Mail Art inspired by an Orange Crush bottle

 

Responding to a mail art call with the theme Message in a Bottle here is the piece off to Germany with a story.

40 years ago, after a big winter storm, my mom and I found a deep bed of eel grass that had been pushed up out of Nantucket Sound onto the beach.  We found an old Orange Crush bottle. The painted label had worn away and we wondered if it had been floating in the Atlantic since the 1940s. The bottle spent decades on a kitchen windowsill on Cape Cod until it found its way to my home in San Francisco.
 
The bottle is a time traveler.  The bottle is the message.

Bookcase Collages

My bookcase collages are going to get bigger and bigger — the latest one is 16”x16”. Hours were spent painting paper, cutting paper and finally assembling the “bookcase.”

As I was gluing, I kept thinking about how my entire life has always had walls of books in the background. When I was 5 years old, we moved into a Victorian house with a large living room with built-in bookcases. They were 16 feet wide and all the way to the top of the 10-foot ceilings. At that point my parents did not own that many books, yet. My father even bought “filler” books like old encyclopedias at the Goodwill.  When we moved to a New England house with less space and lower ceilings, the filler books got left behind, but the TV room still had a full wall of books. My San Francisco apartment is filled with more than 1,000 books. I even worked in an office for many years where every time I looked up from my desk there was a wall of books.

I imagine looking at all these books for all these years might be part of the reason for my latest art obsession.  

I am not done yet…

New Art about Books

I have been exploring variations of book-themed art for many years, including my own Chaekgeori series.  My newest mixed media series is bookcase collages. I am mostly making my own collage material that begins with painting paper. I then mix in a bit of other paper sources before cutting it all up to resemble the spines of books.  Many different colors and sizes.  One by one they are added to the “shelves.” I started out with small work and now have finished a set of three that are 8”x8” each. I am planning on bigger pieces but with the same size books — I am open to commissions if you are interested in having your own bookcase collage.

Year of the Snake 🐍

 
To celebrate the Year of the Snake my latest series of mail art used hand-carved, rubber stamps.  Of course, it’s the endangered and beautiful San Francisco Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia).  Let’s hope the snake can bring us peace and harmony and rid us of all those unwanted pests. Happy New Year!  

Caffeinated Mail Art

 

Can you make art without coffee?   I did not want to take any chances so my first set of mail art for 2025 is Caffeinated Mail Art!

Books, Books and more Books

 

I always like doing book-themed work and my latest series is using various ink and book-shaped rubber stamps. 

While still keeping myself informed, I also have cut way back on news, especially the mainstream, compliant, corporate media.  I have stopped watching almost all TV news.  And the good news is more time to read books.  BOOKS!   Keeping reading and stay sane.

It’s an Aerogram!

Do you remember aerograms?  Aerograms were a single sheet of paper with gummed edges that had to be folded and sealed.   No enclosures were permitted, and you could not even use tape to seal them.  The cost was less than sending an airmail letter.   

In 1985, aerograms came franked with 36¢ postage.  It cost more than sending a postcard via airmail (33¢) but less than an airmail letter (44¢). The cost difference today seems quite insignificant even considering it was nearly 40 years ago.  But when you’re a student, you’ll always do something to save a few cents. 

 

You could fill the aerogram with as much writing as you could fit — write small or better yet, use a typewriter.  The rule was you just couldn’t put anything inside an aerogram. 

 

In the 1990s, as more people started having access to email, the aerogram was destined to become obsolete.  The U.S. Postal Service discontinued them in 2006.  In Britain they lasted until 2012. Very few countries offer them anymore. Australia still has them for sale. 

At a recent San Francisco Correspondence Co-op meeting I found these unused aerograms on the swap table. I knew I had to take them to do a series of mail art. I wonder if some of my recipients will even know what aerograms are.