Monday, January 30, 2023

Observers of the Mundane

 



Anja Mattila-Tolvanen has created animated collages by juxtaposing colorful and charismatic creatures with black and white scenes of the mundane world. Both of the collages are stories that invite the viewer to invent the back story and imagine the future. I find them charming!


It's also great to see that Ukraine persists in the mind of Anja and Lonna Kelly.  I archive rather than add and pass  for the most part, so the post card will be here in the Nayland Farm archives, if you ever visit, a bit of history. The sunflowers make me hopeful. Thanks, and sorry I have been slow sharing.

Some of you will have noticed that I am migrating over the Substack. My last post was on that site, it features the Sticker Dude's mail art. Sign up on Substack to see the wonderful mail art I receive in the future.

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Wednesday, January 18, 2023

The Joy of a Stitched Postcard


I'm a sucker for a sewn piece of mail art and this from Gerda is a real gem. My first stitched piece came from Bris Chris when I was doing Mailart 365, so it must have been 2013. Chris was sending out 'flood art' - from the terrible floods in Australia. She sewed on a piece of a photo sort of saved from the flood. LIke Gerda's, it was special and is here in my archive.

Andy Geezer continues to hostmailart 365 at a new site: https://www.mailart365.com/  I have just checked and my pieces are still archived at the original site.  I made all 365 pieces! I can't even imagine now! http://mailart365.blogspot.com/search/label/Rebecca

But back to this beautiful piece! What a sunset! And the characters are so wonderfully whimsical, I am enchanted.   

 

Monday, January 16, 2023

COLLAGE OF LIFE with pressed flowers



If you have followed my mail art blog for a while, you will understand that Herman's mail art envelopes are Russian dolls. Each layer stands alone but together they are more than their singular selves. At the end of this blog you will find the external envelope that held the treasure.  The two pieces above are actualy a folder in which other beauties are contained.  This folder was sewn shut with thread and adorned with dried flowers. It is as though I opened a chest of a beloved's and found things they had kept safe and near their heart for a long time. The faces are worn with pathos, perhaps tired at the end of a long year, not yet ready to take on the New Year… or perhaps loved to death?


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These two (above) are the inside of the folder.  Herman has stamped his name in the fold.  If I had thought about that I should have scanned it as an opened page… Everything about this feels dated, authentic and composed with love, right down to Herman's stamp and the name, Hermanka etched into the plinth. I feel as if I am stepping back into time.  The sense of design belongs to an era and Herman's beautiful choice of paper makes the feel even more so.






Herman is a mail artist and an artist.  As happens when you correspond with someone for years, we share things about our non-mailart lives. I would like to see Herman's room and the waiting room!  Sigh, I will have to settle for images.


Herman is a correspondent and nothing he writes on is ho hum.  As a bonus, Herman adds another collage of a woman in the throes of movement which I read as sheer joy. This woman takes boundless energy into the new year!

I love everything about Herman's mailing. Happy New Year Herman!  And thank you!
 

Saturday, January 14, 2023

Dada Trumph Motors Biden Our Time Nothing Will Change

Cascadia Artpost has amassed an unparalleled primer on Wealth in America with 32 additional billionaire Oligarchs.  It is a comprehensive read and probably already out-of-date… 























Thank you Cascadia, this is a tour-de-force!
 

The Collage is the Main Course

Jon sent me two beautiful collages as well as what I think of as 'freebies' in mail art. Sticker Dude is the master of 'freebies', but Jon also stuffs a mean envelope. The Collage, is the 'main course' though.  Often I have received tape transfers from Jon, these collages are equally strong and effective.


Jon has an American enthusiasm that I know and appreciate, too.






Thanks Jon. 

As a side note, you know I archive everything, but sometimes mail art becomes an inspiration for something else. The painting that took inspiration from another piece you sent me is hanging on my studio wall.  `i was sure it was going to be selected by the Royal Society of British Painters. They chose a different oneof mine, though.  I will need to submit it to something else and if it gets accepted your mail art will live on in another kind of nonor or infamy.  Thanks!  

 

Friday, January 13, 2023

Cheers it's the Bravo Tour!

Cheers! I received this beautiful 'encarted' from Aristide 3108! If there is a specific meaning, I must admit to only rudimentary translation. The word 'tour' takes me to a French road with people cheering from the sidelines. Bravo, a cheer. a rousing cheer for mail art - and Encarted since 1987! `i notice the fragments of words, names that create the shading on the subject. the abstract nature of words, coming together to create something striking..

I always love the scale of Aristide 3108's work. It packs a punch in a small format.










Thank you!