Give me the roses and I'll bake the bread.

These exquisite paint and ink pieces are two sides of one gift in this mailing. They are haptic, ethereal, just absolute beauties. They are both worthy of a frame… I will place them around my studio for inspiration before putting them in my archive.  Thank you Gerda! I'm sorry it's taken me a while to blog this.

I am a sucker for a handmade envelope  and I notice the femail stamp. I am slow.  I am sorry. 

And then, to cap it all off, a boekie. for Internationl Women's Day. What were you doing on that day?  In the past I have gone to a party (helped serve food) thrown by Suffolk refugees.  I wondered if it were on. Lots of music and women dancing together.Instead I was here, painting and fitting house chores in between. 

 Thank you Gerda.  A wonderful envelope full of beauty, surprises and inspiration!

Autoumn Haiku

Mailart Martha continues to be a faithful correspondent and even though whe was busy in the run-up to Christmas, she also humoured me! I am very grateful to have her beautiful haiku boekie to add to my collection!

The Boekie was wrapped in what I recognise as stickers from Keith Chambers that accompanied his/our collaborative Exquisite Corpse Cut Up.  Below, Martha tells me she used her face in a painting programme and added the glasses later. I love the outcome!

Thanks martha, I sent a boekie to the other person in our chain and included a copy of yours. I will send you something soon.
 

Telepathic Empathic Mail Art

It's really great to get mail art from Debra and to find out that she is a fan of my fused plastic collages! and what's even better is she enough of a fan to send me some wonderful stuff in a her bespoke 'far out' envelope. 

The first thing is an envelope boekie, made by Dan Buck and embellished by Debra. The last time someone sent me a collaborative book that I wasn't expected to add to and send back was Guido. So it's a special thing. Although maybe the empty page is for me to add to and send back to Ed? I tend to archive everything, meaning to send on add and pass things and somehow too much time passes and then they go up to my archive. But if I should continue this, just say.

And as for Debra's 'sign'.  I love that Debra saw my name and thought of me! 

I have been working on some fused plastic on and off for a few weeks.  I am hanging a lot of my plastic and books at a show in Colchester in August. Everything (well a lot of my fused plastic) always (… or even sometimes) begins as mail art and then I realise it's something that I am working through so can't send it out YET. That's what's happening now. You can see what I'm taking about just below the back of Debra's envelope. After  made Looming Lights, a book I took apart and then reassembled so i coul sew plastic into it, I deconstructed a dictionary with the intention of mailing out all the pages.  I worked in a flurry of activity and then couldn't send them…YET. That doesn't mean Debra won't get her fused plastic. It just means it might take a little while.

Huge thanks Debra! Love it all.

Mail art out of context -

David Stafford sent me a boekie a little while ago and I enjoyed it and then scanned it and then I went to America and who knows what all these scans mean as a whole… I like that I get to pick the best option for me… 

...Anything remotely associated with 'domestic' is probably slightly inappropriate for me. I like to do domestic things but I will not march to anyone's domestic demands, unless they are demanded by my mother. Raking, cooking, dishes - only my mother gets those chores with a smile.

Although possibly/certainly out of order, David has sent me a great selection of imagery about women from, say, the time of Mad Men.  It's interesting to have grown up in that period, thinking it was 'normal' and to pass through and then to become a 'modern woman'. And I can agree with much I see here: the wonder, the glamour that domesticity conjured in that time... and the statement 'domestic mystery' describes it perfectly. Thank you David!