Mapping the Brain

More brain-themed mail art on its way in the post.  I like the effect of rubber stamping the brain onto old maps with topography where the roads and rivers becomes veins.   

Fall Mail

 

The distraction and fear over the election is now over.   We can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It’s time to review some of the mail art that has arrived in recent months:

 

1. Meral Agar – Turkey 
2. Fleur Helsingor - California 
3. Barbara Stasiowski – California 
4. Marina Salmaso – Denmark
5. R.F. Côté — Canada
6. Peter Müller – Germany
7. Maria Quiroga – Argentina 
8. Gregg Biggs – Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera – California
9. Keith Chambers – California
10. Serse Luigetti – Italy

No Plastic – Try Wax Paper!

I am trying to use less and less plastic, especially products in single-use plastic containers.  Sure, you can put it in the recycling bin, but there is such a glut of plastics, they end up in a landfill anyway.

I though the best way to respond to a “No Plastic” mail art call  was to create some mail art using wax paper.  Wax paper is old-fashioned, biodegradable/compostable and can often be used in place of plastic bags and wrap.  

Eyes in the Mail

In a bit of shared artistic vision, some of the mail art I recently received featured eyes and I just emphasized eyes in my holiday mailing.  Ans Theo Nelson is turning some of the mail art he receives into small, one-of-a-kind zines and then redistributing the work.  As I have been filling art scrapbooks  with mail art, this idea is tempting. I love maps and I love public transportation, So Karen Clowney Scott’s bear made out of New York City MTA Maps is perfect. And, it is always a treat to get an envelope of mail art from Cuan Miles.

1. Debra Mulnick – Idaho
2. William Mellott – Taiwan 
3. Samantha Price – New Hampshire
4. Lubomyr Tymkiv - Ukraine 
5. Robin Sparrow — New Zealand 
6. Karen Clowney Scott – New York 
7. Theo Nelson (Republic of Whimsy) – Canada
8. Cuan Miles – South Africa

Part 3: Scraps of 1990s Queerphemera

Club fliers, Queer Nation and other political stickers are among the things being liberated from boxes and ending up in the Layout Scrapbook.  My friend Daniel and I go back 30 years and he gets a whole page made of pieces of his past.  I remember when I first met Adriana Roberts showing pixelvision films of her naked body in grainy black and white.  Then there was her band Blue Period and now she is a famous club impresario.  Speaking of clubs, Jerry gave me an annotated map of New York City featuring venues that I imagine are long gone.

 

Next — Part 4: If you save it long enough you might use it in a collage

Part 1: Layout – The Artist’s Scrapbook

I have been buying about-to-be-discarded books from public libraries for years.  In San Francisco we have weekly sales plus two semi-annual events that are huge.  The typical price I pay is always $1.  These are books usually a step away from the recycling bin.  Sometimes I read the books but more often they get cut up for other mixed media projects.  In the last few years I have begun converting these books into artist scrapbooks.

This entire year I have been laying out a new artist book in an old copy of Layout: The Design of the Printed Page by Allen Hurlburt.  40 years on, the book still stands up as a good design book.  One might ask why I just did not add it, intact, to my own library.   There are no shortage of used copies available online for less than $5.  The book is not rare.  And, if you wish to indulge a delusional hoarder, you can buy the same book for $965.  I see these sort of dealers at library sales all the time.

 

The Layout Scrapbook  is now full.  It includes pages of my own work, ephemera old and new as well as some of the mail art I receive.   It includes things picked up at this year’s inspirational Codex Art Book Fair.  The book contains pages with contributions from the artists at the San Francisco Correspondence Coop.  There are two pages full of ticket stubs. Mostly from 2019.  It is like a diary of museum shows I saw.   Another page was inspired by my visit to Then They Came for Me — an excellent show about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.  My response to this who was to create a collage by adding maps of the U.S. Southern border where children are currently being forced into concentrations camps.  In the center of the collage is El Paso where a week after finishing the collage, a terrorist targeting Latinx people drove across Texas and murdered 22 people and injured 24 others.

 

Next — Part 2: Mail Art in the Scrapbook

Life on K2-18b

I am in the middle of working on a very large piece of art.  The process has involved painting paper and then using a punch to make hundreds of circles.   These scraps seemed too could not to repurpose.  Maybe the inspiration came from listening to the B-52s after reading about this newly discovered planet called K2-18b.  Of course, my interest in maps has always played a role in my art.  After printing some of my digital art it all came together in a series of portal maps to reach K2-18b.  It will be the fastest way to visit the planet that is some 142 light years from Earth. 

Isla del Torso

Traveling can be a break —a break from our normal routines and habits.  For an artist, it can also mean going in a different direction and trying out some new things.  Puerto Vallarta has become a place I escape to a few times a year.  From my first visit I recognized an affinity for Cape Cod where I grew up.  Tropical Mexico or coastal New England, resorts towns have much in common at their core. Unsurprisingly, I prefer the quieter off-season, which in Puerto Vallarta is summer.  

I just returned after a few weeks of low-key tropical fun.  The world of bars, clubs, go-go boys and drag shows has little appeal for me. Give me a beer and plate of tacos, and I am happy.  That said, the alluring advertising is everywhere.  And from that I took my inspiration.  Filling a sketchbook with images of the imaginary resort Isla del Torso (Torso Island).   A tropical paradise of tanned landscapes, condo towers, the warm seas and UFOs that sparkle like a drag queen’s gown.

Places to visit and things to see...

 

   

 

 

This is what happens when you obsessively spend a few days drawing a map of an imaginary city.  The next step is to cut up the map into 4”x6” postcards and rubber stamp some letters marking the various imaginary landmarks and attractions.  Twenty of these are on the way in the mail.  The recipients can plan trips to the Hotel Rosa Lux, the Ministry of Fromage and the Museum of Postmarks among the many sites noted on the maps.  

Scrappy Scrapbook

For about two years I have been working on the same scrapbook. I’ve reached the point where the book is full.  In other words, it is becoming difficult to close the book.

It all started at one of San Francisco’s library book sales where they sell donated and discarded books for $1.  I already owned a guide to London’s National Gallery from a visit I had made. I really had no practical use for a much older version, circa 1960.  Or did I?

My original thought was to cut the images out of the old book for collages.  Instead I started filling the book up.  It began with left over paint on my palette and scraps from other projects.  Collage bits, old postage stamps, maps, chocolate wrappers and other ephemera kept getting added.  The folks at the San Francisco Correspondence Coop contributed many of the artists stamps and some of the rubber stamps.  And finally, some of the random scraps I have received in the mail.  Some of the results are shown here.

Collage and Color

Braving throngs of summer tourists on Haight Street, I make my way up to my post office box.  It is always worth the trip, here are just a few of the pieces of mail art that were waiting for me in the last few weeks:

1. Gregg Biggs – Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera – California
2. Jennifer Utter – California 
3. Sagebrush Moderne – California 
4. Skooter Fein – California 
5. R.F. Côté— Canada
6. Katerina Nikoltsou – Greece
7. Robin Sparrow– New Zelaand
8. Serse Luigetti – Italy

Nautical Mail

I recently received some mail art from R.F. Côté that included a piece of an old nautical chart.  This motivated me to pull out some old, slightly mildewed nautical charts and to make some ATCs.  I am sending some back for and upcoming issue of Circulaire 132.  I also used some for a mail art call where the theme is watermarks.  That one is on the way to Germany. I was made some large pieces (i.e., 36” x 24”) about 10 years ago (see image).  It can be difficult to find old nautical charts.  For safety reasons, out of date charts are meant to be destroyed, lest they be used by mariners.  Back on Cape Cod, our neighbors included a typical New England curmudgeon. His wife secretly “disposed” of some of his horde by giving them to me for art purposes.