Medicine against War

This mailing from Herman has the push and pull of life in every pen mark and pixel. I see the infinite beauty of man and woman of them and they in the midst of the trappings of this world we share with each other. I want to run my fingers over the skin of this statue. The person it represents is long gone but in art he is immortal.

'Library After Air Raid', is so sad and so prescient. Herman made the envelope as the troops amassed at the border.  No one knew for sure what would happen next but, sadly, history repeats itself and there is nothing but beauty to take our minds away from the mirthlessness of the moment. It's hard not to read the image as anything other than a performance piece. Surely no people could do this in any world that isn't make believe. And yet. 

Luckily Herman pointed me in the direction of who this lothario was: Benajmino Gigli was a man of contradictions. An adored opera singer and yet he was aligned with Mussolini. He raised money for othersand yet was also a reknowned womaniser.  

I could win the look-like-your-pet contest. Lyra and I have wiry grey hair and love to run around the fields. Our expressions are similar sometimes.  The space between us is paper-thin. Man and animal, man and nature, ashes to ashes. Why can't we all just cohabitate, giving gifts, loving each other, satyr or not.

After all, don't we all want to be loved, admired, part of someone else's bigger picture?  But what of this power that some crave? Like the Gorgon, power to turn others to stone?  Power to raze a city to pieces of stone and wood?  

Herman and I are in  our studios gluing things,  painting others, using the salve of art to block out some of the tragedy of the moment. We are also in our gardens, caring for things, gathering leaves and weeds, recycling them, feeling joy at nature.

Herman brings the rich tapestry of life into one envelope inside another, inside another. He marries the joy of creation with a fascination for other.  His drawings embody emotion and that helps us to see the other side. Herman is empathic and makes me more so. In this mailing Herman also included some photos. The captions are what Herman wrote on the other side.  In 2007 I certainly would have turned to admire Herman if I had seen him!

Before my transformation (when I was young) 2007

when I was young, 2007

when I was young (after my transformation)  2007

Herman 2007

and theatrically, while we have the chance, we should live, dance, make aretplay statues and above all find our empathy.

 

Sinclair Scripa's Culture of Flux

I am not familiar with Sinclair Scripa's process but the haptic quality is what hit me first. You want to feel this mail art. But then again, it is so graphic. It's curious and strong - so individual. I don't know what Sinclair Scrippa or Tara Verheide looks like but I can imagine a magical workspace.  It would have to be to produce this kind of work!

I love the way the marks are made, the variety of papers, the way some pieces feel scrappy and others feel loved and laboured.  The hand colouring takes me back to the 80s but there is nothing tired about this work. 

I am in love with the minature figures… they evoke the Mary Shelley in me and make me want to get my surf board out to dance and contort on the waves.

PS there is a hologram in the sky on the first stamp with a face. HOW was that done?

and then there is the textual stuff that demonstrates Sinclair Scripa's ease working across disciplines.

Yum yum.  Thank you.  I'm inspired!

 

Tigers, the Explorer and an Extractor Fan

If you were Ponce de Leon where would you look for the fountain of youth?  Perhaps David thinks the moon holds the secret to eternal life or maybe that's a syrup of agar, waiting to produce the next variant? Beware, and eat your fruit and vegetables.  

As I write I have a cold. I know where I got it. Our son, who is a doctor, gave it to me. My husband got it at exactly the same time and our son visited some days before and was sneezing. It's a beast of a cold. 

The Tiger is known as the king of all beasts in China. The zodiac sign Tiger is a symbol of strength, exorcising evils, and braveness. Do tigers get Covid (or the common cold)? Something else tigers are known for is the fear they inspire in us. 'Tiger, Tiger burning bright…' Don't forget to set the timer when you are making pancakes or porridge. Fires are scary, hot and orange.   

Thank you Patti for your fearsome tiger and David for your inspiring shenanighans. May the Year of Tiger be a good one.

 

Stormy Season

The lines on this postcard are chilling and prescient. I will repeat them.

                'when the storm comes     

                all history rolls up in a ball 

                all tomorrow was never heard of 

                and the now impossibility grins'

            

             - from Alan Harris, Storm (2000)

Nature, a man's nature, the nature of the situation all seem to have coalesced at this moment in time.

I doubt Cascadia was in predictive mode. We are in a stormy season.

Thanks for the provocative card and the beautiful indigo imagery.

 

United Eternal Network

There is joy, honesty, facts, aesthetics and collaboration in a Sticker Dude mailing. Mail art is, after all, an exchange. Sometimes Sticker Dude sends me work for the archives and I am always so grateful. He culls work that tells a story, or that enhances his story and I feel as if I am getting the cream at the top of the bottle of milk in Mail art. Look at the stamps on the envelope. Beauty, chemistry, a polymath, commentary 'out of bounds' and stickers produced by Joel but conceived by others.  In this mailing: William Mellott, Sebela Bana and Adam Roussopoulos. What more could you want?

William Mellott/art direction Sticker Dude

Sebela Bana /art direction Sticker Dude and Adam Roussopoulos

Design William Mellott and Sticker Dude

Sticker Dude & Adam Roussopoulos

This is actually hot pink.

True story from Carol Stetser 1991

Images documenting Carol's relationship to the mail art network.

Save Mailart, Save the World

Thanks Joel, if this doesn't get me making mail art, nothing will!

 

FeMail stamps

Delicious stamps from Diana Hale arrived recently.  Great to be part of the FeMail mail art movement. I will print out a set and save these perforated beauties for the archives!

Are you Kind?

One of the things I regret, regularly, is how I don't answer emails, or post swiftly.  When I was in the Kerio Valley, hanging at the post office waiting for news from abroad, I had already composed a version of my reply as I walked home from the PO. Then in the evenings, after I marked students' work, I would paint the envelopes and put the words int he right order on paper. These days I respond in my head but it takes days, weeks, sometimes even months to reply and by then the chimera of news has shifted and my 'reply' seems irrelevant. Life is just faster.

I'm not sure when Sticker Dude sent me this, but the inclusion of Guernica makes me think it was a recent mailing. My pile of mailart is topsy turvy and out of order. and LATE to respond to.

And yet, although the past two + years have been a miserable chapter, as I read the comments from the Idaho doctor, I couldn't help thinking how our gratitude for the NHS, and Doctors worldwide is but a memory in the news of hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding through the European borders and being homed by mere citizens, responding to the humanitarian crisis.  We are doing THIS together. We have done that together.

Meanwhile, I am a somewhat lapsed mailartist, meaning to send things out but running out of time before the sun sets.  While I agree wholehearedly with Joel, that mail art is a way of looking at art and life from a different perspective and sharing art for art's sake, I can't help painting for paintings sake and that distracts from the Utopian aspect.

 Thanks Joel, so much to think about, respond to and talk to myself about.  Hopefully I will respond to you soon!