Tag: journaling

Mystery Mail Art launched today

Jen

Happy Artists Sunday, all.

What’s that, you ask? 

Artists Sunday, always the first Sunday after Thanksgiving, is one of the world’s largest art events, dedicated to supporting and celebrating artists in our communities, and encouraging people to buy art as gifts during the holidays.

This year, for Artists Sunday, I’m opening a new project – a Mystery Mail Art subscription.

Now, you may look at the time stamp on this post and think, um, Jen, considering your time zone and all, aren’t you a little late for Artists Sunday?

To which I would say, don’t criticize my personal failings. This is just the opening day of a permanent rolling project that you can get in on at any time.

Check it out.

Mystery Mail Art

The concept is basically an art-of-the-month club – a chance for you to collect small original artworks.

I have a passion for these little things – handheld art, portable art, working art, daily life art. For every larger canvas or sculpture I finish, I’ve also made piles of journaling cards, mini paintings, micro-zines, pocket objects, and so forth. These fun, useful objects often don’t get a lot of exposure.

Well, not anymore! As of today, the Jen Fries Mystery Mail Art subscription belongs to the most experimental, whimsical, category-busting art I make.

How It Works

Subscribers receive one or more small, original artwork(s) each month, for twelve months, via US mail. 

I choose what each subscriber gets, because I don’t know in advance what I’ll be making. Hence, “mystery.” It could be cards, paintings, drawings, collages, micro-fiction or poetry, or anything else that comes out of my experiments.

$20/month covers the artwork plus shipping and handling. Your first artwork will be shipped as soon as possible after you sign up, with subsequent works mailed on a fixed date thereafter. Your subscription expires 12 months after beginning. Subscribers can cancel anytime, of course.

Quantities are limited. I’ll sign up only thirty (30) subscribers at a time. I know my limitations.

I’m using Patreon to manage this and future subscription projects for now. Their system is easy and reliable. Follow this link for the full details: Jen Fries Arts on Patreon.

If you’re unsure, I’ll gladly send you one Mystery Mail Art piece for a one-time payment of $20. Email me, drop a comment on this post, or send the $20 via Paypal using the button below. Make sure to tell me it’s for one (1) mystery mail and provide your mailing address. You can opt to subscribe later whenever you like.

The kind of art you might receive:

JFries monoprint practice, 1/13/2019
The Doll's House

After Open Studios, Time to Relax and Say Thanks

Jen

Well, I’ve just about settled down from the rush of Open Studios at the Brickbottom Artists Building in Somerville. It was a great weekend, despite a rainy start. The energy was terrific. I want to thank the wonderful folks who bought art from me, as well as everyone who stopped to talk with us about our work.

Also all the OS organizers who worked like mad and did a great job, our lovely hosts who opened their loft for us, and my fellow artists with whom I shared the space. It was a blast, thanks to them.

Now midnight approaches, soft jazz plays, and my cat is asleep on my lap as I write this quick note. As soon as I click the Publish button, I’ll shift her so I can go to my own bed, absolutely exhausted – and start afresh tomorrow.

I’ll end with this: Many of the Open Studios visitors told me they were feeling inspired by all the art and meeting the people who made it. They felt excited and interested and wanted to take up creative hobbies again that they had dropped for one reason or another. I can’t tell you how happy that made me. I deeply hope they do it, all of them.

Today’s world is so inhibiting, even discouraging against us expressing ourselves. Before we take the first step, we convince ourselves we’re not good enough. Even to try is just too pretentious of us. But that’s just bullshit.

Art is one of the most basic human things in all of life. It’s like walking and talking – a natural impulse. But it’s not brain surgery. No one will suffer if we screw up an art project. So don’t hold back. Don’t worry about results, or winning approval, or any of that. Just do it. Slap some color onto a piece of paper. Squish some clay. Write down some words. Decorate that cake. Pick up that ukulele. Do it just to please yourself, not for likes or subs. It’ll make things better, I promise.

Good night, everyone, from the EST time zone, and thank you. Never stop creating.

Thanks to my colleague, Amy Norrod, for these photos of my art and set-up.

The New Day, such as it is

Jen
Brickbottom and Joy Street Open Studios, Nov. 23 & 24

End of November Web Forecast: Expect an unseasonably heavy flurry of update posts from yours truly for the rest of this week.

Okay, it’s been a period of time. My last post was made the night before Election Day in the US, and by now, we all know how it turned out. Sigh.

I just want to say that, for me, nothing has changed from what I wrote then. I chose hope. I’m not googling how to change my mind after the fact, like many maga voters reportedly did. You can read the full pre-election post here, if you missed it earlier.

However, when I say I choose hope, don’t expect any pollyanna-ist reassurances here at Jen Fries Arts. No fluttering of the thing with feathers. That’s not my scene. My style of hope is the kind that spits out a bloody tooth and wades back into the fray, because where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I will be damned if I ever give up on what I know to be right.

Of course, it’s all been terribly inconvenient. There were emergency jettisons of certain social and personal connections, some of whom wouldn’t leave quietly. I still feel physically like I’ve been in a car accident. There’s My Sainted Mom who feels just as bad and just as pissed off. And on top of everything else, the cat’s been poorly, poor baby.

All of it utterly derailed what was supposed to have been a whole month of prep and info for my Open Studios event, which is scheduled to start – checks notes – frikkin this weekend. November 23 and 24.

So this is just to get you all caught up. Expect an unusual-for-me rush of posts about the Brickbottom and Joy Street Open Studios weekend here in quaint and romantic Somerville, MA. Also some website and shop updates. I’ll be doing all this work tonight and tomorrow, basically. Apologies in advance, but the new info will be good for you to have.

For starters:

Open Studios, November 23 and 24, at the Brickbottom Artists Building, 1 Fitchburg Street, Somerville, MA.

I’ll be sharing space with some colleagues in Unit B450, in the Bakery Building of the Brickbottom complex.

I seldom do these kinds of events, so this will be a rare opportunity to see me outside my little stoat burrow. I’ll be showing small to medium works on canvas or paper, hand-painted journaling cards, some micro-zines, and maybe some hand-made art books if I can finish them on time. I’m also up for chit-chat about methods, styles, affordability, sustainability, and life in the zombie apocalypse.

So if you’re around then and there, come on by. Info at Brickbottom.org.

jfries-abstract-landscape-10-4.8.24-copy

Social Media.

I am now on Bluesky. If you use that platform, please look me up there @jenfriesarts.bsky.social.

I joined Bluesky as an alternative to Facebook, but I am still also on Facebook and Patreon. Of course, it’s all just social media with the usual nonsense, so …

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Click the little blue WordPress Follow button at the bottom of this and every page to subscribe. And don’t forget to set your notifications preferences, because another upcoming update is that this blog will also serve as my newsletter, with a monthly round-up and other exclusive subscriber content in the new year.

Keep calm and carry on. See you soon.

-Jen