Summer Beach Bags

Doesn’t everyone need a beach bag with images of vintage Cape Cod postcards to start the summer?  Through June 5, all of the items with my artwork available from Society 6 come with free worldwide shipping if you use this link.

Paintings to Mail Art

Trail to McClure's Beach #2

Trail to McClure's Beach #1

Bear Valley Trail

San Andreas Fault at Point Reyes

McClure's Beach

Pierce Point Ranch

Recently I have been working on a series of quick, small studies for future work.  Small acrylic landscapes that are all 4”x4’ each.  What to do with them one I am done?   I realized if I made them a bit bigger, say 4”x6” I could then give the studies another purpose.  Now they are also mail art, and today 10 Point Reyes Postcards are in the outgoing mail.

Mail Art May

As May comes to a close, it is time to sort through the latest arrivals of mail art that have been waiting for me my P.O. Box.  Some of the recent highlights include:

1. I can’t read Chinese, but I think Sagerush Moderne’s latest piece includes a medical chart.
2. Suus in Mokum’s latest mail art awesomeness arrived the other day.  I like how it even compliments the Imaginary Landscape series I have been working.
3. A new piece of environmental awareness mail art came from Karen Lindquist in New Mexico.  The one is about WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) near Carlsbad where nuclear waste is being dumped underground.  There have been leaks.
4. A magical mixed media landscape arrived from Esther Kamkar.
5. Josh Dellinger sent what he calls Cyber Threat Art.
6. E. Coles latest piece arrived in another handmade hexagonal envelope with what looks like the map of planet we are yet to visit.
7. The scan of Hilal Tursoluk’s latest piece from Istanbul doesn’t show off the metallic paint added to the image.  It is even better in person.
8. Fleur Helsingor’s new piece documented her robot making adventure after a trip to the San Jose Museum of art.
9. After responding to a mail art call, Eberhard Janke sent a zine with even more for me to do.  As busy as I am, I always can squeeze in another art project.
10. Finally Nico van Hoorn has sent mail art announcing he will no longer send mail art. 

I can understand how that could happen, it can get a little overwhelming (and expensive) keeping up with mail art.  As I am heading to a period of intense work for my solo show in October, I expect I will inevitably get behind on responding as well in the coming months.  I’ll be sorry to no longer receive mail art from Nico, but I just may send him something now and then anyway.

The San Francisco Postcard Book

Postcards shown include work by Jan Heyneker, Atmos Fiere, Patrick Turner and Glen Scantlebury

On Wednesdays I usually head down to Civic Center to the farmers’ market.  On the way I stop at the Steps of the Library Sale.  The Friends of the SFPL sell off unwanted books that are one step away from the recycling bin.  Everything costs one dollar.  Some weeks I leave empty handed, some weeks I find a book I want to read and I often find tattered, old books that will be used in my own art projects.  This week’s find was a book of ready to use postcards from the 1980s called The San Francisco Postcard Book.

From 1987, shortly before I arrived myself, the now vintage book is a nice time capsule of 80’s graphics art with photography that captures a familiar but much-changed San Francisco in 24 removable postcards.  I found nothing online about the book or the art group behind it, A.R.E. (Artist Revolutionaries in the Eighties).  Of the 12 participating artists I found two have current websites (some other names matched, but I am not certain if they are the ones in the book).  Check out the work of Jo Babcock and Patrick Turner (I particular like his photo postcard of the old Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge).

It is tempting to remove the postcards and start mailing them out – but for now, I am just going to hang onto this piece of 1980s art and keep it in my own personal library.  I got it all for $1.

Embarcadero #2, John Zax

Blue, Glue and Gold, John Grau

Mail All Over the Map

The latest round of mail art to arrive is a reminder that this is a global adventure with mail coming from close by, just over the hill in Noe Valley to all the way from South Africa.  With additional mail from Québec, British Columbia, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey and Hungary.  As a twelve year old, I had a few pen pals, but it really has all come full circle for me.  Here are some of the latest pieces:

1. Two pieces from my Remove-and-Pass series came back.  Both used postcards of a map collage I did back in 2003.  There was one from Torma Cauli in Budapest. 
2. Another arrived from Meral Agar in Istanbul.
3. A new piece of recycled material from the school kids in the Netherlands.  We are getting ready to plan the second Pink Mail Art show – I am going to be putting these kids to work soon.
4. A marvelous little booklet with postal history from Pamela Gerard.
5. Adrienne Mason also sent a great ephemera-filled handmade book as well.
6. Kerosene (aka Carolyn Oord) sent a map-themed postcard that can even teach me a little French.
7. Angela Behrendt sent a photo piece commemorating President Obama’s latest trip to Germany.
8. And finally, a fantastic haul from Cuan Miles.  I love it all, and I need to get myself a Nelson Mandela rubber stamp!

Time to get back to making art and ready for our mail art extravaganza this weekend with the San Francisco Correspondence Coop celebrating its 5^th Anniversary.