Yesterday, the person who maintains the Mount Holyoke College Twitter feed put a link to this photograph on my website, and asked which building was in the background. (It's a photo from May Day in 1921.)

Within 15 minutes, I had three email messages identifying the building, and within an hour had four more, plus a query about putting it up on a Facebook page with a link to my website. The power of Twitter! I was delighted to get all the email about it. It turns out that someone in the Communications Office at MHC maintains the Twitter feed, and she wants to tweet about other items on my website in the future. Yay!

It inspired me to update the mystery photo and the featured photo on my website this morning. I have great intentions of changing them once a week, but it usually is longer than that.

I showed my mother the jewelry I've been making, and she wanted this pendant, so I gave it to her. I wouldn't have thought it was her taste, but it did give me a kick to see her wearing it.

A month ago, the mother of a Mount Holyoke student sent me some email:

My daughter graduates in two weeks and I am making her an iMovie slide show. I wanted to include just a few vintage pictures of traditions like the Laurel Chain and landmarks of things such as Upper and Lower Lake. Do you have any pics I could buy or copies. Could I download some for a fee? I am particularly looking for old Laurel Chain pics if you have any… Thanks for your consideration.

I do love to pour over your site!

She said such nice things about my collection that I was delighted to help! I sent her links to a dozen photos I had, and she selected two she wanted in a larger format than I had available on my website. I scanned them larger and emailed them to her, and today she sent me a link to her blog with the slide show she created. The two photos she used from my collection are on display from 1:32 to 1:45 in the slide show:

Slide show link

I really like how it turned out!

I did a papermaking demo at gothtique's store in honor of Salem's Art Festival celebrations today. There were some cute kids that came through to give papermaking a try, and I had fun.

After it was over, sirjake495 met up with me in Salem to take me out for dinner for my birthday. (It's tomorrow ... I will be 48! Eeek!) I wasn't sure how adventurous an eater he was, so when he asked me where I wanted to go, I asked him if a vegetarian restaurant was OK. He grimaced, but he was very valiant and said it was OK. So I took him to my favorite vegetarian restaurant a few miles away. He ordered nachos and a half pizza, and I ordered soup and a half pizza. He ate all his nachos without complaining.

Then the pizzas came. He took a bite. "Sheesh, this isn't even hot!"

That was when I had to confess to him that I had taken him to a raw food restaurant, where nothing on the menu was cooked. They warm the pizza to 110 degrees before serving it, so it's warm, but he's right, it's not hot. I apologized for not telling him the whole truth up front, because I was afraid he would have vetoed the restaurant. He admitted he probably wouldn't have tried it if he had known, but he ate everything, so it must have been better than he had feared it would be!

Thanks for being a good sport, sirjake495. I really enjoyed dinner and I appreciate how generous you are.

I sold three pendants to co-workers yesterday! I brought them in just to show them off, and I was surprised to have three of them snapped up.

This is one of them. The word is "May" - it came from a vintage document dated May 1889. (Click the link below to see the 1889 part.) The pendant itself is copper.

( See the other two back here )

Two of the books I entered in a show were accepted! The one pictured here was the one that was not accepted, poor thing.

Random Fatigue and
National Semiconductors were the ones that were accepted.

I'm excited! I will bring them over tomorrow, with two display racks that can be attached to the wall so that they can be shown nicely. I think the racks were intended for dishes, but they work fine for books. If a book sells, as far as I'm concerned they can give the new owner both the book and the display rack.

I haven't been informed by the contest holder yet, but I just got the newsletter ... I won the recycled art contest at Arnold Grummer for the second year in a row! Here's the newsletter. (Check out the lower right corner.) I entered a bowl that is currently in the Garden Style exhibit in New Bedford.



Yay!

Finally filled out and mailed the paperwork to enter this book, and two others (this one and this one) in a show. I will hear in a few days whether any of them will be selected for the show.

I do like this one. It's called "Random Fatigue."

Forgot to write about this; I was just cleaning out my email box and rediscovered this note from a week or so ago. It's a keeper ... it's fan mail! It's from the man who bought my altered book "Linear Physics." He must have asked for my contact information at the gallery where he bought it. He wrote:

I just wanted to say hi

I bought your most excellent altered Quantum Chromo Dynamics book that you showed at the MAA

I'm a physicist... and I recognized the Feynman diagrams immediately
(I only recognize them... I don't REALLY know what they mean)

so I ran downstairs really quick to buy it before some other physicist came through.

You did an excellent job of picking through the pages to find the best diagrams
I'm impressed
but I would have happily paid you more for it
If I see you at the MAA please let me give you something more
so that you can at least go out and buy yourself a good meal for your efforts
(I'll pass another 30% of that to the MAA so they don't get left out)

I'm planning on putting it into a small shadowbox with a front cover that opens
On occasion I would like to flip through the pages

I would be pleased to loan it back to you for however long you might need it
if you want to show it again as an example of your work.

It is the first piece of art that I have bought at the MAA

How sweet is that??!! Flattering words and offers of more money! I turned down the money, and we had a pleasant email exchange last week.

It's good timing to reread this; yesterday I set up a table with my bowls, cards and books at a local event, and sold practically nothing (two magnets and an origami box). If that wasn't disheartening enough, I had a woman come by the table and ask about papermaking. She wanted me to describe how to do it in detail, and was asking picky questions. Finally I said something like, "Listen, you can't learn papermaking just by hearing about it. You have to actually try it." I was going to add info about where I was teaching next, but she raised her nose in the air, gave a dismissive flip of her hand, and stormed off.

Hmm, I think I'd better read that fan mail again. Rude people really hurt.

I went to the opening reception of Garden Style this weekend. What a lovely gallery! I can't even remember the last time I traveled on a cobblestone street.

( Show photos back here )

A terrific show in a beautiful setting. If you can get to New Bedford to see the show before it ends on June 11, I highly recommend it.