Celebration of the note pad, among other things...

I thought I'd celebrate the exceptional news that Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature with some mail art from Joel Cohen, AKA sticker dude, but also apparently nimble note pad maker! To begin with, I found a beautifully stickered and stamped envelope front mostly on the travel theme.  But don't miss the THE EVOLUTION OF ART sticker - a collab between Joel and Vittore Baroni.  On the back we have a DYLAN quote, and some social commentary, all aesthetically placed for maximum impact!

Below is a letter from Joel explaining athe provenance of the selection of note pad pages he incuded in my mailing!

I purposefully scanned a few of the backs so you could see that many of the illustrations are by Thomas Kerr. These are great! There is lots of fun wisdom, some stunning art and more revelations about Joel.  I love the fact that his desk is heaving under the weight of his collections of stuff.  The big propensity page is on metalic grey pearly paper! My life is one big propensity, so that one really grabs me. The dead page has a dead stamp on the back.  There's so much thought and sharing in everything Joel does! Many, many thanks and I mailed in my absentee ballot.  I must get the additional Trump stickers out to delight the postman and my mail art buddies.

Issue 93 - in four parts - (it's all in the data) Jude Weirmeir

They say the arts and science are related and can result in collaborative masterpieces. Musical mathematicians, Painterly Pediatric Surgeons… Jude is systematizing his life in four parts and I suspect he sees this as a musical score that he can play or sing. I can even imagine some of the sounds the words in this first part serialize your life! I think the sound 'WAKE UP' would have a different timbre to 'WORK', for example. The fact that each box is the same size and the type is uniform (not bold, or narrow) does not mean the length or the volume would be similar. There are some mysteries... Not sure what noisrevni edargorter is!

In this one Jude is more specific.  Before I turned over and read the instructions, I had a vague idea what Jude might intend.  Jude's subscription Opus' are demystifying composing for me.  My musical development feels similar to when I realised that I 'owned' the reading of a poem when I read it. I think Jude writes music the way I do a drawing.  These are curious exercises that capture imagination, and may be worked up into something bigger.  and sometimes, these little gems stand on their own.  The spiral matrix feels a bit like when I get lost in my drawing and momentarily don't believe I know how to escape, or complete.

Look around and everything you see reveals itself to you in the context of your imagination and ideas.  Jude's beans, with their unique complexions and shape have a variety that is exciting. How can we use them to make our 'music' or our art.  Pehrpas move them around, squich them, roll them in your hands, sort them, click them, print with them...

And this one makes me feel the way the crossword does on some mornings.  Or like the stuff I write on the whiteboard for the ESOL speakers whose first language is arabic must feel to them. There's some kind of puzzle but it will take effort and if I give in and give up, I'm not as smart as I feel sometimes and if I spend all evening working it out I'm not sure that's the best use of my time.  I suspect this is music of a busy, crowded city full of bright young things.

Stardom and the Milky Way - Herman Kamphuis

Herman is long overdue a reply, but that hasn't stopped him sending me this packed envelope and another I haven't opened yet! He seems to have been paying attention as the envelope nods to my recent trip to Maine.  We did drive back down to Boston, but not in anything as stylish as Herman's car… and the ferry to Cranberry (while friendly and local) is not a Cunard.

 I've named this mailing 'Stardom and the Milky Way' because the first relationship I saw in the two parallel images was that the one on the left is dressed to go to the stars (well into space, anyway) and the one on the right is surely an actor, sat at his dressing table, readying himself to go onstage. Of course he is on his way to being a star. Herman's beguiling marbeled background is the Milky Way to me.

 

 Meanwhile, Herman and Vizma are focused on hands! see Vizma's collab here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1768507573404309&set=a.1429917203930016.1073741838.100007352500564&type=3&theater&notif_t=like&notif_id=1475996047863291
I love the way Herman expertly guides my eye from green to green and then hand to hand and stamp to stamp and onto radio grid. The sculpture and then the negative space around the radio and hand come next.  It a dance of objects and colour.

Next year I am fashioning the real thing of this vegetable hat. Ascot here I come! The way Herman, draws, assembles, collages and inks is sheer brilliance.

Below is a wonderful assortment of hand cut papers, ready for use in a return piece. I promise to reply, but suspect I won't want to cut, over even use a part of any of these treasures! Huge thanks as always.

Our Trash edition of the DKuLT Fan Club (Vol IIIVIIV) - BG

Apologies for such late posting of this DKULT fan mail, which arrived in good time for the Karnival of Trash. Interestingly, the colours on Pgs, 2 and 3 are clearly looking forward to halloween, Christmas and Valentines day, so no problem there! As ever, it's a pleasure to look back on the recent past, to be connected to all the trashpoets in our lives and to share our communal appreciation of DKULT's trash output in BG's whimsical way. 

The puzzle of American Agast - Sticker Dude

Joel has packed this mailing with politics, life lessons, connundrums and as ever, beautiful stamps and stickers!  The bonus is that opened this letter today, on International Poetry Day to find a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver. It's funny, I have two unsaved files on my computer of other Mary Oliver poems that I copied today to share with students.  As ever, we seem to be thinking about the same sorts of things from across the Atlantic.

I heard a UK newscaster say that Trump is losing momentum.  Still I think it's best for us to remain aghast/ against this angry buffoon and as ever, Thomas Kerr has captured the spirit of our mortification that this man is in the race. Three oversees votes coming at you for the state of Maine from this family!

 Great to see this sticker in collaboration with my mail art friend, Amy Irwin!

I've worked it out.  Can you?

a-maze of music Jude Wiermeir Issue 72

A few years ago I was part of a charity that worked with young people and teachers to reflect on and engage with growing and art. One of my wonderful colleagues was a green-fingered permaculture specialist who knew a lot about mazes.  We discovered a school in the Midlands that has its own labyrinth that they use to 'graduate' the students, and went to visit it.  Mazes and labyrinths are thinking spaces for me.  One of our collaborations was with the Royal Institution and we played pots of plants which we arranged on a stave.  'We' was not me.  I just helped to encourage the others to do these things. We had the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the collaboration and they read the pot music and played energetic pieces in response. An environment can be the catlyst for exciting music!

I suspect Jude's Maze Music is equally revealing. I wonder if he imagines carrying an instrument or simply singing as we walk. Would everyone have the same tune to sing or would there be rounds, or squares?  I am also curious whether the sound would change as you went around a corner.  I guess Jude's view is looking down on the notes.  For diminuendo would you bend low and stand tall to make a louder sound? I wonder about the colour too. Is this a comment on musical colour?  So provocative!  Thank you.

On returning from Maine

Fabulous to have this pile of mail art to open over the next week or so and blog, bit by bit.  I got another two today which will be folded into my blogging pile.  I am determined to savour each piece of mail and equally determined to begin sending things out again with regularity.

With excitement and anticipation!