Femai l- XX woman

This is another of the mail art pieces I found in the computer bag. It looks like this time there was a use-by date. OOPs.  It looks like a great project and if you are in Vermont try to visit the exhibition!  Thank you C Mehrl and Sinclair Scripta. Sorry to let you down.

Vertical stories - from another Universe

Since I learned to read, I have assumed that symbols are to be read, receiving mail art from Marie challenges this tenet. She does this in an unambiguous way.  In a way that creates certainty even though it's make believe.  That is Marie's magic touch. 

Marie asks me to bring my imagination to her sythesis of text and imagery.  To read her story.  I wonder if I concentrate hard enough whether I will be able to hear words, whether she can send me a telepathic message.  I wonder if it would be in Japanese or French or English. Would I miraculously understand?

The first card is my determination.  The second is the right way to proceed, playfully in a fetching outfit.

 The first time I read Marie's note I read VERTIGO.  I am not sure what she means, perhaps you do.  I get vertigo when I look at Marie's work. It is just so other-worldly and so perfect.

I've had Marie's letter for a few a weeks.  I can't tell you how excited I was to receive mail art from Marie… I didn't open it until earlier today. Today was a drawing day, so I put Marie's letter in my still life and drew, it lives in many universes! 

Tofu recalls colour

 Oh TOFU, I feel so badly that I misplaced your mail art and it has been languishing (incidentally) unloved for these months, especially when it is a subject so close to my heart!  I have been making journals in schools with children this week and one of their topics was all about me. I always try and respond with a journal to their topic in some 'meaningful and honest way' before I go in, to get thinking like them.  One of my mini-books was about colours I love. They would have loved your paint chips!

As I look up at your 70s colour recall, I get it, but I would certainly need an orangey brown leather sofa colour with some acrylic paint that I accidently painted on it.  I have blocked what the paint colour was, but I can see the colour of leather.  It is chilling! I'll bet my mother knows.

In the 90s we lived in Rome and I did all that sponging of walls.  It really was a 90s thing. The first thing I'm doing when I finish this post is to photocopy lots of your color recall sheets.  I am gonna love doing this!  Thank you.

Clogs Hay and High Altitude wonder from Herman!

Herman sent me images of this mailing a few weeks ago, lamenting that I had never received it. In a scan he sent it was wonderful, but it was not nearly as gorgeous as it is to hold in my hand. The inside envelope (above) is absolutely glorious! Thank you, thank you. I love the romantic highly charged images juxtaposed with his patterned subtle collage.

When we thought the letter was lost, I tried to chivy Herman up, saying that I have had things take months, for no reason and that it would come.  As I typed those words, I had a nagging feeling that something from Herman was missing. 

OK OK, I know I keep saying it and that I will sort it out tomorrow, but my life really is rather out of control, so it's hardly surprising that I stashed some mail art: TOFU and Mehrl Bennet (OOOPS) in my computer case and somewhere along the way forgot about it. I reckon it arrived on the day I left for Maine and my thinking was I'll have time there.  But I set myself some insane drawing challenge in Maine and I wanted to see people, swim, natter and in the end I failed and I forgot. 

Then I got back and have been juggling the usual as well as going to London for the NEAC scholarship. But that is still no excuse and it suggests that I don't value the mail I receive. I promise, I do! …I found Herman's mail )and the other two pieces) while turning the studio upside down preparing for a workshop in a school.

I love the way Herman can delight me with his imagery and send me straight to Wikipedia to discover an iconic figure I should know. Alberghetti was a child prodigy who won a Tony and appeared on Life Magazine twice. I am the woman who stands on a train next to someone every else recognises and is twittering about and doesn't notice and hasn't got a clue. 

Alberghetti was from Pesaro.  I went to Pesaro when I first visited Europe in the mid 80s.  I stayed in a fancy hotel for a song,in a maid's room, eating proper meals in the dining room and swimming on the demarcated beach.  It was other-worldly. I was alone. I had my only uncomfortable hitch-hiking advance in Pesaro too.

Herman, I did enjoy my summer but it went by in a rush. It was cold and dark this morning when I took Lyra (the lurcher) for her morning walk before driving half way across Suffolk to make journals with kids in a school.

Hair we go, comments of culture from Sticker Dude

This card is about the size of a board game card - they are wonderfully robust. It gets me thinking about the sort of game Joel could concoct to teach us something about how culture is heading in a direction, well, a direction.

Carrying on the idea of a game, Joel's fake monoploy money has some wonderful additions that get me thinking. Who needs a 100 dollar bill - a pile of dosh? Is Joel saying that we are all sheep buying into this capitalist trap? Wealth built on international money? 

 Hair we go!

 It's time to play musical statues, dodge the nuke, maybe, well hopefully not.

And lucky me, I can add and pass this couch potato stuck in tv land on to the next mail artist, probably too busy licking stamps to slump on the sofa.  Thanks as ever Joel.

Slow marching postcard collector

One of our Singapore friends gave me three of Nick Bantock's postcard books in the 90s. They are treasures that students love to see when I take them into schools, so many thanks for this vintage postcard with lots of stamps and the compelling name and address on the back.YOu are copied into my ledger and i look forward to exchanging with you soon. I'm not sure who you are or how you found me… but that's OK!

Priority: Tiina is the hare…

 …and I am the snail.

Big thanks for this dream of a mail art dreaming original art postcard.  It makes me smile and reminds me that I must make some mail art SOON.  I'm not stressed but I am SO SLOW.  Huge thanks.

Return of the Vivian Girls and Men in shades

Wow they make big families in Albuquerque! Poor Mrs Vivian. I'll bet Mr Vivian couldn't wait to get out of the house in the morning…As I recall, the Vivian Girls, all fourteen of them, were famous in the seventies for their disco number on American Top Forty, Something about the Hair.  Of course the 80s followed and their alopecia and subsequent struggle to make that elusive comeback.

The world of Rock and roll was tough, ask the guys with the glasses.  Personally I prefer the round specs. As ever a treat to receive your wonderful mail art, DS! Hopefully something will get made in the near future in reply.

And I'm going to book my tickets for this unique double bill: Return of the Vivian Girls and Men in shades

Summer 2017- Tiina from Finland

Receiving mail art lets my brain think sideways.  For example, I wonder… In Finland does summer mean fresh fruit on some kind of cakey custard pie.  Could it be  variation on the : 

Mustikkapiirakka – Finnish Blueberry Pie, 

(apparently one of the ten best Finnish deserts).  Do they grow blueberries in Finland? The reason I think Tiina is teaching me something about Finland is the flipside of her post.  She has a Telkkä and it says Summer 2017. Did Tina see a goldeneye?  Did she sketch on the spot? Are they common in Finland?  Does Tiina love birds?

The answers don't really matter.  As I hold her mail art and look at it, I am communing across continents, slowing down and enjoying her mail art., understanding her beautiful world a little bit.

Red letter day with Ed and Joel

Although I have chosen a rhyming title for this post, and I am pleased to receive mail art from Ed and Joel, this mail art packs a punch and is definately of the protest variety.  

Ed nudges me in a protesting way with the word collaboration boldly across the back of the envelope, inviting me, I think, to add to the red mail art. Could this also be a plea to our 'leaders' to avoid embroiling us in hot-headed misery of conflict? 

The stamp, 'rage begets rage' is the face of a sociopath, manic and grinning, let's hope we can dampen the rage and avoid an insane world afterthought… 

Thanks guys for carrying the protest torch. I will try to add to it.