The most amazing things in the mail from Lithuania

I have never regretted the way I accidentally stumbled into the world of mail art about seven years ago.  I love walking up to the post office and anticipating what surprises wait for me.  And, of course, I enjoy sharing my own art and sending it out to the world.  Every now and then there is something in that box that is truly extraordinary.  The sort of things that, when I show them off to friends, they too want to start sending andreceiving mail art.  Last week an envelope from Mindaugas Žuromskas arrived from Lithuania.  It contained this incredible set of stenciled images applied to what appears to be old, bureaucratic ephemera.  I am absolutely delighted to add these to my own, personal art collection.

June Mail

Some of the recent mail art to arrive in my post office box that included some time-themed motifs (I love those) and some summery and springtime greetings.  Shown here:

1. Katerina Nikoltsou - Greece
2. Fleur Helsingor- California 
3. William Mellott- Taiwan
4. Valdor – Catalonia/Spain
5. R.F. Côté- Québec/Canada
6. Eduardo Cardoso- Portugal
7. Lubomyr Tymkiv- Ukraine 
8. Carolyn Oord (aka Kerosone) - Québec/Canada 

Art Imitates Art

Sometimes life imitates art and sometimes art imitates art — is it coincidence or is it on a subconscious level?  The other day I visited the SFMOMA and one my favorite works of art was the first thing I saw when I looked up — Wall Drawing 895: Loopy Doopya piece designed by Sol LeWitt whose work I first was properly introduced to in the big retrospective back in 2000.  Why wouldn’t I love it? It reminded me of some of the wavy rubber stamps I have recently been hand carving. 

Low Tech High Tech Mail

In 1996 the U.S. Postal Service issued a Computer Technology stamp to celebrate the 50^thAnniversary of ENIAC (the first electronic computer for general use). The U.S. Postal Service had Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedellcreate the first postage stamp designed entirely using computers. In that same year, email began to out-pace pieces of snail mail sent in the U.S. 

Recently I was given a sheet of those postage stamps and immediately started working on a piece of mail art to put them to good use.  Low tech, hand-carved, rubber stamps resulted in a series of 40 postcards.  It might seem like a contradiction using low tech postcards to commemorate a high tech postage stamp, but mail artists are not afraid to communicate via email and share the mail they receive online. It is not low tech vs. high tech, but rather low tech and high tech.

A Visit to Orange, California

 

The first time I was in California I was just 11.  We stayed with friends in Orange, California near Anaheim. Years later I found myself back in Orange today.  The draw was Chapman University.  As a mega-fan of the great Huell Howser, I have been wanting to visit the California’s Gold Exhibit and Huell Howser Archive.  It was, of course, Amazing!  They might need to borrow the portrait I did of Huell.

Close by is the university’s Hilbert Museum. I spotted this smallish museum online.  I am so glad I discovered this one.  They have an excellent collection of California art.  The current exhibition is from the archives of the Automobile Club of Southern California featuring work commissioned for the covers of their member magazine including some fantastic Maynard Dixons that I had never seen before.  The Hilbert Museum is only a few years old, but it now has a place on my list of museums to visit when I head south.