MamaBlogger365 - Oh My Goddess, FeMail Online Art Exhibit by Suzi Banks Baum and Karen Arp-Sandel

FeMail closes our on-line exhibit on M.O.M. invoking the Divine Feminine in all of us.

© Suzi Banks Baum, All Rights Reserved

Over these past ten Tuesdays, Karen and I have shared with you some of the themes that run through the mail art that comprises FeMail. Our sisterhood chronicled in these postal cards made over the last four years traces our mothering and our friendship, our love of art making, and our fascination with pop culture. There are threads of inspiration, poetry and icons that we have imbued with spiritual meaning through the medium of these hand made and at times, rustic, small artworks that get handled by the United States Postal Service.

We have attempted to re-frame motherhood by parsing out what motivates us to share and support each other in this unique way. With the barest of art supplies, we cobble together missives while in the midst of our busy lives as mothers, partners, caregivers and breadwinners.

View this week's complete exhibit at the Museum Of Motherhood blog.

Come to FeMailArt.com to view an online gallery and discussion of the mail art collaboration between Karen Arp-Sandel and Suzi Banks Baum. You can also see more about this exhibit at MotherhoodMuseum.org.

MamaBlogger365 needs you! Tell us how you're re-framing motherhood and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011!

MamaBlogger365 - Metamorphosis of Motherhood, FeMail Online Art Exhibit by Suzi Banks Baum and Karen Arp-Sandel

Solitude, Sorrow and the Sacred Well

© Karen Arp-Sandel, all rights reserved

Motherhood is so often about the bittersweet sensation of separation and even loss. We give birth to children and they grow up, spread their wings, and fly. We are children ourselves and just when life is running smoothly, a parent gets seriously ill or passes away before we are ready. These are the milestones experienced by humans. I wonder if they are differently experienced by women, by mothers? The transformation of our mothering as we move through time traces deep tracks of joy and grief in to our souls. We have hoped and prayed, celebrated and wept over our parents and our children. And we stand strong with and for them as they create the future.

View this week's complete exhibit at the Museum Of Motherhood blog.

Come to FeMailArt.com to view an online gallery and discussion of the mail art collaboration between Karen Arp-Sandel and Suzi Banks Baum. You can also see more about this exhibit at MotherhoodMuseum.org.

MamaBlogger365 needs you! Tell us how you're re-framing motherhood and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011!

MamaBlogger365 - Magnificent Regions of the Heart with FeMail by Suzi Banks Baum and Karen Arp-Sandel

FeMail explores the magnificent regions of the heart, through the steady current of correspondence.

Poetry is the language of the Soul. Since April is National Poetry Month, we at FeMail thought we’d share with you some of our postcards adorned with poetry. Karen and I love wordplay and the imagistic inspirations that suffuse our art through poetry. We also use quotes as jet-streamed soul messages.

© Suzi Banks Baum, All Rights Reserved.

With this card, from the first year of our collaboration, I edged a torn paper composition with words by Stephen C. Paul. The conversation I have with myself as I create, especially using this technique that frees my hands from scissors, allows a freedom that I enjoy. It is just my glue stick and I composing with color. There in the center is a tiny painting of a woman’s hip. I am fascinated with the female form, with the curves that draw the eye towards a focal point. The reverse side is a composition using an image of a bowl of berries, gessoed over and a packing tape transfer title. In those days I was writing more, mixing my family and art life with stronger proportions of art. My journey as a full time Mother and Artist calls for stalwart discipline and a constant eye for what is playful in everything I do. This inner conversation has yielded my upcoming book, Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Women.

View this week's complete exhibit at the Museum Of Motherhood blog.

Come to FeMailArt.com to view an online gallery and discussion of the mail art collaboration between Karen Arp-Sandel and Suzi Banks Baum. You can also see more about this exhibit at MotherhoodMuseum.org.

MamaBlogger365 needs you! Tell us how you're re-framing motherhood and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011!

MamaBlogger365 - Women, Work, and Seductive Subversion with FeMail by Suzi Banks Baum and Karen Arp-Sandel

Tuesdays' FeMail postcard art exhibit by Suzi Banks Baum and Karen Arp-Sandel continues on MamaBlogger365 for the Museum of Motherhood. Today, Women, Work, and Seductive Subversion.

© Karen Arp-Sandel, all rights reserved

As Artist Moms, Karen and I are constantly in the act of choosing how to stay in the moment, no matter if that moment finds us in our studios making art or elbow deep in macaroni and cheese preparations. Who doesn’t balance numerous responsibilities that feel at times distracting from our primary spiritual aims? Business development can often feel like an imposition, doing things that don’t necessarily seem to further our careers feel like a chore, and anything that diverts us from caring and nurturing our selves, our families and art making can make us downright mad!

This dilemma is as perennial as the seasons and as heart-breaking as the greatest losses because while our work is the expression of our souls, so is our mothering -- how can we weigh one against the other? Click here to read more and view this week's full exhibit online.

MamaBlogger365 needs you! Tell us how you're re-framing motherhood and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011!

MamaBlogger365 - Labelography, a FeMail Art Exhibit with Suzi Banks Baum and Karen Arp-Sandel

Image © Karen Arp-Sandel, All Rights Reserved.

Tuesdays' FeMail art exhibit by Suzi Banks Baum and Karen Arp-Sandel on MamaBlogger365 for the Museum of Motherhood - You ART what you eat!

This week, Suzi and Karen share how and why food and drink labels are used in their FeMail art: "It is so important to remember that as the beacons of Motherhood, we can nourish others and ourselves with the beauty of what we do."

View the full exhibit online at the Museum of Motherhood!

MamaBlogger365 - On the Road Map with FeMail, by Suzi Banks Baum and Karen Arp-Sandel

This week, Suzi and Karen discuss their travel dialogue from their FeMail Archive:

Why is it that women are the ones who can neatly return an unfolded map to its proper alignment, creases all even and the multiple folds bending in the correct direction? Some men do not need maps nor can they ask for directions. Is this true or just funny? Women seem to have a special relationship with maps, with routes and courses. Maps are a symbol and a tool of navigation. Women, moms in particular, are like sea captains: we navigate the waters of family life.

Here at FeMail, we share a passion for travel. We always pack our travel art kits as neatly and completely as our toiletries (Only heavier!). We are devoted to reuse and upcycling. Our Travel Kits are plastic zippered bags that once held holiday gifts or pillowcases. We need waterproof, tough containers that slip in to our suitcases and can be easily carried in a backpack once we arrive at our destination.

In our Travel Kits, we carry the bare necessities for making art in hotel rooms or other odd places. We always carry glue sticks, sharp scissors and a bone folder. Karen and I both love to draw and watercolor, so we usually have small travel size sets of paints and pen sets to suit the surroundings. We will show you our travel journals some other day. But here is our Mail Art, made on the road, with maps. Sending post cards to each other when traveling is almost like tearing a page from a travel journal and mailing it! It is a new take on the traditional travel post card, yet it always beckons, "Wish YOU were HERE."

Circus Boy FeMail by Suzi Banks Baum

Circus Boy, front; Image  © Suzi Banks Baum, All Rights Reserved.

Summer time and Circus Boy beer fueled this card made with a map of the East Burke area of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I was traveling there in late August with my family. It also happens that Karen’s son went to college there, so references to the ‘Kingdom’ hold special meaning for her. Do you see the chicken feathers? Well, they hold another story having to do with my award-winning chicken calling. Between the circus ticket, the beer label, the bit of marbled paper we’d made together earlier in the summer, our summertime conversation is rich. The other side of the card is filled with the intense colors of a Cape Cod sunset. That dancing woman is balanced on the tip of the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, MA, another family trip for us. There is a tape transfer of a Milton Avery print of the beach from an art gallery guide of P’town. I love to use packing tape when I am on the road for an easy transfer of images or text on to a card.

Visit the Museum of Motherhood blog to view this week's complete exhibit, including “Where ever you are is the Entry Point” Kabir FeMail by Karen Arp-Sandel, Grand Island and DQ FeMail by Suzi Banks Baum, and more!

MamaBlogger365 needs you! Tell us how you're re-framing motherhood and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011!

Have You Signed Up To Attend Or Present At The M.O.M. Conference In NYC

M.O.M. Conference in NYC May23-25th: Academe, Art & YOU! Join Us!

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MamaBlogger365 – The FeMail Dialect: Speaking in Mandalas

You know how lovely it is to receive a get-well card in the mail? There really is nothing so tender as a Hallmark card tucked in to a pastel envelope, filled with a wish for goodness from someone who loves you. Here at FeMail, we send our own healing messages. For over 4 years, Suzi and I have been sending specifically designed creations, in our own FeMail dialect, that appear in our mailboxes, carried by the United States Postal Service. We use spirals, budding blossoms, dancing women, images of water, the moon or other planetary wonders to convey certain messages to each other.

This week at the Museum of Motherhood, we are speaking in the form of a mandala... More