Claire Dinsmore aka Cleo: Heiser Pharmacy

[Dean aka Artist in Seine]

This piece was in the making for over a year now, but it was worth the wait.

No, No, this is only the envelope.  The real magic is inside.

Full of little bits, stickers, and that wonderful Miracle Fish.  I opened the envelope at lunch with friends.  They were amazed, and we had a lot of fun with that fish.  You put the red fish in your hand and it will tell you your fortune.  For me the fish kept curling up entirely, which means Passionate.  And yes, I am passionate about this mail art piece.

More pieces and my very own Cleo book mark. But the best is yet to come.

It is a small collage with a book text (in French) on one side and a page from a dictionary on the other side.  Both are embossed by two stamps; one new & one cancelled.  A very deep meaning indeed.  In between is a bookcase which unites the two.  And to top this all off is a green band of paper that slides back and forth.

I'm not going to admit how much time I spent sliding that simple piece of paper back and forth.  But it was a very moreish.  I like very much this idea of interaction.  Somehow I was no longer an observer, but this simple band of paper allowed me to "walk" in to that room with the bookshelf.

Thank you and Bravo Cleo.  Now I'm à la recherché du temps perdu. (In search of lost time.)

[Dean aka Artist in Seine]

I got more good comments today while showing it around Paris.

[Pamela Gerard]

Amazing! Wonderful work by Cleo...

[Claire (aka Cleo)]

Wondrous blog Dean - thank you! I'm not sure that much means more to me than being surrounded by my bookshelves - so much of my history is there - intellectual and creative. It's like a vision of so many of my inward travels... Regarding literature particularly, I'm rather a Francophile (as you can probably gather from the majority of titles one can make out...), but my absolute Favorite book, (and creature as far as I know) is à la recherché /Proust, thus the centrality of that page - it's meaning pour moi and as emblematic of the bookshelves as evidence of a personal search. The old, illustrated dict. is rather a joke at my own expense - something I bought decades ago to ease the hypocrisy evinced by a self-proclaimed Francophile who remains yet another lame, monolingual amerikan - much to her (lazy) dismay... :( It sat on the shelf gathering dust, so I finally decided MA could make good use of it %_^!

I do the band thing on a lot of MA (they're called "belly band"s). I like to gather little pieces to send with the given work that are somewhat telling of my creative journey at the time, what was around the creation of the piece (brains & coffee for instance, or, rather, brain on the sustenance of coffee  %_^). A wee slice of the bookshelf in a way....

(FYI - the 1st iteration of this piece I entered into a show in France called "Inspiration.")

Ah, aren't those fish great? I adored them as a little gairl, and when I stumbled upon them again a few years ago I bought a large package -"These little magical things are going to all my MA friends!"

Thanks again Dean! Such appreciation and understanding is what ma is about in many ways, sharing one's heart... (mmm, thinking of your apt quote here: ""To live is to send" " - lol!)

That oft'-loquacious she

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

What a very thoughtful blog, 'love the comment that you really  could "walk in the room"...

and Claire sent some fantastic mail art omens! Wow!

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

That fish does curl up, eh?