It's Been Too Long

Quite a long time ago I received this mail art from Ted Trager.  I had it in my head that I would get all caught up before I went to Maine and send out the stuff I planned to send out.  I even had some labels all ready to go and then my scanner went on a go slow.  I'm not sure if it's a memory problem on my computer.  It persists but I was dogged today, finally. I hoped to scan in Maine so transported my M/A to America.  I failed that too.  I was just gardening too much.

And then it was Open Studios, a trip to Normandy, two commissions and countless deadlines as well as THE GARDEN. 

Enough preamble.

I love this mailing. Chris Clother's illustrations are beautiful and poignant. Ted's bookbinding is glorious.  i love a perforated stamp! The photos are random and interesting and in a funny way familiar.  They put piles of road grading material on a loading bay at the bottom of a hill where I run with Lyra.  I made a monoprint called 'Battisford Mounds', they intrigue me.  I don't have any tattoos. Asemic overtyping is gorgeous.

Thank you.

 

Floudering Fascists driven underground by guitars

Sticker dude packed this envelope full of a range of provocative (collaborative) beautifully drawn and imagined mail art pieces from a dissatisfied band of mail artists.  Having said that, it's possible Joel has conceived and executed much in the mailing himself.  I spy that the Art Shul carving is by Ed Giecek with other helpers, see back of card. The ATC above is a design I have seen before with a sticker ammendment. Brilliant!

Agreed, we are in troubled times and to all appear to be FLOUNDERING. I love that word, floundering, BTW. I can see it.  In Dutch it is: flodderen. Apparently it comes from French and means 'to sink to the bottom', originally.  Now it's 'to flop about'.  The president's hair certainly does that and we are.

I couldn't find the author and illustrator of this wonderful (and depressing) zine… I hope it's some young person forgoing his device to draw with care to get his point of view out there, to stay on message and shed light on what is happening at this sad time. We must stay focussed! 

Or we could play the guitar and make artistamps! and then again, we might just doodle.

Thanks Joel! Another wonderful mailing.

It's Aristide 3108's fault!

…that I have something of a 'blogjam'.

Front Cover

This is the front cover of a zine I received quite a long time ago, more than weeks ago, from Aristide 3108. I took it to my room as bedside reading.  If I concentrate hard, I read French, and this zine was obviously worth reading. 

Number one it celebrates some awesome mail artists who are 'dressed for Ryosuke Cohen'and his Fractal Portrait Project. 

The zine is 36 pages and it was the thought of scanning 36 pages that has been my barrier to blogging for some time.  It's been the zine's turn for weeks and I simply haven't had the time to scan all the pages, although THEY DESERVE TO BE SCANNED!

The zine has a matt finished front and back.  Inside the pages are semi-gloss. The Zine feels good and the essays and stories are fabulous insights into this mail art world we cohabit.

 So I have scanned the entirety of Aristide 3108's entry.  He and I exchange mail art and apart from Ryosuke Cohen, Keith Bates and Tiziana Baracchi I haven't exchanged with the others highlighted, so that's where I drew the line. Keith's essay is really interesting, so I will try to scan it later for you to read. (It's in English!)

inside back cover 1

inside back cover 2

Great zine, great project!  Thank you!

Back Cover