Mystery creature from Susan McAllister makes me pause mid sentence

Love this apostrophe (or it a comma)  from Susan McAllister.  I better not show it to Lyra or she will start barking at it, because for sure it's a hedgehog! Svenja, where are you to name that creature?  Great energy, susan's trademark colours and it makes me smile.  

I get the news from Joel's sticker poems

While people like me write down things that I read and overhear, things which are exquisite and need saving, on scraps of paper and post it notes; Joel makes stickers instead, selecting words from people we recognise from the mail art world and beyond, ideas that resonate with him.  Joel also then collaborates with others to illustrate these ideas in glorious ways.  Each envelope from Joel (AKA sticker dude) is a full of pearls of wisdom and images that require careful inspection, both on the outside and the inside of the envelope.

I have quite a collection of the Sticker Dude's stickers and I'm always amazed that he tells me and shows me things that I don't know or have forgotten in a new way that makes meaning more potent.

In this mailing Joel is also doing a bit of research, or community building, or enhancing our community feelings.  He has contstructed a web and filled in his network, or one of his networks and I am included! Joel asks me to add to nother blank web , so beginning again and recording my own network. I suspect when I get to the last name I will be prevaricating about who belongs there.  I know so many wonderful mail artists (in the mail) and each shares something unique.  Joel has also brought together some key quotes from others in the eternal network!  Read carefully and enjoy the imagery and I hope if I send you this add and pass you will take part in Joel's research too.

STORY:COMPLICATED - Radiogram from Marie Wintzer

Marie has a way of transforming our world into something other-worldly. Radiograms initially feel like safe, vintage items but Marie's cut-ups or code transform them and the world we know into something just the other side of Mars. This one makes me think of all the ageing rockstars who don't wake up one morning and we all miss. 

Fot another take on the same thing, visit IUOMA and see what Artist in Seine thought:

http://iuoma-network.ning.com/profiles/blogs/marie-wintzer-radiogram-plot-simple

Love the Sumos and they way they seem to defy gravity.  Thanks Marie.  I'll have something to send to you soon

You can't choose your family - Caning stories from Artist in Seine

In January, hot and bothered from a bad will, I sent Artist in Seine a no longer needed household object.  Divesting myself of something was a way to wipe the person and his parsimonious family from my consciousness as well as my house. I sent my object all wrapped in plastic, as is my style , and you can see more about it here on Artist in Seine's blog: http://iuoma-network.ning.com/profiles/blogs/rebecca-guyver-used-trivet?xg_source=activity

Artist in Seine has his own customary style of using ornate and apt bookcovers as a postcard.  This postcard weighs a lot.  It turns out canes are heavy, cane handles are heavy too! And how he managed to afix them to the book cover and for them to make it over the Channel in tact, I can't explain. 

The waves of the front cover are exquisite and the way the canes echo them makes this a special and aesthetic piece of conceptual art!  I like that. But what I really like about Dean's reply is the stories we have shared and the way we are communicating visually, and haptically about unreasonableness in a mail art sort of way!

Read Dean's poem!

The only other thing I will say about canes is that I had never heard of caning until I went to Kenya as a Peace Corps volunteer and was expected to use the cane to control my class.  Needless to say I didn't and I didn't report anyone to be caned for some of the spurious caneable offences. socks down, unpressed shirt, disagreeing with a superior. Since moving to the UK I have heard stories of people my age WHO WERE CANED, so even if you think Dean's story might be a little far-fetched.  It can be like that... and I agree with Dean; the canes are better off glued to a book cover, especially when they make it look so pretty!

The wooden object that I posted to Dean

A peek at the stuff that I will be blogging SOON

In the past few days I have received some exciting looking mail art and rather than keep those of you who sent it wondering if it has arrived, I thought I'd give you a sneak preview so I don't panic.  That last word is a little insight into me - the thing that really bugs me, gets me worried is thinking that I am letting people down, so HELLO: Alzira Liliana Renata Zelinda,  Sticker Dude (Joel S Cohen), Eileen Richards, Elaine Elliot and Earl Soham School, Susan McAllister, Artist in Seine, and Herman Kamphuis, I GOT YOUR MAIL! I also got a radiogram from Marie that (for some reason) isn't in my blogging pile so it's not photographed but I WILL FIND IT and be blogging all this wonderful mail soon.

On Sunday I became the proud recipient of a new motherboard.  Of course I still needed to download an operating system and fix some glitches in my email, post surgery, so I am a little behind with everything including chitting my potatoes!

Balloon, an Artist's Book by Ptrzia (TICTAC)

I nearly took part in Banana Day (for the second time in just a few months - there is some confusion about which day REALLY is banana day… ) and as the bananas started to be posted I coveted lots of the stuff I might have received, so I was super pleased to get these banana stamps that TICTAC sent out with her banana mail! The other part of this package was even more generous, though.  

I showed it to my husband and brother-in-law and they both couldn't believe that someone I have never met would send me 'an original' which had clearly taken so much time to execute!  But non-mailartists can't comprehend what we do. But not only that, not only had TICTAC posted me something time consuming to make,  this book is beautiful, even exquisite both in its look and in its meaning - luckily for TICTAC, this conceptual poetry piece couldn't have been sentto a more appreciative audience!  My copy is 4/10 and I will treasure it!

All hail the misappropriated mother's day card - Figgy Guyver

I pride myself at my ability to identify mail artists from a distance: the slant of their pen, the colour they choose, the postmark, these are all giveaways.  I am usually good at it.  This colourful, exacting envelope arrived at the start of the week sometime - I have abandoned recording dates of arrival.  I am just not that left brain about my mail art. So, this arrived and I thought, 'wow, something from Stripygoose before I even replied to her last mailing.'  noting that there was no bird on the envelope and assuming there would be one inside. I noticed the, 'do not open until 6th March' and wondered what was special about that day, but assumed it was one of those IUOMA mailings that happen occasionally and thought I'll find out on the 6th.

Meanwhile, every day Figgy would call and ask me if I had received anything from her.  'No, no. no,' I believed she had sent me something but it definately was lost… so she sent me a picture Jonny had taken of her posting it, as proof.  I assumed the stamp had fallen off.  

It was just a typical mother's day around this house.  No flowers, no cards and a few late phone calls.  I trained them well!

Fig was really disappointed.  She had planned and her plan had failed. At least we thought it had until I took out my stack of blogging mail just now and opened the one that said 'open on 6th March.' DUH.

So this is where we stand:  Figgy you win.  Hudson you lose. And Stripygoose, I will send you the envelope I made about a month ago soon.

Huge thanks to Figgy for her exuberant, joyous mother's day card.  Hudson, don't forget the American date, there's still time to tie.