each and every envelope…

1. Record where the envelope came from on my tally sheet for stat tracking
2. Open the envelope and verify it includes all items – 5 printed postcards with message, 6 stamps, 6 labels
3. Remove any extra items (such as postcards for me, notes, etc.)
4. If it’s an international envelope, match it up with swap payment via Paypal and send an email to confirm receipt
5. Rectify any simple problems (ex. missing a stamp? Add one from someone who sent extra) or set envelope aside if there are larger problems I can’t quickly resolve
6. Photograph one postcard for my later use
7. Replace the items for the swap into the envelope and place in the “ready to swap” box

I do all of this in advance to make swap day go more quickly. I’ve learned if I don’t “check in” the envelopes as they arrive, trying to sort through all of them and their various idiosyncrasies when it’s time to swap just adds hours to the swap day proceedings. I need everything to be correct and ready to swap on the big day.

It’s an interesting process to go through. It’s fun to open each envelope see what little surprises might be in store for me: The art on the envelopes, the hand written notes included. And of course, it’s amazing to see the art on the postcards themselves!

As much as I love unwrapping packages, I have discovered that while I love the thought put into the envelopes with the postcards carefully wrapped in tissue paper and tied up with string, I don’t love having to unwrap them times ten… twenty… or more. 🙂 So think about my “check in” process if you haven’t sent your swap envelope in yet, and avoid extra wrapping or packaging inside the envelope if you can. (And don’t feel guilty if you’ve already sent your envelope! Everything you sent was with the purpose of liberating your art in the best way possible – which is perfect.)

The most important thing? The art is arriving and the swap is happening! A few more weeks and all this art will be liberated back into the world. Isn’t that exciting?

February 13, 2013 by Kat

The First Arrival of 2013

It’s always exciting when the first envelope arrives for the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap, and this year’s first arrival is a gorgeous one! Jo from the UK has the honor of being the first arrival AND the first blog feature of the 2013 swap. Isn’t her envelope gorgeous?

I love the colors and textures, and the jauntily placed stamps. Thanks Jo, for brightening my day!

I know I will get the question: Do I have to decorate my envelope? And the answer is: Absolutely no, you don’t! It’s just a fun thing that some of the artists do, and I love to feature the gorgeous mail art I receive on the blog. It’s a fun lead up to the big swap event! Have you signed up for the swap yet? If not, there is still LOTS of time before the April 6 receipt deadline.

Surprisingly, I’ve pulled out my dSLR for TWO things in the last week. I’ve been so obsessed with mobile photography lately, this is a momentous event worthy of commemorating. Not only did I want to get a lovely image of Jo’s beautiful envelope, I’ve realized to get a good portrait of our new dog Zoey I need the dSLR too. She just moves too quickly! So the dSLR is not completely replaced by the iPhone, it’s just getting a nice rest as I learn the new medium of mobile photography.

Here’s my favorite photograph of our little portrait session over the weekend. Isn’t Zoey cute? She’s doing well and adjusting nicely to our home. We are lucky to have found her!

Happy Wednesday!

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