Handmade with love and humour - by Carina

 Finding the right image for an envelope is a skill that Carina definately has. Having never met, I wonder at her power to elicit an emotional response in a way that feels like not even trying. Just look at that young woman, yearning in her tropical paradise, so full of determination.  Does she know that is me in my past?  Does she know that I met the man of my dreams in just such a place?

Cutting tape is a pain.  But Carina cares enough to do it repeatedly and with such care, but not too much care… Boo is there to remind me that she's enjoying this process of wrapping her book and imagining my response!

THOSE XXXX what a loving touch and look at the way the green and the pink sing! Flip over the packet and you see where Carina got the idea from, or maybe she found the image after the idea.  Fabulous repetition of form, so much thought for someone she's never met!

You mail artists are changing me… I find myself wanting to use Carina's palette.  Just because you can't wear the colour doesn't mean it isn't perfect.

What Love is a poignant story of desire, longing, maybe waiting and possibly friendship. It's made from old magazines glued together to create a seemless history, complete with the patina of time.

I hate to put What Love away in its sleeve but it feels like the magic will grow if it goes back, sending lots of hope, joy, humour for all those people still looking.

PLAY WITH PHOTOGRAPHY - A spitfire view from Marie Wintzer

In this case, for me, Marie introduces her theme with her envelope. I am immediately primed for mapping the skies.  I feel myself checking the instrument panel in anticipation, of watching the world turn to matchoook houses with postage stamp fields.

(I see) topography of a city from high. Windows on the world. A transept of space. 

I suspect these pictures are taken from a tower block, vertical words fashioned to interupt the view.  I wonder if words do that, distract us from being in a space.  Here they make me feel dizzy with the height. I am under the sky, looking out and fumbling with controls.

The broken geometry of a vista, our memories, traces of our lives imprinted on what we see.

I love the shapes and the colours, quilts of light.

Something framed that has faded, becomes indecipherable to those who weren't there. I turn them over, hang them up, read the story.  Long for the freedom of the skies, alongside Marie. Marie writes that perhaps 'cloth is the oppostie of crumpled paper?' I agree that the linen muffles, or maybe tempers the music of these pieces in a way that makes them ache to speak.

Five or six years ago I bought the piece below from an artist who was a resident at the Heliker Lahotan Foundation (on Cranberry Island); for me, Marie's piece conjures up a similar sound, a similar mood. For a moment I am an explorer or maybe a spy and this is my landscape.  Beautiful!

Swapping books with Cheryl Penn - I got the long straw, again.

In a previous blog I celebrated Cheryl Penn's ability to curate.  She pairs imagery and words so deftly and through symmetry, or dissonance guides her viewer in understanding so they come to see differently and more widely.  This aesthetic and knowing is only one of Cheryl's qualities. She is also sure-footed, technically gifted and draws on a wide understanding of, well, maybe, everything!  

This book is a version, part of an edition of 10, one of which is going towards her hundreds of volumes of The Encyclopedia of Everything.  I am in awe at this piece.  It is truly beautiful and I will treasure it.  Read the Book! 

A deluge of mail art goodies from down under (Bris Chris)

Summer Sunflowers ICC Challenge 2013
30 X 42 "

mail art cloth postcard, tiny photo collage/canvas, mail art materials, a note

Christine Jones is a textile artist who exhibits and WINS prizes for her quilts.  She and I met at mailart 365 and she sent some wonderful mail art for my islands exhibition on Cranberry Island in 2012.  Her flood art is quite special. Vic and Chris came and visited us in Suffolk and we had a jolly time!  Vic cooked delicacies from Brisbane, we visited the coast and Chris helped me make something crafty for a raffle, etc.  V and C are back in Brisbane now and I received a parcel with all this from Chris!  

Thank you, Chris!  What a generous, thoughtful and wonderful package of goodies!

Cheryl Penn's curatorial genius

Cheryl Penn's cover: Mail Art Makes the World a Town Edition IX

John Bennett, Rosa Gravino

Andrew Maximillian Niss,  C. Mehrl Bennett, John Bennett

Rebecca Guyver, Lesley Magwood Fraser

Torill Elisabeth Larsen, Uli Grohmann

This zine has been a long time coming for me… I sent images to Cheryl more than a year ago and they must have circled the globe for a long time before returning to me and then being reposted to Cheryl.  I didn't even dare open the package as I suspected the imagery would be stale and I would bin the lot.

One of the things about Cheryl is that she makes you feel as if you belong.  I suspect she is a very good teacher, empowering her students to believe.  And belonging in this group, in this zine, in this network, matters. 

I've pulled out a few spreads for your delight so we can smile and nod approvingly at the way Cheryl has paired work, adding to the story.

Cheryl's note said 'send again'.  Of course I will. 

UK mail art meetup beneficiary!

I missed the latest mail art meetup in London, again. Sue (Stripygoose), Mail art Martha and Bris Chris met and made postcards.  I received one of the five!   Many thanks.

If the move was a good as the mail art…

I had a message from Claire asking if I'd received a change of address card from her.  I'd read about these, but alas, had not been the recipient…

A Dinsmore envelope shouts DINSMORE in a quiet, tranquil, cat-storke of a way. When it arrived I was delighted and expectant.

I commented in an earlier blog about how each element of a Dinsmore composition is 'just right'.  This time I notice the graphic choices, particularly, as well. 

 I have to admit to usually being too excited to tell my fortune to take careful note of the wrapping of the miracle fish.  It really is rather curious that this dolphinesque creature can do just that… but for the moment I will look at it through the wrapper and deny myself the joy of having the tail curl, the body flip in my palm.

Having never been to Pittsburgh, I can only guess at this landscape.  I can't quite place it, but somethings pulls on my own East Coast heartstrings. 

In the same way that when a Stephanie Blake arrives, I can't quite bring myself to open the packet, in this case, stickers!  The opaque not knowing is perhaps better than the finding out.

As ever with Claire's packaging, I can't help but covet.  I'm sure WE don't have stamps like those and I certainly can't make them (Like BF) and that washi tape...

Many, many thanks, Claire.  I am working on an obsessive project for my mail art friends that is taking much more time than first anticipated… but yours is on deck.