"Trashpo Ephemera Folio--with Pockets": elegance and enchantment from Claire Dinsmore / Cleo

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Receiving this folio (and more) was like winning an art lottery I didn't know I'd entered, so unexpected, beautiful, and big in impact:

With a trashbook that takes the aesthetic trashbook to new heights: 

The pockets of the folio were packed thickly with receipts, lovely papers, and oddball things like a "Miracle Fish," which is a fortune telling creature that reveals whether you are jealous, indifferent, in love, fickle, false, dead, or passionate. (For the record, I am "in love." If the fish's contortions had meant my fortune was one of the negative thingies, you might not be reading about my fortune.)

Here is the inside of the folio with pockets, unfolded and open: 

(With different shot of trashbook.) Even the back of the opened folio captured me: 

Pockets are everywhere in this package, including ones taped to the boards that protected the folio during its ride through the postal system. If another photo will fit in this blog, it will be all the wrappings leaning against a wall; if the blog won't let me, that photo will appear in the first comment.

As Svenja would say, Zauberhaft! Claire didn't know this, but I too am a big fan of unbleached waxed paper, and her use of so much of it in this mail art probably doubled my appreciation. I asked Claire if I could open every single pocket--it's actually the kind of thing part of you wants to never disturb. But she said YES, open everything, and then explained her vision of what she hopes might happen to the folio:  "What I have dreamed is that eventually the scraps I enclosed will be used, and the emptying pockets filled with replacement trash/scraps which the owner has collected. I would love to see future pictures of the pieces revamped with new stuff . . . thus becoming collaborative and taking on a new life . . . a new creative incarnation. . . . "

It would be nice to make that dream a reality, and I'll try, but it may take a while because as a lover of waxed paper and pockets I will probably drag my feet in letting the folio go. Very many thanks, Claire, and again I'm sorry it took my camera so long to produce photos for this blog!

[Claire (aka Cleo)]

Thanks for the blog & your wondrous and eloquent words Nancy! Such response makes it immensely worthwhile to put one's heart "over-the-top" into it... [think I need to start taking photos of the packaging too...! %_^]

[Nancy Bell Scott]

The wrappings: