Spring Mail Call

Every time I head over to Golden Gate Park to enjoy springtime splendor, I stop by my post office box in the Upper Haight and see what mail art has shown up.  Here is a sampling of somethings that have arrived in the past month: 

1. Wabi Sabi Sews – California 
2. Margo Hill – California 
3. Esther Kwan – California
4. Gregg Biggs – Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera – California
5. Jean-Phillippe Gilliot – Belgium 
6. The Sticker Dude – New York 
7. Valdor – Catalonia/Spain
8. Ed Giecek – Washington
9. Kathy Barnett – Missouri
10. Fleur Helsingor – California

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!

Recycling Envelopes

After 10+ years of exchanging mail art with other artists, my archive boxes are bursting at the seams.   Sometimes the envelopes are an integral part of the piece.  Many envelopes are works of art themselves.  But other times they are just envelopes.  To lighten the load in my archive boxes, I removed the boring envelopes and recycled them by turning them into mail art.    This series was mailed out yesterday,  

Mail Art from Ukraine 🇺🇦

Last week mail art was received from Lubomyr Tymkiv in Lviv, Ukraine.  It was mailed just before the invasion and it took months to get here.  I got email from Lubomyr last week and I hope he and everyone in Ukraine can see this war end soon.

Brain Cell Brain

When you send mail art to Ryosuke Cohen in Japan, you eventually receive one of his Brain Cells back in the mail.  He creates and copies collages made from the mail art he receives.  I am not sure if I was supposed to preserve all of these in my overflowing mail art archives forever.  Using one of my hand carved rubber stamps, I did a series of brain cell brains.  All applied to unused Hungarian franked postcards that end up in a collage fodder box.   The brains are on their way back around the world.

Winterful Mail

Time to get caught up and sort through all the mail art I received in the last few months.    It is nice to hear from folks I have not received anything from in quite a while, which is understandable with all the pandemic mail delays.  And a few artists, sent me mail art for the first time, including some nice ATCs from Tim Collapse as well as a bit of a mystery from Portugal (no return address).  Here is a list of the artists shown in this batch:  

1. Jennifer Utter – California
2. Maureen Forys – California
3. Jean-Phillippe Gilliot – Belgium 
4. Sandra Lefever – Florida
5. Dori Singh – California 
6. Carolyn Oord (aka Kerosene) – Québec/Canada
7. Rebeca R. – Portugal
8. Cuan Miles – South Africa
9. Jon Foster – North Carolina 
10. The Sticker Dude – New York 
11. Maria Quiroga – Argentina 
12. Kathy Barnett – Missouri
13. Tim Collapse – North Carolina
14. Marina Salmaso – Denmark
15. Heather Ferguson – California
16. Mindaugas Žuromskas – Lithuania 
17. William Mellott – Taiwan 
18. Jerome Jacobs – California 
19. Serse Luigetti – Italy
20. Meral Agar – Turkey 
21. Roger Mulford – Massachusetts
22. Gina Visione – California
23. MiM – Virginia 
24. Wabi Sabi Sews – California 
25. Fleur Helsingor – California
26. Peter Müller — Germany 
27. Gregg Biggs – Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera – California

The Year of the Tiger

The U.S. Postal Service has come up with a great commemorative stamp for the lunar new year. The Year of the Tiger is my favorite one (guess why).  I thought the best way to celebrate was with some mail art.  After making some hand-carved rubber stamps, these postcards are on their way around the world.