Play Money or Play with Money?

Are collages made from play money a better investment than cryptocurrency?  

Today a new series of mail art is on the way around the world. Each collage is made with play money including dollars, pesos, pounds and euros.  And how about some play bitcoin?  A printer and circular hole punch and voila!  Little paper coins featuring some of the people who are destroying our world.

Not Your Grandma’s Chandeliers

July in San Francisco is typically a cold month, the fog and wind keeps us in the 60’s.  As pleasant as that might sound if you’re sweltering in the rest of the country, we start to miss the warm weather.  But just a quick trip down to Palo Alto and it was 84° and sunny yesterday.  The destination was the Cantor Arts Center down at Stanford.

When I previewed Josiah McElheny’s Island Universe  on the website, I was not particular excited. At quick glance I saw photos of what looked to me like bunch of retro chandeliers.  Maybe it is the damage of working in the world of interior design for 10+ years.  Well, McElheny is doing something far more amazing than pretty baubles to dangle over dining tables.  It is art, it is astronomy and photos can’t do it justice.  And once again I am reminded why, given the opportunity, you always need to see art in person.

I always enjoy the juxtaposition of old and new at the Cantor and after wandering past the Rodin horde, I encountered Do Ho Suh’s The Spaces in Between– this alone is worth a trip.   Now this is a chandelier!  When you enter the room, you don’t realize it is made up of plastic action figures.  The same for the colorful screen.  I didn’t immediately realize the wallpaper was part of the installation.  It appears to be some sort of 1970s grass cloth pattern until you step closer and realize it is a grid of teensy yearbook portraits (magnifying glasses provided).  Art that is not what it appears, color, grids and color.  I was in heaven and reminded once again that one day I must visit Korea, if just to see contemporary art.   

To finish off the visit one has to get lost in the Richard Serra and imagine they are in some canyon in the Desert Southwest. 

Remembering the VW Beetle

It saddens me that Volkswagen has decided to cease production of the Beetle. I have lived in San Francisco for nearly 30 years without owning a car.  But I have fond memories of zipping around in that orange, 1973, VW Super Beetle during college.  That car was so fast.  I actually have dreams where I still drive that car.  After a trip to Europe, I plastered the back of the car with stickers in various languages, mostly anti-nuclear.  Some were even bought in the “gift shop”of an occupied building in Kiel, Germany.

To commemorate the Beetle with some mail art, I am mailing out an add-n-pass where the recipients can sticker a VW and, eventually, return these to me.

I you are a mail artist and would like to participate, you can even download a PDF  version of the add-n-pass, print it out, add something, and then mail it to the next artist.

Post-Vacation Summer Mail

I returned from a trip to Mexico to find a post office box stuffed with fun things.  Including some zines that will force me to work even more on my Spanish.  I truly appreciate the way Valdor compiles the mail art he receives and sends out these zines.  It’s a lot of work, not to mention the cost.  Kathy Barnett continues to outdo herself with these interactive, moveable pieces.  The most recent is like a school cafeteria lunch at the aquarium. The latest characters from the Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera arrived, they were a bit roughed up by some postal machinery.  And some of my Surreal Baseball pieces are returning to me with some re-working.  This Summer’s mail art (so far) includes the following:

1. Dori Singh – California 
2. Gregg Biggs – Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera – California
3. Lorella Castagnini – Italy 
4. Fleur Helsingor- California 
5. Carolyn Oord (aka Kerosone) - Québec/Canada 
6. Bonniediva – Illinois 
7. Debra Mulnick – Idaho
8. Orlando Nelson Pacheco Acuña  – Chile 
9. Sagebrush Moderne – California 
10. Kathy Barnett – Missouri
11. Peter Müller – Germany
12. Valdor – Catalonia/Spain
13. Serse Luigetti – Italy
14. Mindaugas Žuromskas – Lithuania 

Back to Richmond, California

Sometimes I come across an old postcard that is so unique, it is too good to cut-up for my art.   This postcard booklet of Richmond, California is an example of one that was just special. It was given to me by a friend who had pile of her late Uncle Bill’s postcards. He had saved them for decades.  

In July 1945 Helen Ausenbaum was in Richmond and working for the Red Cross when she mailed this to her brother Bill who was stationed in Europe. By that time Captain Ausenbaum had fought across Europe.  A year before he landed at Normandy in a glider.  He was at the Battle of the Bulge and with the 82nd Airborne when they liberated the Wöbbelin Concentration Camp.  Uncle Bill was awarded both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

Last year I contacted the Rosie the Riveter WWII Homefront National Historic Parkand asked if they wanted the postcard booklet for their collection, which they did.  Recently it was added to one of their exhibits.  I wonder what Helen and Bill would say about this simple postcard coming back to Richmond, 74 years later, and being an historic artifact in a national park museum.

If you have never visited the Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park, I highly recommend it.  It honors the thousands of women and men who contributed to the war effort at home during World War II while presenting a fascinating chapter of history.  It also serves as reminder for the present.  Reminding us what we can accomplish if we all come together, work hard and are willing to make sacrifices for the common good.  The park offers a lesson plan for the fight to combat climate change.

Can you mail an old sock?

Yes, of course you can.  And, it would be best to wash it first (which I did).  This sock is on the way to France for a mail art call.   The theme is Past, Present & Tomorrow and the piece must include some textile element. Why an old sock?  Well, I always like to recycle and re-use. Old socks get worn out (past) and full of holes (present) and can end up in the rag bag (tomorrow) to be used for dusting your knick-knacks, or in this example, cleaning unused ink off my rubber stamps.