United Eternal Network

There is joy, honesty, facts, aesthetics and collaboration in a Sticker Dude mailing. Mail art is, after all, an exchange. Sometimes Sticker Dude sends me work for the archives and I am always so grateful. He culls work that tells a story, or that enhances his story and I feel as if I am getting the cream at the top of the bottle of milk in Mail art. Look at the stamps on the envelope. Beauty, chemistry, a polymath, commentary 'out of bounds' and stickers produced by Joel but conceived by others.  In this mailing: William Mellott, Sebela Bana and Adam Roussopoulos. What more could you want?

William Mellott/art direction Sticker Dude

Sebela Bana /art direction Sticker Dude and Adam Roussopoulos

Design William Mellott and Sticker Dude

Sticker Dude & Adam Roussopoulos

This is actually hot pink.

True story from Carol Stetser 1991

Images documenting Carol's relationship to the mail art network.

Save Mailart, Save the World

Thanks Joel, if this doesn't get me making mail art, nothing will!

 

A taxomonomy of Une Vie

 

Herman's mail art is bold and beautiful like a trip to the cinema. Those things that happen on a day, in your life, those things that I used to write as a list when I lived in the Kerio Valley (so I would have something to say in my daily letters), those things that might feel inconsequential, a fox, a bird, a tooth, become actors in the story which Herman gathers together in snippets for me to reconstruct. This time I fell joy and wonder, like awakening from a dream, a world where we are maskless, hugging, in cramped spaces.

When I received this I had some friends staying and they wanted to see what it was.  I opened the outer envelope but when I saw the delicate string i exclaimed that I needed to open it later, carefully. Herman had never tied up his mail art in string! A delicate and beautiful touch!

At the moment the fierce heat has abated and I only need to water the polytunnel once a day, but I am this woman. She is one of Herman's photographs of what I imagine is mail art he has sent to others. His panache with juxtaposing the figure with colour and form is always enchanting and i am happy to be a voyeur in these three pieces of sent mail!

Herman tells me that in Amsterdam they have jettisoned their masks.  Here in England we are still more cautious. On the flip side of this icon,  Herman tells me of his father and the letters he wrote and how they make him proud. I was the letter-writer in my family but I treasure the few things I got from my own father. His handwriting can still conjure the man. 

Happy belated birthday, Charlotte!

This is larger than Herman's usual drawing scale and they flap in the wind. I need to make more stamps!  Thank you for a wonderful mailing, as always. I will try not to be a snail in the speed with which I reply!

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. 

 

Ragged Edge in Exile

This envelope from the Sticker Dude was not only stuffed full with stickers, ATCs, postcards, stamps, an add and pass, and a book, In this envelope, Joel had affixed a few sticky notes to explain things and he send me a sourdough recipe. HOW DID HE KNOW?

ATC

ATC (actually a playing card!)

sticker

As I make my way through Sticker Dude's envelope, I notice a mini-theme - sensory pleasures and perhaps less pleasant sensory events.  They have been muck-spreading around Nayland Farm today.  There is pervasive rank smell.  but atl least I'm not down a man hole or having to drink koolaid?

I suppose we have all been paying more attention to all things sensory because we haven't had the opportunity to do so many other things.  Like Sticker dude, I bake bread and I make sour dought, so very excited to try out a new recipe!

The book below is roughly 4 x 6 inches. SD tells me that it was made by Diane Bertrand using many of his stickers and mail art envelopes.  He thought it should go into my files and I think he's right!  Thank you.

Time to finish off another add and pass!

 

Finishing off with a quintessential SD envelope.