Mail Art Made in Mexico

While spending a few weeks down in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico I did this new series of 30, hand-painted postcards inspired by the view from where I was staying.   Overlooking the Isla del Río Cuale (the island in the small river that flows along the Emiliano Zapata District).

In the past I have sent mail art directly from Mexico, but it tends to take weeks.  Plus, the mail box I have used in the past (see photo) seems to be closed.   Plus, back in San Francisco, I had an opportunity to use the USPS’s Mariachi Stamps.

Fluxus High School

What better way to spend a lazy summer afternoon than going through your school yearbook.  Or for me, cutting up some old yearbooks and making about 200 Artist Trading Cards (ATCS) to send out for a new series for the Fluxus High School Yearbook.

Mail Art to Remember the Dead

Covid has kept me home and I have not travelled to Mexico for two years now.  Ideally, I’d be there for the Día de los Muertos celebrations — it is one of my favorite holidays. Instead, I will make my ofrenda at home in San Francisco.  And this past week I have been carving rubber stamps and making some mail art for the holiday.   These postcards are on their way locally and around the world.

Don’t Hesitate — Vaccinate!

Sending out some handmade rubber stamped, vaccine-themed mail art. If you are eligible and vaccines are available, get it.  If not, I hope you won’t need to wait much longer. 

Year of the Ox — Year of the Cure!

I am ready for the rats to be gone and for the ox to rush in and take charge.  To celebrate I am mailing postcards with hand carved rubber stamps — the Ox vs. Covid-19.  Happy New Year!

Stay Home, Make Mail Art — Royal Mail Art!

From a series of very Royal Mail Art.  It will be mailed while on my safe-social-distancing-walk today. All from old postage stamps featuring Queen Elizabeth (plus a few old stamps of her father, uncle and grandfather).   

Stay Home, Make Art — An Artist Book

Thousands of thousands of old postage stamps.  They came from my childhood collection to ones peeled from envelopes to ones purchased or given to me for making collages.   Many have found their way into this new artist book created while I have been sheltering in place this past few months.   And yes, there are still some left, the remainder are being incorporated into mail art that will be sent out in the coming days.

Stay Home, Make Art — Little Stamp Collages

I continue to use up my vast horde of old postage stamps.  I’ve spent the week cutting, gluing and making small little collages — each from two or more postage stamps.  Here are some examples.

Oh Rats!

It’s time for some Year of the Rat mail art — postcards with hand carved rubber rat stamps.  Happy New Year!

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

Fall Mail

 

Returned from some travel to see a great deal of mail art waiting for me.   Some very small mail art from Amy Irwen, Kathy Barnett sent a movable little frog, and Mindaugas Žuromskas is stenciling paper made from receipts that have been pasted together.  Here is some of the recent mail shown:

1. R.F. Côté — Canada
2. Fleur Helsingor - California 
3. Peter Müller – Germany
4. Lubomyr Tymkiv - Ukraine 
5. Jokie X. Wilson – California
6. Amy Irwen – Minnesota 
7. Bonniediva – Illinois 
8. Sally Wassink – California 
9. Ed Giecek – Washington State
10.  Kathy Barnett – Missouri
11.    
12.  Charles Kremenak – California 
13. Keith Chambers – California 
14. Mikel Untzilla – Euskadi/Spain 
15. Mindaugas Žuromskas – Lithuania 

Summer Mail Wrap-Up

 

 

 

A summer of making art and travel is wrapping up and it is time to review some of the recent mail I have received.  I love those big envelopes of collages and prints from Eastern Europe sent by Virgo and Mindaugas Žuromskas.  An envelope and note from Egg Mail Art curator Eva Mosonyi even had a Hungarian postage stamp which featured some eggs she made (I am impressed).  And how did Thea Hollister know I have always loved the Eurythmics?  This Summer’s mail art included the following:

1. Marina Salmaso– Denmark
2. Fleur Helsingor- California 
3. Virgo– Russia 
4. William Mellott– Taiwan 
5. Bonniediva – Illinois 
6. Wabi Sabi Sews – California
7. Gregg Biggs – Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera – California
8. Mindaugas Žuromskas – Lithuania 
9. Heather Ferguson – California
10. Dori Singh – California 
11. Eva Mosonyi– Hungary
12. Peter Müller – Germany
13. Thea Hollister — Washington State 
14. Maria Quiroga – Argentina 

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 

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.  

May Mail

 

 

Melissa Wand asks, “Is it really worth getting dressed just to go check the mail?”  

The answer is YES!  Especially when you head up to the post office in the Upper Haight and find mail art like this In your box.  Some recent arrivals include the following:

1. Melissa Wand— Wisconsin
2. Pam Delucchi – San Francisco
3. Dori Singh – California 
4. Lubomyr Tymkiv- Ukraine 
5. Carolyn Oord (aka Kerosone) - Québec/Canada 
6. Marina Salmaso– Denmark
7. Gregg Biggs – Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera – California
8. Torma Cauli– Hungary
9. Serse Luigetti – Italy
10. Ryosuke Cohen– Japan

Art is best seen in person

Borowiacy Folk Costume, 16”x16”, mixed media on board

“Couldn’t you just do this in photoshop?”— it is a question I hear now and then.  I realize it is never meant as some scathing critique of my work.  Some folks, so used to a digital format for all imagery, assume this is the best and only option.  It is tied into the same set of beliefs that an Instagram filter will turn you into an Imogen Cunningham or Edward Weston.   When you see one of their photos in person (not online) you immediately can tell.  Analog photography is here to stay. 

With collage and mixed media work it is a similar conundrum. There is some really good digital collage work out there.  And at times, I have seen some high-quality prints that are quite impressive.  But, when you view analog collage, handmade, one-of-a-kind work in person — you can see it.  Like practically all art, no book or jpeg can do the work justice.  

It is a problem I face with my work.  While I am glad for the ease of being able to share it online, it is never the same as being able to show it to art lovers in person.  

April Mailbox

Time to organize and sort some of the latest mail art that had]s arrived here in San Francisco.  Everything from rubber stamp art, to zines, to some Brexit pain and another one of these amazing movable pieces from Kathy Barnett.

1. The list includes the following:
2. Maria Quiroga – Argentina 
3. Fleur Helsingor– California
4. Sally Wassink– California 
5. William Mellott– Taiwan
6. Debra Mulnick – Idaho
7. Peter Müller – Germany
8. Dori Singh – California 
9. Margaret Hill – San Francisco
10. Kathy Barnett – Missouri
11. Bonniediva – Illinois 
12. Mindaugas Žuromskas

Wycinanki Dream

Wycinanki Dream, 24”x36”, mixed media on board

This can’t be called traditional Wycinanki (cut-paper folk art), but it definitely was the source of my inspiration.  

Post-Folk Art

Łowicz,16”x16”, mixed media on board 

My collage work has changed in recent years.  I have moved away from found ephemera and have shifted to making my own material.   Typically that means painting paper in different colors and then cutting it up into small pieces.  The cut, painted paper is reconfigured into collages.  For the past year I have been working on a new series that refer to as Post-Folk Art. This series is a nod to the color palettes found in costumes, textiles, pottery and other forms of traditional Kashubian and Polish folk art.

You can see the entire Post-Folk Art series at tofuart.com.   

Happy New Mail Year

Here are some of the latest pieces of mail art to arrive in my mail box.  New Year’s greetings, both lunar and regular, valentines, rubber stamping, zines, super tactile pieces form Turkey and New Zealand, postcards from Canada that survived the polar vortex and signs that Gregg Biggs is channeling George Grosz in the new year — I do approve!  The list includes the following:

1. Maureen Forys– California
2. Margarete Miller— California 
3. Alice Lin – California
4. Jennie Hinchcliff– California
5. Taidgh Lynch —Canada/Ireland
6. MiM– Virginia 
7. R.F. Côté— Canada
8. William Mellott– Taiwan 
9. Gregg Biggs — California
10. Jennifer Utter – California
11. Meral Agar– Turkey 
12. Melissa Wand— Wisconsin
13. Peter Müller — Germany 
14. Robin Sparrow— New Zealand 
15. Cuan Miles– South Africa
16. Ryosuke Cohen– Japan