backlog blog

 I am posting this image so those of you who sent me mail will know I have received it and am waiting to open it, to spend some quality time with it and hopefully be inspired to reply fulsomely! The thing is, my mum is visiting from America from Saturday and I have some work to do to get this place ship-shape before she arrives so even though I WANT to open your mailart I am holding off until I can do it justice.  My mum hasn't been to England in two Covid years.

Stay tuned.  Once she arrives I should have some more time. AND thank you. Cascadia Artpost, David Stafford, Mailart Martha, Amalgamated Confusion, Mikel Untzilla, Herman Kamphuis, Sticker Dude, Tofu, (I'm wearing a mask) and The Sticker Dude!

Always Fresh

I realised as I was scanning this stuff from Joel that I don't know about his practice… what I mean is I don't know if he sends lots of similar mailings in a whoosh or if every package of mail art is bespoke.  /What I really mean is did Joel make the same envelope for a series of mail art mailings or did he just make one of the envelopes I received? I am in love with this envelope! It's everyting about it. And the Grantwood motif is exquisite.

This mail art mailing arrived some time ago… I must get back to recording incoming dates. but, I am not a perfectionist.  I am not exact.  I am intuitive and rules, well rules. So very little interest in rules, but whenever this arrived, the fact that I opened it today was timely. I have been totally out-of-commission for weeks due to a local art exhibition I ran/hung with a community of artists. I made many paintings over lockdown.  I didn't make so much mail art.  I was experimenting with myself instead of exchanging with others. That's OK, but the writing included in this mailing expresses, exactly, how I feel about mail art and why it is valid, important and I will always participate in some fashion.

And this brilliant, Ray johnson collage decoder will be invaluable. Thank you for a perfect mailing, Joel. It had everything I needed today and I am inspired.
 

Another little known fact about snails

Back in my heyday at IUOMA I was writing to Martha a lot more often than these days.  Receiving her mail art makes realise what I've been missing! Martha's mail art spans media, is interested in different things, is quirky and original and I am delighted to have some of it in my collection.  

I love the vision of Martha exiling the snail to the outskirts of her garden and carrying out a test too.  When we lived in Singapore we had turtles. When we left we didn't know what to do with the turtles so we did what we later found out many people in Singapore do, we took them to the Botanic Gardens and released them in the pond/lake.  Like Martha we painted a nailpolish dot on each of their backs.  Hudson and Figgy were young and we waved goodbye to Sam and Sarah, but, unlike Martha, we never saw their dotty backs again.

Happy Nocember, Martha.  You should hear back from me in these months! And thank you for the mail art!

 

Families and Rainwater

                                         

At about this time of year, as the temperature drops and the leaves fall from the tree. The people don their camouflage and it's creepy to walk the field edge at dusk or dawn in case you meet someone with a gun.  

Personally, I like a fleece and a deep bright blue gets my choice. It's a quandry, though.  I wash them often because I am messy and I worry that they leave their plastic fingerprints behind and what of our environment? And as for Scentlock is, it sounds like a guerilla odour.

This is the second of envelopes that  arrived from David lately. I am not an engineer and even if I were I doubt I'd be as smiley as the woman in the jump suit. Yesterday I had to help guide a bit of the landrover body over the gear shift and I was scowling. Our car rebuild is a family affair and I love David's family frolicking. 

I can't really believe that 1. David forgot his mask 2, that puddle-stain drawing was organic but who cares!  It's all brilliant.

 Thanks David.  II adore mailart from you!

Exquisite Corpse cut-up!

Months ago I signed up to take part in Keith Chamber's Exquisite Corpse Cut-up.  As with many of the mail art projects I have contributed to, I was a little foggy about exactly what that meant. As it turned out, Keith came up with a nifty schedule and process for each participant's contribution.  We were responding to each other, virtually.

Keith enclosed a note where one thing he said was that he was happy with the end product.  I mean, what Keith did here, taking all these disparate parts and curating them into a complete whole is astounding! And the product is AMAZING! DON'T YOU LOVE IT.

I am chuffed to have the centre-spread. Thank you thank you, Keith.  Now, the rest of you, READ,  look and enjoy. Sorry it's taken me so long to reproduce it.

I think these stamps were also in the mailing… I opened some of my 'pending' mailart and can't remember how it all went together.  More gorgeousness.

 

Folkestone Harbour

As I look at the original of this piece, it's dusky outdoors and I listen to birds. We aren't that near the coast here but with arable land all around we have plenty of birds and the studio is sandwiched between four sets of chickens. Beautiful mailing, Kevin, and I love the banana.

Thank you!

Rebecca