Are you Kind?

One of the things I regret, regularly, is how I don't answer emails, or post swiftly.  When I was in the Kerio Valley, hanging at the post office waiting for news from abroad, I had already composed a version of my reply as I walked home from the PO. Then in the evenings, after I marked students' work, I would paint the envelopes and put the words int he right order on paper. These days I respond in my head but it takes days, weeks, sometimes even months to reply and by then the chimera of news has shifted and my 'reply' seems irrelevant. Life is just faster.

I'm not sure when Sticker Dude sent me this, but the inclusion of Guernica makes me think it was a recent mailing. My pile of mailart is topsy turvy and out of order. and LATE to respond to.

And yet, although the past two + years have been a miserable chapter, as I read the comments from the Idaho doctor, I couldn't help thinking how our gratitude for the NHS, and Doctors worldwide is but a memory in the news of hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding through the European borders and being homed by mere citizens, responding to the humanitarian crisis.  We are doing THIS together. We have done that together.

Meanwhile, I am a somewhat lapsed mailartist, meaning to send things out but running out of time before the sun sets.  While I agree wholehearedly with Joel, that mail art is a way of looking at art and life from a different perspective and sharing art for art's sake, I can't help painting for paintings sake and that distracts from the Utopian aspect.

 Thanks Joel, so much to think about, respond to and talk to myself about.  Hopefully I will respond to you soon!

Demise of a Democracy

As I keep hearing, 'we are at an inflection point' and the inflection point Sticker Dude is honing in on is the demise of our Democracy.  But I guess it's not all bad in the world according to Sticker Dude, or 'sticker art dude' as he calls himself on this mailing. Look at the mailart title/ tidal he presents us with: 'This is how Democracies fail and the quiet revolution blossoms…' 

I guess it's all a little bat-bleep crazy behind the voting curtain. Or maybe I shouldn't say that, perhaps that is perpetuating the big lie?

back of envelope

and as mailartists we all have our role to play. and if you are anythinglike me, you are a different mailartist on different days.

I read Sticker Dude's clipping service when the article first came out and re-reading it becomes more alarming.  After all the US has hadJanuary 6th since then. 

Thanks Sticker Dude, that's a lot to think about on a sunday night in January!
 

The friends we make - a mail art story with stickers

I love this story and the follow-on letter and art work in this mailing. Everything they all say is true!  Joel reaches out, shares and then has shared this good news story so we all feel a little better about this mixed up world we live in!  Thank you. Go Mail art!

Clocks back and I'm catching up! More from The Sticker Dude

 Apologies for a title that only means something to me! It's Sunday night and rather than blogging, I should be getting ready for my life drawing group.  I rush off first thing on a Monday morning to a group that has been together for 25 years.  I have been going since I moved to England, in 2000. So, thomas Kerr's words hold lots of significance for me. Sticker Dude and I are in synch and nearly in time.

 As for this election, we are all on tenterhooks and there better not be any surprises.  My 80+ year old mum was telling me that she wore her nasty women vote badge and got treated badly by someone in her hometown of Orlando.  It's good to be alive to witness this event, but the whole thing makes me nervous.

Love all the postage stamps, Vittore Baroni's collab and all of the wonderful stamps that adorn the envelope! Now off to mail a few more America Agast stickers...

Sticker Dude School of Visual Arts - the color of fantasy

This mailing is a testament that the sticker dude is a sharer! Many thanks for showing me the beautiful work of Kerr and Barbara, and inviting me (all of us?) to the reception!  Tonight as I make my way through a bit more of my mail art backlog, I realise that not opening promptly has its drawbacks. 

In the Kate Spade card, Joel has (I think) altered a postcard to create more meaning and possibly to help me accept the folly of the people I believe are making bad decisions… Could this have political implications? My mother, sister and I have been circulating some bad news stories and are incredulous about the 'naive'. 

Beauty, reason and the impish, devilish provocateur... it's all a bit of a minefield that Joel helps me to navigate.

The puzzle of American Agast - Sticker Dude

Joel has packed this mailing with politics, life lessons, connundrums and as ever, beautiful stamps and stickers!  The bonus is that opened this letter today, on International Poetry Day to find a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver. It's funny, I have two unsaved files on my computer of other Mary Oliver poems that I copied today to share with students.  As ever, we seem to be thinking about the same sorts of things from across the Atlantic.

I heard a UK newscaster say that Trump is losing momentum.  Still I think it's best for us to remain aghast/ against this angry buffoon and as ever, Thomas Kerr has captured the spirit of our mortification that this man is in the race. Three oversees votes coming at you for the state of Maine from this family!

 Great to see this sticker in collaboration with my mail art friend, Amy Irwin!

I've worked it out.  Can you?

Sticker Dude tests my willpower and moral compass.

Here we go again! More collaborative humour from The Sticker Dude and Kerr.  I love that what I expect is infact counterintuitively not missing. I am interrogating my idea of censorship with this piece and discover that what is offensive, or simply to be censored is arbitrary and deeply personal. SURPRISE!

 I don't know if Sticker Dude knows Richard Canard but this one made me laugh in the same way I laugh when I see something of Richard's.

Of course, this one isn't a sticker at all...

But this one is a sticker that is temptingly compellingly crying out to be used so it is seen by as many people as possible! I WANT TO SEND THIS or Stick it somewhere but I am an archivist, what to do?

And can somebody tell me if MAD still exists?