Received: haptic digital collage stamps

Kevin and James sent me this beautiful sheet of stamps, which pre-perforation make an exquisitel collage of imagery and textures.  As I archive my mail art, I wonder about photocopying this, perforating the photocopied page in order to use the faux-faux stamps to send out on other mail art. I am curious about what each stamp would look like and how I could use them on my own mail art. If I do, I will photograph the pieces.  Thank you!

I was honoured to find that a photo of some mail art I sent in to Mailart Worlwide is now the cover page!

 

Happy New Year from Greece!

Katerina has not given up on me and sends not only New Years' greetings but also wonders how my birthday was. She and Guido were so good about birthdays! Katerina has made her New Years' card PINK this year because it's the year of the pig. So far it's been a fine start to 2019. It's got cold again here but no snow here. Thank you Katerina.

Red letter day from the Sultanate of Oman

Beautiful! Love the gold stamp.  We don't have anything quite like it here in England. Thank you and thank you also for letting me know this one wasn't for opening, a fiery little exotic collage! 

A set of Battisford Brushes for you

For the month of February I have been taking photos of each letter of the alphabet from the natural world and the built environment and making mailart with them.  Yesterday I turned these letters into brushes which I have placed in a google document as a set. You should be able to download and use them.  The above is what they look like at about 150 px in an array of colours.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3g5q7Qjx55QRVJVTlUtMlZ4ZEU/edit?usp=sharing

Shocking insights from Vizma

A startling revelation from the woman who wrestles snakes...
Surely NOT, Vizma. 'ALL GIRLS  LOVE PRETTY PINK THINGS.  It's a fact.' ? 

I'll have to ask my mother, but if memory serves me correctly my favourite article of clothing when I was the age where PINK was the be-all-and-end-all was a pair of pull on trousers of an oriental rug persuasion.  They may have been intended for upholstery but my mum (who can transform everything on her sewing machine) made me these hippy flairs that I wore to death.  They weren't pink, rather red and gold, blue and green.  No one had them and I LOVED that.

Figgy, on the other hand, wore a tutu and princess jasmine costumes to Macys and Takashimaya, even on the Singapore MRT.  She loved pink, so this is very familiar.  When I buy paint to take into schools I've learned that pink and glitter get snapped up and depleted by girls (and some boys) almost as fast as they syphon it out of the bottle.  So I understand, even if I can't find any of the pastel pink in my wardrobe and avoid the forever friends aisle at all cost.

But then again I DID have a bubblegum pink bedroom once and the most exquisite BRIGHT pink wool floor length coat that I bought at one of those vintage shops on W4th St in the late 70s. I couldn't get enough of that coat.

This made me laugh and work very hard to defy catagorisation and then give in and finally agree with Vizma!  Great fun. Thank you!

New Friour Edition 2013

The characters on this envelope suggest Guido's bold and imagistic line so when I opened it and found Beautiful new work from Guido in this A6 booklet, I was delighted, but not surprised.  I recognise the captivating faces from Birthday mania, Guido's herculean new endeavour! Thank you Guido, another treasure!

Relationships with Postmistresses

I am lucky enough to really know a postmistress.  Eileen is the elder sister of one of my childhood friends, Rhonda, (who died tragically young quite a few years ago).  Eileen is also one of the Cranberry Island Postmistresses.  As you can imagine, Eileen was pivotal last summer when I coordinated a mail art exhibition on the island and this postcard from Eileen was sent as a thank you to me for bringing business to the post office (which teeters on the edge of viability in the age of cost-cutting). Eileen writes that she also is a big fan of the Island Mail art catalogue and the new art form which international and island mailartists brought to the Cranberry. Great to hear form you Eileen!

Here is link to the Island Mailart catalogue too: 
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3g5q7Qjx55QVkZCS2txdE1tNkk/edit

Helen Thorne sends mailart from Germany

Helen is in Germany, learning to speak German better by teaching young people in German.  We miss here in Suffolk but are delighted that she took the time to collage a bit of her world.  I wish I could translate German... but Patrick wants Helen to kow that he solved the verbal reasoning in a flash (sort of).  Thank you Helen.

Stripygoose sends New Years' cheer... and a chicken story

Gratefully recieved festive fowl mailart from Stripygoose (no. 215) I have just checked and she is now on no 313! Go Stripygoose! Thank you.
http://mailart365.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/313ballet-birdie.html?utm_source=BP_recent

And that also gives me time to tell you my latest chicken story.  We have pheasants galore feeding at the grain this year.  I think the duck even fly in and out to eat our expensive mixed corn. I wouldn't care   except that it runs out so quickly and the chickens are hungry (and if we were wealthy).  As you might imagine, they don't lay when they're hungry.  I feed them table scraps.  They prefer rice, potatoes, cous cous - carbs. 
Just before we went to North Devon I collected the eggs to take with us.   They only layed 6 eggs over the course of the week and the grain had run out.  Because we were going away and because we were jaded by overeating in general, I fed them about half a tray of baklava that our son had made for a middle eastern meal we'd had. Boy did they love that.  The chickens are usually peaceful, but they were at war over the filo pastry, the nuts soaked in honey.  They made me laugh.
So when we got back and I went to check on them (they self feed and self drink, don't worry) I found that the grain was low but they had layed 8 eggs in 3 days! It turns out Baklava is a chicken farmer's tonic.

Chantry mailart

https://picasaweb.google.com/Rebeccaguyver/LIndaSMailart?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNKw_4C006m5HA&feat=directlink