tomato hearts

Many fruits and vegetables, when cut in half, display an inner heart-shape. This has always fascinated me. A bag of small tomatoes was delivered from my food co-op yesterday, so I painted them as Valentine etegami. Romantic love is well and good. I'm all for it. But that is not all there is to love. The etegami posted above is accompanied by a quote from The Sparrow's Nest, a poem by William Wordsworth (1770-1850), and speaks of family love between brother and sister.



Let us Consider refers to another kind of love expressed in a community of brothers and sisters in the faith, while Love is Not Blind, and Love is Not All were inspired by two poems by Edna St.Vincent Millay (1892-1950), about romantic love that has
matured beyond mere infatuation.

tomato etegami exhibit

Artists from top to bottom (left to right):
Yun (France), dosankodebbie (Japan)
Suzanne Duchamp (France), dosankodebbie (Japan),
Marianne Attanasio (France), Anne Frédérique Ferret (France),
Eric Nusbaum (USA), Anne Frédérique Ferret (France),
MF Prigent (France), Yun (France),
Yun (France), Nancy Scali (USA),
Michiko Shimizu (Japan), Nancy Scali (USA),
dosankodebbie (Japan), Nancy Scali (USA)
dosankodebbie (Japan), Youko Ogawa (Japan)

My deep appreciation to each person who submitted artwork to the Tomato Etegami Call. By this time you should all have received your gift packet of blank washi postcards. Let me know if your packet hasn't arrived. Also, please let me know if you submitted a card before April 1 that isn't exhibited here. If it arrives late, I will add it to this post.

Though the Tomato Etegami call is now closed, the Food/Recipe Mailart Call will continue till February 2011. I welcome your submissions to that call and will display them on the mailart gallery blog at http://mailartgallery.blogspot.com. I also welcome non-food-themed mailart.

Leave comments and questions about the Tomato Etegami exhibit below. I will be referring to the exhibit in upcoming posts as we continue to discuss what makes etegami different from other kinds of mailart.

tomato etegami call & washi postcard give-away!

Send me an etegami (drawing and words) on the subject of "Tomato." In return, I will send you sample washi postcards, two of each of two different brands that I use for my own etegami. Tomatoes are not the most interesting subject to draw, since their shape and color tend to be uniform. So find yourself an oddly-shaped tomato, or one that isn't uniformly red. You might want to draw a bunch of cherry tomatoes, or one large tomato sliced. Or you might want to focus on the shape of the claw-shaped green stem leaf.

However way you want to draw it is fine, but let it have some character. Draw the imperfections too. Don't try to make it look like a photograph of the subject. And don't forget to add words. Humor is good. Thought-provoking is good. A Tomato Poem? Sure! A famous tomato quote? Sure! But the main thing is to have fun with it. These are the guidelines:

1. Any paper, any ink, any paint is acceptable.
2. It must be standard postcard size (approx 10 cm x 15 cm/ 4 in x 6 in).
3. It must be hand-drawn.
4. It must be postmarked by April 1, 2010.

Feel free to ask questions in the comment box. I will display all the tomato etegami submissions on this page in a blog post sometime in mid-April. My postal address is on the right side of this page, in the segment about mailart calls.