Swapping books with Cheryl Penn - I got the long straw, again.

In a previous blog I celebrated Cheryl Penn's ability to curate.  She pairs imagery and words so deftly and through symmetry, or dissonance guides her viewer in understanding so they come to see differently and more widely.  This aesthetic and knowing is only one of Cheryl's qualities. She is also sure-footed, technically gifted and draws on a wide understanding of, well, maybe, everything!  

This book is a version, part of an edition of 10, one of which is going towards her hundreds of volumes of The Encyclopedia of Everything.  I am in awe at this piece.  It is truly beautiful and I will treasure it.  Read the Book! 

A deluge of mail art goodies from down under (Bris Chris)

Summer Sunflowers ICC Challenge 2013
30 X 42 "

mail art cloth postcard, tiny photo collage/canvas, mail art materials, a note

Christine Jones is a textile artist who exhibits and WINS prizes for her quilts.  She and I met at mailart 365 and she sent some wonderful mail art for my islands exhibition on Cranberry Island in 2012.  Her flood art is quite special. Vic and Chris came and visited us in Suffolk and we had a jolly time!  Vic cooked delicacies from Brisbane, we visited the coast and Chris helped me make something crafty for a raffle, etc.  V and C are back in Brisbane now and I received a parcel with all this from Chris!  

Thank you, Chris!  What a generous, thoughtful and wonderful package of goodies!

Cheryl Penn's curatorial genius

Cheryl Penn's cover: Mail Art Makes the World a Town Edition IX

John Bennett, Rosa Gravino

Andrew Maximillian Niss,  C. Mehrl Bennett, John Bennett

Rebecca Guyver, Lesley Magwood Fraser

Torill Elisabeth Larsen, Uli Grohmann

This zine has been a long time coming for me… I sent images to Cheryl more than a year ago and they must have circled the globe for a long time before returning to me and then being reposted to Cheryl.  I didn't even dare open the package as I suspected the imagery would be stale and I would bin the lot.

One of the things about Cheryl is that she makes you feel as if you belong.  I suspect she is a very good teacher, empowering her students to believe.  And belonging in this group, in this zine, in this network, matters. 

I've pulled out a few spreads for your delight so we can smile and nod approvingly at the way Cheryl has paired work, adding to the story.

Cheryl's note said 'send again'.  Of course I will. 

UK mail art meetup beneficiary!

I missed the latest mail art meetup in London, again. Sue (Stripygoose), Mail art Martha and Bris Chris met and made postcards.  I received one of the five!   Many thanks.

If the move was a good as the mail art…

I had a message from Claire asking if I'd received a change of address card from her.  I'd read about these, but alas, had not been the recipient…

A Dinsmore envelope shouts DINSMORE in a quiet, tranquil, cat-storke of a way. When it arrived I was delighted and expectant.

I commented in an earlier blog about how each element of a Dinsmore composition is 'just right'.  This time I notice the graphic choices, particularly, as well. 

 I have to admit to usually being too excited to tell my fortune to take careful note of the wrapping of the miracle fish.  It really is rather curious that this dolphinesque creature can do just that… but for the moment I will look at it through the wrapper and deny myself the joy of having the tail curl, the body flip in my palm.

Having never been to Pittsburgh, I can only guess at this landscape.  I can't quite place it, but somethings pulls on my own East Coast heartstrings. 

In the same way that when a Stephanie Blake arrives, I can't quite bring myself to open the packet, in this case, stickers!  The opaque not knowing is perhaps better than the finding out.

As ever with Claire's packaging, I can't help but covet.  I'm sure WE don't have stamps like those and I certainly can't make them (Like BF) and that washi tape...

Many, many thanks, Claire.  I am working on an obsessive project for my mail art friends that is taking much more time than first anticipated… but yours is on deck. 

Anna Banana sends EVERY DAY ART

3.5 x2.5"

This is a little stamp

This mail art from Anna is definately correspondence art.  I saw Anna's name  (recently) on the wall of a local museum because the museum was hosting an exhibition of xerography.

Interestingly, I had written to the museum and spoken to someone at the museum because I wanted to offer a weekend workshop (FOR FREE) on mail art to generate some interest for 25 years of IUOMA. NO REPLY.  So, like many before me, I decided I should go local and smaller and got the message that I AM NOT the kind of artist (mail artist) they need at the museum!  I see they must be running workshops on mail art there (without me) because they have a copy of 'good mail day' in the family area.

So, Anna wrote back  (Oct 17/13) with all the stuff above plus a note or two.  She writes that she 'loves working with left-overs' and that she also likes miniature pieces which are shareable and mailable. She's calling her current work: Every Day Art.  Did Anna do a pech kucha?  I have done one in a professional context but would really like to go to one with creatives!

Apparently Anna got three copies of the catalog! The fact that she was one of the only women on the mail art wall did not go unnoticed…

Blue skies and relatively warm when Anna wrote.  Frost on the pumpkins and many trees down here.

Vizma' trashpo apple cure

If ever you feel ineffectual, unglamorous and even a tiny bit of a wall flower, Vizma's apple cure will do the trick! 

Vizma has a way of making trash feel like the stuff of REAL books. I can't quite establish where the leftover bits and the trasformation begin and end.  I feel like I'm reading an Eric Carle book... but this one is top pocket size and much funnier!

Can you spot the pocket with the bespoke stamps sticking out from beneath the apt explanation:  

Art is long, life is short.

 What apple book would be complete without the apple on a a string, eaten by the standing mink? 

Clearly the cure for all insecurity is to eat an apple!

I live next to an apple orchard and although we have plenty of our own apples, I can't help but scrump an apple now and again  as I pass through.  Koalas might not eat apples, but our dog Lyra does. As soon as I pick one she is jumping up to remind me to save her a piece.

I'm sure the bad apple should be wearing pink cowboy boots?

 Oh Doris, you make it look so easy!

As ever, Vizma packs a visual punch with this informative, aestetically pleasing trashpo collage on apple!  Thank you, Vizma.

PS LOVE the inverted envelope!