Say Gay!

Did we ever imagine living in a world where Florida’s governor would have a Russian dictator as a role model?  Yet here we are in 2022 with dictator wannabe Ron DeSantis declaring “Don’t Say Gay.”  How about Don’t Say DeSantis instead? It was time for me to repurpose a bunch of vintage Florida postcards and do a new series of mail art reminding all of us to just say gay!

Florida Hijinks

What to do with a bunch of old instamatic photos from the 1970s. Instamatics were popular point-and-shoot cameras that used square format, 126 film in easy to install cartridges.  My own first camera was an instamatic.  The low quality of the camera and the cheap film has left us with faded snapshots 40 years later.  

Technically these are not “found photos” as I know the source. I ended up with a stack of some of my grandmother’s photos albums.  Albums filled with snapshots from Florida vacations with her friends and coworkers.  My grandmother had a successful careeras a department store buyer and these pictures were taken on well-deserved vacations.  Look closely, she is in some of the shots.  There is a lot of drinking, smoking, and partying going on as well as fishing and lying in the sun.

Because the photos are not family photos, they had no personal, sentimental value for me.  Get out the scissors, reach for the glue!  Here are some of the originals now repurposed in a new series of photo collages.

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.

Pop-Up Mail Art

One of the treasures that turned up in the P.O. Box this week was from Sandra Lefever in Scarysota, Florida.  It included a postcard from her grandparent’s restaurant that immediately went on my vintage postcard blog. And then, wrapped in a little envelope, was this pop-up book made from Chinese hell money.  Check out more of her work here.   Thank you Sandra!