Travelling in France

I am so overdue to post here. What a long several weeks it has been with a lot of busyness at work, working on the new house plans and getting ready for another architectural review committee when I come back from this trip and then forcing myself to relax enough so I can do art while in this workshop.

I find taking photographs is a good way to relax and slow down, so here are some of my best in my travel postcards #1 and #2.

My Version of Young Me - Now Me

There's a new trend in photo taking out there that has to do with reenacting a photo taken a long time ago, through the composition, what the person is wearing, gestures and facial expressions, etc. See more about that here.

I just ran across these unintentional Then & Nows of me and a couple of Claire. They are about 10 years apart.

How fun!

Alameda Naval Air Station

Sunday I went to the "once a month" Antique Fair at the Alameda Naval Air Station. It was really hot so the ice cold lemonade tasted really good. The gyro was decent too. But what I loved was wandering around from row to row of "antiques." I say this in quotes because their rule is that things have to be more than 20 years old. That really doesn't qualify as an antique, to me. That is not even really nostalgic in my lifetime.

Still, there's lots of cool stuff to see and it's fun just watching the ga-gillions of people wandering around. I think there are about 400 booths at this faire selling everything from vintage clothes to old books to rusty outdoor furniture masquerading as antiques - not! I think I'll lug my crappy outdoor patio set over there and score some big bucks!

I saw my friends Jenny and Melissa from The Junk Girls and also met Kymberley from Three Fine Grains. I bought a vellum book from Kymberley back in May via her on-line store, so it was nice to put a face with the name. I scored some spool candles made by Jenny K, and three vintage books of ladies items - sewing patterns, advice, etc. I really only wanted two, but they were three for $20 so I lugged them all the long walk back to the car.

Here are the spools, repurposed by Jenny K/The Junk Girls as votive candle holders. They're going to look great somewhere in my new house.

 
And here are some photos of the adjoining and now abandoned Alameda Naval Air Station I passed on the way in/out. What a resource! Seems like it would be good to redevelop this property into something more productive than ratty old buildings with peeling paint. However, the peeling paint is immensely more interesting to photograph.

Bay Bridge - Center of Span