COLLAGE OF LIFE with pressed flowers

If you have followed my mail art blog for a while, you will understand that Herman's mail art envelopes are Russian dolls. Each layer stands alone but together they are more than their singular selves. At the end of this blog you will find the external envelope that held the treasure.  The two pieces above are actualy a folder in which other beauties are contained.  This folder was sewn shut with thread and adorned with dried flowers. It is as though I opened a chest of a beloved's and found things they had kept safe and near their heart for a long time. The faces are worn with pathos, perhaps tired at the end of a long year, not yet ready to take on the New Year… or perhaps loved to death?

beau

These two (above) are the inside of the folder.  Herman has stamped his name in the fold.  If I had thought about that I should have scanned it as an opened page… Everything about this feels dated, authentic and composed with love, right down to Herman's stamp and the name, Hermanka etched into the plinth. I feel as if I am stepping back into time.  The sense of design belongs to an era and Herman's beautiful choice of paper makes the feel even more so.

Herman is a mail artist and an artist.  As happens when you correspond with someone for years, we share things about our non-mailart lives. I would like to see Herman's room and the waiting room!  Sigh, I will have to settle for images.

Herman is a correspondent and nothing he writes on is ho hum.  As a bonus, Herman adds another collage of a woman in the throes of movement which I read as sheer joy. This woman takes boundless energy into the new year!

I love everything about Herman's mailing. Happy New Year Herman!  And thank you!
 

vergangenen tagen - bygone days

It's so interesting when a photo or a smell evoke something from childhood.  The word Leica has a history for me and this image of the child in the straw hat makes me think of the coppertone suntan lotion ad. It's the yellow, I think.

Herman is a master at evoking the past and that malachite green on the left of the collage is 'Herman green' in my mind. It always feels like I am coming home when I get mail art from Herman!

                                                     

One of the things I equate with the olden days is cinched waist skirts.  I wanted on,e but instead of an hourglass figure, I was shaped like a boy and drawing attention to the bit that didn't do what a woman's body was supposed to do would have been silly. I  learned to sew ad sewed some things that looked goodon the pattern but on me fell flat...

It is cherry season in the UK. In fact I baked a cherry pie this weekend. Now they evoke Ukraine for me, though. This is the sleeve in which all that follows is nested.

This ledger page is folded like a book. 

We went to Normandy for our son's 30th BD so this is not only exciting for the beautiful drawings exploring the dysmorphia some of us feel and doodle about but also becaue of the handwritings, the collged images and the FRENCH. The date is also fascinating.

And Herman's fabulous notebook drawings and photos from the past make this a VERY beautiful and generous mailing. Bygone days celebrated! Thank you!

 

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.

 

Treasure and memories from New York and the Netherlands

When I have many competing demands  (in the nicest possible way) I channel my Peace Corps me and don't engage with the things that aren't in the here and now or that aren't the priority.  So, in December it's things like filling up the flour from the big bags I keep upstairs; it's making pumpkin soup for everyone at lunch; it's writing the 100+ cards I love to write, annually to feel connected to my friends from around the world. Mailart takes a backseat.  That isn't to say I feel good about letting the beautiful envelopes pile up, but thankfully my correspondents know that eventually I will look with care and attention at their offerings, and even, eventually, respond.  

Herman was compassionate about my seasonal plight  and I thank him.  I have wanted to open this russian doll of mailart for weeks.

I say 'Russian Doll' because Herman has multiple envelopes inside of envelopes in this mailing. The first envelope is the white one with the drawings of human heads juxtaposed with bodies of insects.  The stamps echo the envelope and add the winter red of Europe to the palette. 

Inside is the 'Fuller street balloon man', brightening up everyone's socially distanced Covid walks. Herman's marbled paper ties in with the scene. On the flip side are the two scary looking birds, talking to each other, ready to rip the skin from a rodent's frame.

the next envelope is a window onto the postman of the Great Lakes. Are those cubby-holes for post restante or are residents coming soon to collect their mail? The drama of the scene is enhanced, again, by Herman's marbeling.

While the bridges all over America crumble, people wave from the fences.  Welcome!

Also by a fence is this handsome couple taking in the NYC sights. Hello Herman's parents circa 1975! Can you spot the Twin Towers behind?

And finally, more treasures!  Inside ad outside herman's studio.  The last image is a fragment of a collar, perhaps left over from a visit to Markam?

Thank you Herman, beautiful as ever!