The Adventures of the Family Next Door

I love that David has called his carefully cut and culled material GRIST.  Adorable and perfect!
I love it all but have only scanned some of it.  Those stamps are gorgeous.  How did I miss those? Clearly mail coming soon so I can use them!

This is a bit of a hotchpotch the way I have scanned it… Never mind. Below is the back of the envelope. DAvid doesn't even know that we have had rain rain rain and today there was a drip drip drip drip and I wondered whether the thatch was leaking.  EVentually i saw that it was coming from the chimney. More pointing needed? I hope not! to date we haven't needed to drape a tarp over the thatch but could David be foretelling?

And what I like of all below is EVERYTHING.  And that we, the people, are a peculiar bunch with strange taste and obsessions. Not sure I choose A.

Thanks David!

Music For Imaginary Products

Jude has invented the perfect place to get away from it all… He calls his score Music for Imaginary Products Hurrican Home... and this is the theme tune for the turmoil of today, both real and metaphorical, (I think).  He begins with a gladiator and ends with a nod to the big bad wolf huffing and puffing.  those pointing fingers make me think of a particular figure in the news now too. and we are just bobbing buoys.  I know I feel that way.

Brilliant mailing, Jude.  Thank you!

The Prison of our Situations

 Now, I suspect that Cascadia is projecting about our orange haired unindicted co-conspirator with this mailing of a Cell Search worksheet  WHERE DID HE GET THAT and why is it pink?  but the way my brain works when I see 'excessive books and magazines' is that I start to wonder if Cascadia knows more about me than I think he does...I get a little squeamish.  My throat constricts and I feel trapped (by my excessive collections of stuff). I tell myself that I need all this stuff to rifle though as I find my next motif, idea, direction… and even though I have the most wonderful, beautiful studio on earth, sometimes when I walk through the incessant English rain, unlock the door see the piles of things that are starts of ideas or not-yet ideas I feel like I live in my own kind of prison.  Not really, but a little bit, once in a while!

Chi li ha visti?

 Pleased to have greetings from Giovanni and Renata StraDA DA in Matera! Not entirely sure who Michael Palin is traveling to Bethlehem with… but they make a great family. 

MANY THANKS!

Telepathic Empathic Mail Art

It's really great to get mail art from Debra and to find out that she is a fan of my fused plastic collages! and what's even better is she enough of a fan to send me some wonderful stuff in a her bespoke 'far out' envelope. 

The first thing is an envelope boekie, made by Dan Buck and embellished by Debra. The last time someone sent me a collaborative book that I wasn't expected to add to and send back was Guido. So it's a special thing. Although maybe the empty page is for me to add to and send back to Ed? I tend to archive everything, meaning to send on add and pass things and somehow too much time passes and then they go up to my archive. But if I should continue this, just say.

And as for Debra's 'sign'.  I love that Debra saw my name and thought of me! 

I have been working on some fused plastic on and off for a few weeks.  I am hanging a lot of my plastic and books at a show in Colchester in August. Everything (well a lot of my fused plastic) always (… or even sometimes) begins as mail art and then I realise it's something that I am working through so can't send it out YET. That's what's happening now. You can see what I'm taking about just below the back of Debra's envelope. After  made Looming Lights, a book I took apart and then reassembled so i coul sew plastic into it, I deconstructed a dictionary with the intention of mailing out all the pages.  I worked in a flurry of activity and then couldn't send them…YET. That doesn't mean Debra won't get her fused plastic. It just means it might take a little while.

Huge thanks Debra! Love it all.