A new series in the making

I took on a local mail art initiative.  Actually, it was my idea and someone followed up on it and I said yes.  That's my current excuse for why you aren't getting any mail art from me and why I am a bit slow blogging.  But to be fair,  I was sick for weeks and I've had lots of art things making demands on my mail art time! I have been sending mail art back to the people who send me stuff for the local thing - Suffolk Open Studios Mail art: http://suffolkopenstudiosmailart.blogspot.co.uk.  

The idea is that if we hang local artists mail art in a good central location we can attract people to visit their studios from further afield. It's been a little hard for people to get the idea.  So I feel I need to send stuff in a timely manner back to them so they get the concept that it's a trade and have a positive mail art experience. In other words, those of you who I should have sent stuff to have been bumped down the list to make way for this other stuff!

I have about 15 more to send to… so this afternoon I decided to make some things that interest me using some photos I chopped up a few years ago that I found in a box of stuff I bought at the car boot sale. I did a few postcards when I chopped them up in the first place and I loved the results and because I've been using lots of fused plastic, and think about Diebenkorn when I make those (often) I figured, what better way to spend a Friday afternoon!

Now it's time to go back to the house to do chores.  I promise to blog the four enticing pieces I have had in my crab shell letter holder for a few days, or more, (FROM YOU)  tonight.  and if there's time I will make some more of these.  I will save the best ones for you guys.

2014//reb.guy.enc.//number//CS02222348 - AND I'M ENCARTED!

Every so often something comes along that really surprises me and this gift from Aristide 3108 is one of those things. I am being celebrated, encarted, and this feels odd to me... I see myself as the celebrator, not so much the celebrated! 

So this is how it went with me.  I got my first ENCARTED from Aristide  a few years ago.  I wasn't really sure what it meant but the cards, like  pieces of a puzzle, distinct, exact and considered spoke to me. With each card I became more confident that ENCARTED referred to the cards, but I didn't have enough context to really understand.  I could only respond to them on one level, on the way they made me feel, the way the text and images combined in a satisfying way. 'Send me your best mail art' proved a compelling strapline, too. 

Back on IUOMA we all talked about whether it needed to be your best mail art. My friends and family wondered why I was sending things I worked on for hours sometimes to strangers in the post, so obsessively. It might never get there.  They might not appreciate it.  You could sell it. It's not something you can explain, this NEED to send things through the post. And of course, people who I send things to become my correspondents and some become my muses or my collaborators and for people who don't send mail art that is just a step too far. For me, it feeds me.

But even then most of the time you never really know if your correspondents, your muses, your collaborators are in sync with you.  You suspect some of them are, but it's a fleeting feeling.

Aristide 3108, my French friend, thank you for the honour and I will treasure my beautiful ENCARTED and try not to blush at the thought of your network hearing my praises!

Simon Warren is making a version of the trash quilt!

Simon has sent me A4 card instalments for quite some time now.  These are punctuated by responses (white envelopes with letters inside) to the occasional replies I send.  I mean to respond more often but unlike Simon I need days to reply.

Interpretation of mail art is a curious thing because unless the dialogue goes back and forth and gets refined, the recipient 'owns' the interpretation.  Strange to think that my meaning might be nothing like Simon's meaning and my response may be irrelevant to the initial response. So when I say Simon is making his own take on the TRASH QUILT, I may be barking up the wrong tree entirely. Still.

Simon has a way of inspiring new work from me and no. 106 (top) was the catalyst for a fusepo response (fused plastic trash quilt) that seemed to arrive from somewhere else.

In the end I did not send Simon the original as not ready to part with it, but the version I sent him is differently inspiring (to me). 

Later that day, I visited facebook to upload some work by other mail artists to the IUOMA site and was delighted to see that Simon had inspired another artist /mail artist / poet, Theresa Williams. I read on her facebook page that:

The poem "torch" has just been nominated for BEST OF THE NET.http://districtlit.com/post/39243739047/poems-by-theresa-williamshttp://districtlit.com/post/39243739047/poems-by-theresa-williams

Read it, it is wonderful!

While I was making my piece in response to Simon, I wondered about why certain people help us to find what we want to say. 

Simon sends SIX ink dances

These beautiful SIX arrived today! They are the usual size but I have photographed them, and added a border to print off a postcard-sized Simon compilation.  

I see figures and asemics - shadowy figures in pools of ink, fingerprinted heads hazy presence and some sort of chaotic dance.

I'm sending this Fusepo back to Simon in response.

Wonderful as only home: Guyver/Warren collab going out

Tomorrow I will post Simon this print-out of his pages 1-23 and some collage images inspired by his words. I haven't asked Simon and I have used my 'automatic collage' aproach, so these are quick responses, guided mostly by colour and composition while I juggle his words and a few images I made and looked for opportunities to interject - hand-coloured images of trains. These are collaged memories.
To view the whole collab as a PDF visit: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3g5q7Qjx55QaXZrbFBoMnpHekU/edit?usp=sharing

Mail art desk 1986-88

Found this.  No electricity, no running water, but a filing system made of paper-mâche cereal boxes and a habit of making mail art daily.