Everything has a purpose

Pelican postcard 2021 GO Mail Art

Gerda Osteneck and I exchanged years ago when I was active at IUOMA. It's great to see her again in the post. Sticker Dude sent Gerda some of my stuff, I think.  Sticker dude has sent me some of Gerda's mail art for the Guyver archive. 

Gerda plays with photos in this mailing.  She has hand-coloured (in photoshop) the pelicans above. In the chicken below, Gerda has scratched into her photo to enhance the chicken's tail to make it haptic and jauntier. 

 Tail Feather postcard 2021 GO Mail Art

List  postcard 2021 GO Mail Art

Do you ever see discarded list on the ground in the supermarket. I have and I would collect them and send them to our trashpo queen, DK. These days I look longingly at lists but trashpo just isn't the same in the time of Covid. It's great to see Gerda's beautiful trashpo list collage.

Everything has a purpose  postcard 2021 by G Osteneek

And this piece feels related to the list. the colour, the movement the use of scraps to make a coherant whole.

Swan atamps with personal message on back!

Thanks Gerda! Hopefully I will send you something (directly) soon!

 

Barcode Restaurants

So excited to receive my first mail from Artist in Seine (if he is in Seine) for at least a year or two.I'm also excited and a little nostalgic to receive this postcard. It probably arrived right around the day we exited the EU. Long sigh, to be followed by pining for being part of Europe. and if Tavernas or bistros don;t have barcode paintings, then they should! They are very cool. I'll have pommes frites and that rosso di tavola will do fine.  Thank you, Dean.

Three things from Ted Trader

Sometimes I am so behind and my correspondents are prolific and I find I have a number of mailart by the same person.  I hope it isn't construed as lazy, but I have put three of Ted's pieces of mail art (with multiple inserts) on this blog. I am delighted by each!

How did Ted Trager know that a hole would open up and a man would fall into it and there would be RATS. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/29/new-york-city-sinkhole-rats-man-falls

Or is it 'Rats!', 'shoot!', 'darn'?

or is it about some mobster? HHHMMM.

I did and you can too! Shooby

It's always tricky to interpret mail art from someone you don't know very well and although Ted has sent me one other mailing, perhaps I'm not qualified to explain his Mail art, entirely (who can, ever? Should we?  

I can say I like the marks and the eerie feeling.  (This arrived before Halloween.)  Below I see costumes and I get a feeling of Japan, too. It's quite beautiful, but also unsettling. And then there's Covid.

Second mailing below:

This altered postcard, scraped to create flames, reminds me of fire, the fires, but also a spirit appearing in bright California. What prescient knowledge does she want to impart? 

Below is the third mailing.This one is not an altered postcard but a man in an altered state. Here in the UK, It is the night before the US elections. I listened to Chuck Todd and he said '20, 20, 20, 4, hours to go I wanna be sedated'.  He had an ear worm. Ted's man looks the way I feel. Sedation might be good.

I will blind draw the bison. Fun!

So the boys are on the bus, although there aren't any buses any more.  The candidates fly from place to place and there is a woman on the team too! I hope they take care of the crossing animals and drive safely, and steer clear of the caravans. 

And what I particularly like about this VISPO, beyond the abstract feel of it, is the hint of the honesty and  hidden secrets, teasing us to sort through. 

 

Meximail from Tofu

Well it looks like TOFU has been on the road! Or maybe he has just been armchair travelling… As I open Tofu's mail I am transported.  I have been to the Baja Peninsula and speak a little Spanish and with the images, money and icons I feel a period of wanderlust  coming on.   The only thing missing from this mailing is Chilaquiles.

This stuff is also getting me thinking about ideas for a school project.  Thank you TOFU.  haptic, beautiful, fun and inspiring.  

Tucked up in a Tapestry - Cuan Miles

Love this patterned postcard from Cuan. where the front and the back speak to each other. The way Cuan has repurposed this postcard is incredibly effective.  It is the sort of thing that makes me want to paint a painting with layers and layers. Illegibility creates mystery and I believe the main character has a story to tell. She, or he is timeless and I am a sucker for a paisley. I discovered a few facts about paisleys: Resembling a twisted tear-drop the paisley design is of Persian and Indian origin, but the modern name, “paisley” is of Scottish descent, made fashionable in Europe by the town of Paisley in Central Scotland.The paisley design is rich in spiritual and symbolic meaning. In India, the paisley signified the time of harvest, a time of both socio-economic and spiritual significance.

I doubt Cuan was thinking about that but what with his flower symbol, it all seems to fit. 

many thanks.  I hope to send you something before too long!

Tijuana Tofu - Dig the altered state

Tofu's Tijuana postcard conjures up a time from my past, a time when a gaggle of undergrads went to Baja.  Jennifer had a house in Baja! I'm not sure who drove or how we navigated the hairpin turns but I do remember pitchers of beer and the way the buildings tessalated.

Tofu is a genius and I love this haptic card!

Amazingly, I found the image below this morning in a ridiculous place, before I'd even received Tofu's postcard - and it's from that Tijuana trip. 

Eastside of Horshoe Falls - Svenja Wahl

Inside the envelope with the zine, Der KleineTierfreund, was this wonderful altered postcard from Svenja! The message is clear to me.  If you wear one of those hats you are so cool, calm and collected, you can even stroke a model eyeball in a torrent of water and vaoid getting wet! Brilliant! Many thanks, Svenja. 

Debut Mail Art from Peter Willsher

Who knew Peter had been to Malta or that he would send his debut mail art piece to me from there! An altered postcard is so Peter's style, strong and direct in a minimalist way! Just like the West Wing.
Many thanks Peter!

Graffiti from France

You have to look closely at the surface of the photograph to make out the graffiti Dave Plumb, from Suffolk who went to France over New Year, sent me. 

' George……. if what you say is true then why the impotance of erasing the past?'

Luckily Dave has transcribed what he has seen in Paris, scrawled on a building.  Today sent me this!

'Hi Rebecca ,

 

When we arrived in Paris for our Christmas break we were walking from the Richard -Lenoir Metro to our hotel in Rue Amelot when I noticed some 

interesting graffiti on a wall in Rue Pelee . I wrote these words down and used them as part of the postcards I sent you as they were indicative of the Parisian

enigma which requires as much thought as you are prepared to give. What I didn't realise until the events unfolded was that these words were written just yards from the offices of Charlie Hebdo. This makes them even more interesting than I realised .'