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 

 

Essence vs substance

In early summer I signed up to take part in Amalgamated confusion's Exquisite Corpse project. These things take a long time and these two pieces above and below were Keith's stop-gap mailings before he gathered everyone's pages and put the whole beautiful thing together.  I hope to blog THAT in a few days. It arrived a few weeks ago and I was agog!

On a completely different topic, while running this morning, I figured out that mail art is what I do when I have time.  It's my pleasure, not that work: painting, isn't, or that I don't love to garden and even cook but I can rationalise all that as 'work'.  Mail art if my frivolity, although it isn't. It is playful but play is essential. I was thinking about that because I was trying to figure out why I never have time for it and Patrick has time to rebuild a car.  I couldn't answer that, but I realise I need to make time again for this pleasure.

Many thanks for all this beautiful stuff to whet my imagination and to help me play! and who knew there is a mail art day? Everyday should be mail art day!  Beautiful work, as ever.

 

Climate Dots

There are two reasons that this mail art from The Artist in Seine says COP 26 to me: 

• a cuff-linked arm with some sort of name badge… 
• and what I am going to call climate dots. 

Perhaps the climate dots indicate the uplift from one of the duelling millionaire astronauts.  It is an atmospheric piece with the feeling of night and the feeling of the night sky.

Thanks! I love it.
 

American Values: Kabul Moment

Cascadia credits AFP/Getty with this image. IMHO It's important to see images taken of America outside of America to understand the context of what has happened, how we are viewed and what values we reflect to the wider world. Patrick read me something he read on Facebook this morning. Before I attend to a post, I always want to know the context, to go beyond the headline.  Once I had done that I was able to place what seemed offensive into a context I could evaluate. I'm reading a book by Ben Rhodes about what it is to be American out of America.  As I learned when I stepped off the plane into Kenya as a Peace Corps Volunteer, it is nuanced and complicated. Thank you Cascadia for more thinking and for the unpleasant reminder of how we sometimes get things wrong. What a mess.

Trump's Coup and Covid Cuture - envelope Arte from Crackerjack Kid

Following on from Cascadia Artpost's Biden Our Time, Crackerjack Kid, sent me an exquisite envelope and some beautiful stamps (that got a little stuck in the envelope … from water?). The stamps on the envelope are difficult to see amidst teh envelope arte, which makes the whole package seem even more exotic.  I wonder if he had the envelope handstamped? anyway, very lovely and I am delighted to have it for my archives.

This is the cover of a 47 page spiral bound booklet - an annotated bibliography of nearly 400 mail art articles covering the era 1980-2000.  Offered for $18 including postage. 

 

The full summer newsletter: Biden Our Time

So much in this, I don't know where to start.  My suggestion is to begin at the beginning and try not to cry. From "Post-Democracy"through the "Gilded-Age" it's a diorama to remember and inequality to grapple with. Wow, Cascadia, and I thought my stamps of the Post-Truth Senators took a long time and was a statement. Thank you for the nuance and the education, as well as the staggering imagery and the crafted diorama. I am a little relieved that I didn't get a second set of stamps. I am not sure I would be happy to laster my envelopes with these gilded individuals. But thank you!

 

Dada Trumph postcard - Biden Our time

 

This is a very late blog about a piece of mail art I received from Cascadia Artpost!  Biden our time is a great tag line!  I LOVE IT!  Stay tuned for the 30 American Oligarchs!

Jeez, I am so behind. I didn't take the mailart I received in August (and hadn't yet blogged) to Maine.  I knew I wanted to savour every moment of my time there after missing a year because of Covid… the thing is I had so many catch-up jobs to do when I got back that Ihaven't been able to get on top of my blogging.  Let's not even talk about making mail art.

Thanks Cascadia! More blogging soon.