ATA Postcard Exchange

And I do mean tapestry postcard.
As in a postcard woven and sent through the mail.

At some point this winter I signed up too participate in my dear organization, ATA 's Postcard Exchange, courtesy of Dorothy Clews, who organized the whole thing. She chose our partners randomly and one day in April (after I had typically forgotten about the whole thing) I received an email from my partner in England, Kirsten Glasbrook who sounded very organized.

I got to work.
The theme is delightfully broad, "Here to There". I decided to be very straight forward in my design. I've been creating a lot of pieces with stray threads and holes and hidden meanings lately.
And so the tapestry began, entitled, My Perfect Vacation.

postcard is to be 5" x 7", sewn to a backing

In the US people either get my attraction to train travel or they don't. I recently had a long weekend vacation to New York City - 19 hours by train - and the man at the grocery store said, "sounds fun for the first 20 minutes". I do talk to almost everyone.

This was a redo of an idea I had in 2007 after I took a train from Wilmington,DE to Savannah,GA. I drew a bit and the next month wove these two small pieces that combined my delight on the train with some landscape elements I grew familiar with during my 8 years as an elementary art teacher; the corner sun and a floating blue sky window.

Morning on the Palmetto

A nice tiny bit I never mounted

I've never redone an idea before like this and it's quite freeing, no pressure, just enjoying the revisit to my love of trains, just as I enjoyed last week's trip to NYC.

Big change from the neutrals I've been working with isn't it?

A perfect vacation indeed. We'll see how it ships over the Atlantic Ocean this summer.