Braincell 1023

It's wonderful to see that people care about things other than the stuff of American politics that keeps me hyper-ventilating day in andout. It's also wonderful to see that characters come in all shapes and sizes in evryone's minds.  Taking the pulse of stamp makers arounf the globe is an important pursuit.  I wonder how many map chests Ryosuke has.  Better get making something in reply! 

Crunching your scales with GU

Gina Ulgen's work is slick, beautiful and funny! It makes me a little squeemish and I have a visceral response  - I find myself feeling a little itchy.  What would it be like to have scales or a big conch shell on my body? If we think it's difficult to be human, imagine what it would be like to be endowed with fishy bits! Think most despised politician with an eel's bottom half…

Although each image is perfect - I have taken the liberty of scanning double page spreads - my personal fave is the one set in the old gym. The man in the jacket and the girl in the bloomers, spotting the gymnast with a shell for legs. As a gymnast and a teacher of gymnastics, I have had pupils with cluncky body parts, I've even felt a little fishy in some of my moves and I have worried that something might shatter if i wasn't absolutely careful every second!

The other outstanding part of this mailing is the book below: Ana's Lonely Hearts Club. What a wonderful idea and the way Ana has imagined and drawn her characters is inspiring!

Thank you Gina and Ana, this is really a very special mailing! 

Waiting for AJ and BH - building friends

 Mikel's envelope reads as both buildings and people, to me and the feeling with the yellow envelope is  exhuberant, or listless and even slightly jarring. It's fascinating to see how the portrait direction also makes it feel expansive. On the other hand, three figures versus a crowd on the white background helps to demonstrate how much fun we can have with hand carved stamps and letters and how totally differently they can speak to us. These are beautiful pieces.  Thank you, Mikel, and sorry it has taken me such a long time to get them into the world!

Pamela sent me asemic greetings even though it was her big birthday

In Suffolk, people who know me know I make and receive mail art. Some even participate. Pamela is an artist/friend and I sent an email, not a piece of mail art (shame) to make sure all was well as I hadn't seen her in ages at the usual places we meet. 

This beautiful vispo, scribed with asemics travelled with me to Maine, my talisman.  The accompanying note told me all was well but she was busy with other things. Later I learned (and probably had been told at some point) that she was celebrating a special birthday. Imagine that, her friend forgets her birthday and she sends the friend beautiful mail art. 

Thank you Pamela, it's a treasure!

Cars through walls and walls of rogues - Cascadia Artpost

These are in no particular order, but are three mailings I recieved from Cascadia Artpost during the summer of no computer. My ledger is as out of sorts as everything else, so apologies to Cascadia! It's all about watering and keeping up with the news cycle these days.

Hey, Mr Snappy reminds me of someone I met at a wedding in Essex, recently - although I was the one wearing the hat… Great stamps.  Whenever I see red and black postage stamps, I think of 'E'.  I think he'd like these. and it looks like that forever stamp didn't get franked.  It's all so confusing for the postal system what with Cascadia's own official stamps and postmark!

I'm not sure whether it's coincidence but it's surely only based on supposition, I believe Jack builds dioramas in the summer.  This Monument to Vostell, celebrating the art of Vostell is another of his teeny tiny dioramas, I think. Both the front image and the back image are stunning! Art is life!

So I have to admit to getting the rellies involved to solve who this couple was… Of course I know who Steve Mnuchin and his wife are, but who knew what they looked like! They don't make the news here - luckily I am a pod cast addict, so keep abreast.  This is a gallery of rougues, for sure! And this commodity civilization land is not my land, nor is it yours, I reckon.

Everyone's talking about David's One Man show!

 Some people draw from life; some people draw from photos and some people draw from what's inside.  I'm not sure how David gets to his finished products but this wonderful selection of humanity oozes with character and demonstrates the ease with which David moves between and juxtaposes media. 

David sent me this quite some time ago… In fact I carried the envelope to Maine, intending to blog it from America, but that didn't happen and then when I got back my wifi it was a bit out of sorts and finally, TODAY, Patrick fixed the final wifi blip and I can actually scan and print wirelessly (for the first time in seven years!) So fully realising that for example, the Hawaian woman going up the escalator hasn't been in pre-hurricane turmoil, because time doesn't work that way, I'm sure I can see a lot of screaming in David's portraits and I suspect their hysteria is politics related, or the rats from Felixstowe have gone further afield than we thought.

Could this be John Foster and Amy Irwin?

Clearly me, getting ready for the DKult ho down. 

De Villo Sloan sandwiched between his harem - Dk with teased hair, perhaps? 

Three cheers for another brilliant envelope from David Stafford, somewhere in the West.