Orange Art in Progress

Last night, as they were drying, I realized these orange pieces of painted paper were having their moment as an art installation.  They deserved a quick photo.  As for the portrait of Dürer’s father — I am repurposing an old art guide as a scrapbook, using paint that would otherwise dry up on the palette as well as scraps from my collage work.

Mail Out — Mail In

I’ve been sending out a lot of mail art lately and the best part is, I get all this great stuff in return.   Here are some of the recent pieces received:

1. Esther Kwan – California
2. Pamela Gerard– California
3. Janet Elliott – California
4. Crackerjack Kid – New Hampshire
5. Meral Agar– Turkey 
6. Dori Singh – California
7. Peter Müller – Germany
8. Valdor – Catalunya, Spain
9. Marina Salmaso– Denmark
10. R.F. Côté– Québec, Canada
11. Katerina Nikoltsou – Greece 
12. Dame Mailarta– British Columbia, Canada
13. Mindaugas  Žuromskas

Stone Circles in the Mail

I’d like these pieces even if I did not know the story behind them, but I do….

E. Coles just sent me a new series inspired by a visit to the  Castlerigg Stone Circle in Cumbria in North West England.  A Late Bonze Age religious site and art installation inspiring mail art thousands of years later.  Very cool indeed.

Artist Stamps from Sally Wassink

I recently received some groovy artist stamps from  Sally Wassink.  Part of an on-going collaboration with the  Portland Stamp Company (check out more on their site).

Play Money

 

You never know what you’ll find in a dollar store, especially if it is a 25 Pesos store in Mexico.  Big stacks of Mexican play money was one of my best discoveries in 2017 — it immediately was incorporated into some mail art I sent from Mexico.  I came home and began sharing the play pesos with other artists for their own mail art.  This summer I sent a new batch of Meximail and included a few faux pesos in each envelope.

What a great surprise when William Mellott incorporated some of the play money and sent it back.  This gets me thinking, I need to start including American play money when I send mail art off to other countries. I hope other artists start sending me some play money from their countries too. Yen, Krona, Pounds, Australian Dollars, I want it all.  And now, off to find a dollar store….

Abstract Art at Wilder Ranch?

I love old farm buildings.  I often feel compelled to grab the camera just for the shapes which remind of me geometric abstract art.  I am sure, by now, some art history student has written a PhD thesis on the Influence of Agricultural Architecture on Abstract Art.  Does Piet Mondrian’s early workoffer us a clue?  Now and then I feel the need to paint one of the buildings I photograph.  This rather straightforward painting is of the old granary at Wilder Ranch State Park near Santa Cruz.

T is for Tofu

Hans Hess has a call for art for letter-themed mail art for an upcoming exhibit.  I have chosen to go for the letter T. 😀

Due Date

Recently I acquired  a pile of old due date cards that used to be in the back of library books.  The cards are obsolete.  Most of the books they were once found in have since been decommissioned.  There are date stamps on the some of the cards going back to the 1930s.  Fast forwarding to 2018, I ignored the author, the actual book itself and just took the title.  With the cards I have started adding little paintings that imagine a current book based on a past title.  These are a few of the new series.

Library Recycling

Start with a cover that is all that remains of old disintegrating book, next take some obsolete due date cards.  The results are a large postcard on the way to Spokane for a library-themed mail art call.