'Letters Aloud' is an ensemble of about four people who do reading concerts. They read real letters written by real people while the screen on stage shows images. The letters vary from those that are tone-deaf, mean, discriminatory to hilarious, inventive and kind. One such letter was quite amusing. The State of Michigan sent a letter in December 1997 to a property owner directing two dams in a pond on the property be removed. A January 1998 reply informed the state that the beavers couldn't do that. Here is a link to the exchange: The Dam Letters . Writing and sending hand-written letters was the primary way people communicated before computers, smartphones, and social media platforms (even before telephones, television, and radio too). I used to write letters quite often. Now, it amazes me how much less I do it, but how much greater I prize receiving them. Letter-writing is becoming a lost art and could use som...
Working in fits and starts over the last week, this zine is an assemblage of floral imagery in a combination of abstract and semi-realistic versions. That said, I've added a few words to this zine. 'Flower Power' in unusual lettering was created on one page. The rest of the text appears on another page. The latter includes a phrase I just discovered today while doing a search of flowers and philosophy. "Mono no Aware" is Japanese in origin. From an excerpt of Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs write-up about the meaning of the phrase, this is how it is described: It boils down to this: appreciate the moment, because the beauty experienced in it will never be the same. It will pass. It will end. And that is okay because as life changes, new beauty, perhaps of a different kind, will arrive. Every season the cherry blossoms die. But every year, they come back to, once again, coat th...