The Vampire Rhino Handler

Before the days of the internet, when you only had the nightly news, the dictionary, your teachers and an encyclopaedia if this card had come across my doormat I would have scratched my head and felt a teeny weeny bit stupid.  Instead I am on an internet-free airplane typing with the help of an overhead lightbulb.

I know Dada Trumph Motors is on a crusade to enlighten the world and Cascadia’s wonderful series on American Oligarchs is changing the way this mail artist uses the word ‘Oligarch’ and classifies the rich and famous . 

Is that CT Chew, the retired mail artist in jungle mode, ready for handling? Is a 

Rhino a RINO? Is extinction preferable to over-population? 

Thee re a few of my questions at 36,000 feet.

Thank you Cascadia! I love the Color and the image and that lunar New Year stamp is eye-popping!  

A maiden voyage and pussy willows

Delighted to receive Mailart from a ’femail’ Donna MacPherson who has spread some spring cheer  in an original print card she was inspired to make  when she found some pussy willows in the park. 

Not sure if you can tell, but I am writing from airplane seat #30 on my way to the states. I have been rushed off my feet so am carrying the pile of mail art I have accrued to blog and hopefully to respond to.  I feel terrible! Especially about someone who was so generous to someone she trusted and had never met. 

Rest assured I appreciate your mail ART! I will bring it across the pond and archive it at the Nayland Farm mail art site, but in the meantime,I am enjoying it on a darkened plane.

I sure hope it isn’t too cold in Maine (not too far from Canada)  but if it is that will be an excuse to get to work on some return mail art!

Thank you!

The Language of Flowers

I have already printed off a set of these to bedeck my next series of mailings! When the US postal service produces flower stamps, I buy my fair share. I also love bees and birds. Nature, attending to it and having it around me, well it's key. So, seeds from Cascadia to plant here. a highpoint and receiving them is now part of the rythmn of my year.  Now to find the time to get them into a seed bed!

Love the poem on a postcard - its aesthetic and the words.

The precision with which Cascadia makes this mailing is fabulous.  A few years ago in the seeds Cascadiasent me some siberian wallflower seeds in the mix.  They bloomed for months and the scent was irresistible.  Using jack's key, I figured out what they were and about two years later I ordered some of my own. Now I have many many siberian wallflower plants and they appear in my paintings often!

                                        

Thank you SO much!

 

My Mind is Empty but I've got an enve!

Karen's empty envelope inside an envelope declares itself on the back '`my mind is empty' it points.

The envelope that conjures a bill, a note, some money and is shaped like an hong pao, a red envelope, a Chinese New Year envelope, a Lai shi, is empty and it isn't red. Nevermind, empty allows me to begin thinking of ideas. 

I love it!

I WILL write, it just might take me a little while!

Thank you, Karen!

 

Give me the roses and I'll bake the bread.

These exquisite paint and ink pieces are two sides of one gift in this mailing. They are haptic, ethereal, just absolute beauties. They are both worthy of a frame… I will place them around my studio for inspiration before putting them in my archive.  Thank you Gerda! I'm sorry it's taken me a while to blog this.

I am a sucker for a handmade envelope  and I notice the femail stamp. I am slow.  I am sorry. 

And then, to cap it all off, a boekie. for Internationl Women's Day. What were you doing on that day?  In the past I have gone to a party (helped serve food) thrown by Suffolk refugees.  I wondered if it were on. Lots of music and women dancing together.Instead I was here, painting and fitting house chores in between. 

 Thank you Gerda.  A wonderful envelope full of beauty, surprises and inspiration!

Inside Those Walls

Nancy titles her bigger pieces. 'Inisde Those Walls'measures about 21 x 10 cm; the three-scrappers are smaller, 14, 11 cm tall.  I prop up Nancy's pieces for weeks.  Some live semi-permanently in my mail stand.  Sometimes they even make it into a painting.  I think Nancy's pieces are lovingly made.  They are pure joy - gifts when they arrive For ME. 

I want to read them but I also like the fact that it's not necessary to read them.  They are perfectly harmonious without being obvious.  They are challenging without being confrontational. 

I turn 'Inside Those Walls'  over, to take in the B-side and the words 'absurd conceit' hit me. The text seems to be about about an army. The title conjures up our shared Covid years, for me, too. 

I feel as if I have fund a relic, something pieced together, taped, because of its value.  It is worn, used, revered. 

This two scrap is as worked on the b-side as the main side.  The synesthesia of the visual poetry and the music are audible.

Above is folded.  inside is a note I have not shared.  Feb 02, 2022. I see two figures, dancing across a divide.  Inside walls, leaning in, breaking out, post Covid.

Nancy has filled the os and letters like holes with gold, like a tooth.  They sparkle, like lightening bugs in a hedge.

Such a delight to receive a brown envelope from Nancy. She manages to create the passage of time, a labour of love, a butterfly kiss everytime she sends me mail art. 

 

54359 Poesia

Eduardo Cardosa's haptic, natural, glue, paper, rock and roll envelope arrived in March 2022. I will consider it a New Years' greeting because inside is a piece of visual poetry that feels like a gift. Ink or liquid graphite dacne with pencil marks, Eduardo's stamp and a subtle collage to create harmony, balance and a good luck charm for the year ahead. Thank you!