Another envelope stuffed eith sticky truths from the Sticker Dude

What I love is the the seemless intersection of 'the authentic' tax levied stamp and the sticker versions of sense.  Nonsense and sense playing hide and seek on a velum envelope!  Bliss!  Dada. But wait, is that a Ray sticker too? Many thanks!

From Den Haag and Denial - Marie Wintzer

More wonderful postcards from Marie!  One of these days I am going to take them all out arrange and reaarange them to make new poems. They are all poetry and secret conversations.  Threads of people's lives edited.  Many thanks!

Doodle overdose from Diane Keys

Doodle stamp magnet conversion

I scanned 26 pages of doodles and stuff from Diane and then when I went to find a particular doodle I realised I hadn't scanned it! I need to find it and do that, so I decided not to deluge my readers with the cacophony of doodles and to randomly choose a few things to give you the flavour of my bursting envelope.  These are a melange of mine, Diane's and someone else, at least one someone else, a prescription of doodles.  They are all wonderfully outrageous and I will spread them around my work surface (avoiding the sticky candy that stuck to my scanner) and see what happens.  Fun fun.

Meet Thumb Girl and Stick Man - David Stafford

So I have to make a confession.  I was one of those teens and young adults who didn't go to the flicks very often.  I was making mail art, practicing my drop glides, reading stuff and dancing, not ballet. Nowadays we live in the sticks and I go to our living room and we watch an episode most nights of some box set.  I can't tell you the names of most of the actors, though.  Ok I know John Ham but not many others….

Before beginning this blog, I took the enclosed from David Stafford to Patrick to see if the faces meant something to him.  He shrugged and he watched and watches much more than I do.  So if you all know who these icons are, we will rename the blog.  Many thanks David.  I love the shapes of stickman and thumb girl!

Hull of an expression, E Elkan

 E Elkan sent me some wonderful expressive mail art from Hull a few days ago! Hull will be the cultural capital of England in 2017! I have never been there but I have heard a few jokes about it and read some other things that make it sound divine, so, I was excited when I discovered this card from Hull in my postbox.

If you look carefully at the mouth of the top piece you will realise that it is exactly the same as the mouth of the 2nd image… that's because it's a cut out mouth and you are looking through to the cut up face inside.  Thr eyes have an eerie Meeah Williams feel.  E Elkan uses ink in a haptic way too! In fact the head/skull is very sculptural in feel.

Equally pleasing are E Elkan's doodly stickers. NOTE: Diane Keys, do we have another doodle therapy convert? Just in case, I'm sending a new bookie hot off the press (that has only gone out to Carina, so far) as a big thank you for this enthusiastically received mailing!

Ruins of some concrete arrows are still visible, Tofu - Scott St John

I love the idea of a series of lighted beacons guiding mail across the West. Sometimes I think I ought to have lived in another century,.  Nowadays you have to plead for stamps at the post office (instead of those big gold stickers).  When I was younger and spent summers on Cranberry Island, my whole day revolved around THE MAIL BOAT.  I never missed a delivery.  I knew the most wanted list by heart and was familiar with all the postal sounds that emmanated from behind the postal window. Mail was magic, and still is.

Tofu's card evokes that mystery.  Thank you!

Bizarre Cities TOM Special April 2015 Farewell Guido, compiled by Bernd Reichert

A few months ago, after we learned that Guido Vermeulen, our friend and mail art correspondent had died, Bernd Reichert offered to gather all of our tributes to Guido in a special Bizarre cities edition.  Although I had only known Guido for  three or so years, we had exchanged lots of mail art and ideas.  He sent me poetry, envelopes, Friour magazines, letters, dreams. I was very sad to learn that he I would never visit him in Belgium, never meet him in person.

Guido was a very generous and passionate man. Perhaps that is the lasting impression from The Farewell Guido zine. I found it poignant and felt a sense of loss as I read it. I felt in touch with Guido  when I was making my pages and again when reading.

and the poem at the end…

Participants were:

Mim Glub Scalin
David Stone
Josephine Reichert
Judy Skolnik
David Dellafiora
Katerina Nikoltsou
Cheryl Penn
Tiziana Baracchi
Rebecca Guyver
Jjalltheway (Jennifer Jones)
Alicia Starr
Meral Agar
Petropetal
Eric Basso
PC (TICTAC)
Miche-Art-Universalis
Carl Baker
Nancy Bell Scott
Gina Ulgen
Paul and Mirielle Verhulst
Bernd Reichert

If you want to download the zine you can do it here: http://issuu.com/mailworksbrussels/docs/publication/1

I got #9.  The pages I made were vintage magazine pages that I altered, adding fused plastic to make stained glass windows.  It took a long time and I thought about Guido throughout. I loved the way Bernd put my page next to an image of Guidos stained glass envelope.

Carina's super international mail art doodles

Notice the DKULT totem heads and the doodle therapy stamp! I love Carina's seemless use of the doodle and the image envelope.  I mean, really, we need to encourage more doodling!  Real things look like doodles to me these days. Figgy and I use doodle as every part of speech. We 'doodled' dinner could mean lots of different things, depeding on your setting, the quality of the meal or what supplies you have at hand! 

I think I may have put undue pressure on Carina to doodle with me but I am shamelessly pleased that I did and she did! I will be doodling this back to her.  I'm not sure about three way dooodles, though.  Except, I think I may be in one with Diane.

Above are three of the six sides I sent Carina. I adore what she did to the doodles! There was other stuff in this WONDERFUL envelope surprise package. I mustn't share it ...but you are missing something special!

Marie's "Le Mail-art C'est de la Merde' # 4

I've had this for a at least a few days.  If I remember correctly it arrived on one of the first days that our daughter was home, near Easter. Figgy gets the mail when she's home and she got this.  She LOVED it. We both did. She didn't even know that Marie has a nickname that is relevant in the text.  This mail art, no matter what Marie says has something for everyone.  For the poet, the pun-hungry, or the aesthetic colourist, Marie delivers. Even her stamp is perfect!

Huge thanks, especially as I know Marie's taking a well deserved break from m/a.

As a PS., what were radiograms?  How did they work? I once sent Patrick Telexes from Africa….

Dkult doodles and mail art for ideas

OOh la la, I have lots to chomp my way through here! I got sidetracked scanning and doodled away.  Now it's bedtime in England I trust I will wake up and get sidetracked by the contents of this full envelope when I should be doing !!??**%

Read the book pages, that are little poems. look closely at DK's trashpo collages. I will dream of… I spy an Eduardo add and pass, tiger lily's drawings and lots of counter culture badges.

Lantern love from Petrolpetal

I have been racking my brains trying to remember what i might have said to Petrolpetal about lanterns.  Perhaps it was how when I sat in my little African house in the Kerio valley, each night, that the moths flew into the flames of my lantern so in the mornings,  I would sweep tens of moth corpses into my waste paper basket, daily. Petrtolpetal sent me a lantern (as the first mail art she sent me, perhaps) I need to think about which object I think of when I think of you, Petrolpetal.  Many thanks!

Springtime mail art from Katerina

Great to get these spring tidings from Katerina. How did she know that we have two NEW barn owls roosting in our ten year old owl box that we had given up on?  We never managed to decorate eggs this year but we've been doodling and hid eggs in the bothy by colour.  Many thanks!