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.   

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, See the Sun Come Out – Day 33

Today is about some solar energy postage.

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.

New Year, New Mail

My P.O. Box was full after I returned from Christmas travel and more cool mail art keeps arriving.  There were some holiday card stragglers, a new awesome booklet from e. coles (I am building up quite the collection) and more Artist Trading Cards.  I have been filling up an ATC binder that I often show off when friends come by.  These new holiday ones from Kerosene, Amy Irwen’s moon series and Cuan Miles’ latest ATCs are all in the binder.  I answered Eric Bruth’s mail art call for postcards made with recycled paper bags.  He sent back a piece in a handmade envelope from a pink paper bag.  Gregg Biggs’ postcard was postmarked on the “wrong” side, but I always like when mail art is authenticated like this.  Pier Roberto Bassi sent an artist stamp and a card emblazoned with number 17.  17 is my favorite and lucky number.  Hopefully a sign for a better new year.

1. Carolyn Oord (aka Kerosene)
2. Barbara Stasiowski
3. Julie Crossman
4. Amy Irwen
5. Peter Müller
6. Eric Bruth
7. e. coles
8. MIM
9. Gregg Biggs
10. Cuan Miles
11. Heather Ferguson
12. Pier Roberto Bassi

30,000 Miles

When I added up the mileage for just six wonderful pieces of mail art I have recently received I realized the tally was over 30,000 miles (48,000 km).  That’s a lot of postal frequent flyer miles in these six pieces:

1. William Mellott sent a new postcard and ATC using some of his amazing rubber stamps from Taiwan.
2. Connie Jean sent a modified postcard from Florida.
3. Carolyn Oord (aka Kerosene) sent a new ATC and a skeleton zine form across the continent in Québec.
4. Three new modified vintage postcards came from Anna Hollings in New Zealand.
5. Fun envelope and a great collage inside from Virgo in Russia.
6. And finally, a lovely, small folio of prints of Rebecca Guyver’s pastel work arrived from Britain.

Art in the Mail: August

Here is a sampling of some of the mail art that has been filling up my post office box this month:

1. Summery mail art from Virgo.
2. An especially pink bird arrived from Stripy Goose.
3. Pamela Gerard turned our recent meeting of the San Francisco Correspondence Coop into a postcard.
4. Mail art from Tiina from Finland (but I don’t have a mailing artist to send something back).
5. Punkie Ebert has printed up these cool little booklets/zines that incorporate both literary postage stamps and works by the authors.
6. Dori Signh’s mail included a rubber stamp mandala.
7. Robin Sparrow sent this incredible tactile mail art/envelope piece from New Zealand that brought me back to the children’s book Pat the Bunny. 
8. Eberhard Janke sends out Call & Response, a zine compilation of mail art received — I love receiving these and really appreciate it considering the cost of printing and postage.
9. Two new prints from Serse Luigetti in Italy including this Barbed Wire Poem.

There has been some additional mail coming in that responds to pieces I have been sending out, stay tuned for those.

Unconventional Pink Mail Art

When you have a call for mail art you inevitably get some unconventional interpretations of “postcard.”  Last year’s show included a postcard made from bubble gum, a pink glitter clipboard and memo pad and even a back of pink popcorn from the stand at Stow Lake.

This week this mask/pink postcard arrived safely in a box placed in an envelope from the English artist David Plumb.  Great fun and I am also impressed that you can send something like that from the UK for only £5.10 – I wish the U.S. Postal Service did not charge so much to send light weight packages overseas.