Art in the Mail: August

Here is a sampling of some of the mail art that has been filling up my post office box this month:

1. Summery mail art from Virgo.
2. An especially pink bird arrived from Stripy Goose.
3. Pamela Gerard turned our recent meeting of the San Francisco Correspondence Coop into a postcard.
4. Mail art from Tiina from Finland (but I don’t have a mailing artist to send something back).
5. Punkie Ebert has printed up these cool little booklets/zines that incorporate both literary postage stamps and works by the authors.
6. Dori Signh’s mail included a rubber stamp mandala.
7. Robin Sparrow sent this incredible tactile mail art/envelope piece from New Zealand that brought me back to the children’s book Pat the Bunny. 
8. Eberhard Janke sends out Call & Response, a zine compilation of mail art received — I love receiving these and really appreciate it considering the cost of printing and postage.
9. Two new prints from Serse Luigetti in Italy including this Barbed Wire Poem.

There has been some additional mail coming in that responds to pieces I have been sending out, stay tuned for those.

Polish Wallpaper

The Lewandowski’s Wallpaper, mixed media on board, 10”x10”x1.5”

Recently I have been exploring ideas about memory and color.  Pink Week will be coming up in Sacramento in just a few months, so it felt like the time to explore some pink memories.

When I was in my 20s, I spent a lot of time travelling and living in Europe.  Different countries, different cultures and some color palettes and home décor that was not what I was accustomed to.  There was a lot of wallpaper, including in the places I lived.  There was also a more liberal use of the color pink in all shades imaginable.  Go back to an Easter Monday (Śmigus-dyngus), over thirty years ago in Poland.  It was a visit to the home of my cousin’s in-laws to celebrate the holiday known for water fights and, of course, another big meal.  Poland is the sort of place where the most distant and long lost relative, like I was, can be made to feel incredibly welcome by everyone you meet.  That afternoon will always remain in my memories, made to feel so very welcomed in the Lewandowski’s home.  And, here is where the pink comes in.  I remember that every room I saw in their home had pink wallpaper — each room different from the next.

I would have never imagined, decades later that I would recreate that day and their home the way I have, in the summer of 2017.  But here it is.

What did I miss?

While many friends journeyed towards the path of totality, I stayed in San Francisco for this week’s eclipse.  The skies brightened up briefly about 9:45 a.m. but then the fog thickened.  I need to use up the postal service’s cool Total Eclipse of the Sun postage stamps.  Today some mail art is heading out, inspired by San Francisco’s fogclipse on Monday.

Painting Calm

There are many positive and appropriate ways to respond to the horrible state of the world.  And in no way do I want to be either dismissive or ignore what is happening.  But, just to maintain my own personal sanity and not be overwhelmed by anger, sometimes I need to paint something calm and quiet like the old barn at Año Nuevo State Park.

Shark Mail

Last week’s trip to the post office included the purchase of some of the newest stamps from the U.S. Postal Service.  The new set of Sharks are inspirational.  Today’s mail art on the way is a series of Shark Mail postcards — each has hand painted fin cruising above the surf.

Lazy Days of Summer

Well not for me, but it seemed that way for the elephant seals lying around on the beach at Año Nuevo State Park down near Santa Cruz.  Big rocks, or lumpy, molting elephant seals, here is where the fauna is the landscape.  These two paintings (12”x9” each) were inspired by last week’s visit and hike.