David Stafford's Blog (209)

I went home to see my mom (age 96) a few weeks ago and I noticed a Mockingbird singing away at the top of a telephone pole in front of her house. He sang for (what seemed) like five hours straight (with breaks for water and insects). I thought, “Now there’s a guy who likes the sound of his own voice.” Birders will interject, “but it’s not his voice. It’s a compendium of bird songs plus whatever other sounds he fancies.” True dat. But five hours! This is like Barbra Streisand singing for an…

Okay, the invisible tower is a stretch but bear me out here...Remember when you had huge CD towers poised like monoliths around your stereo? (Remember using the word "stereo?") Well, gradually and not so gradually those towers have been disappearing, fading into the limbo of orphan technologies. And there...is your invisible tower which is what Stephanie has condensed into one piece with multiple purposes: 1) archiving not just the covers themselves 2) but more importantly the experience of…

Lesley Magwood Fraser and I have a little dialog going about art, what it is, whether we can legitimately call all our creations art. On the days when my meds haven't reached stun I tend to be less sanguine about my own projects. Lesley, on the other hand, is filled with the hopefulness that Kloofians are famous for. To bolster her argument she, like Katerina before her, quotes Warhol to good effect. One thing is clear, Lesley's drawings are chuffworthy. Like most Kloofites she profits from…

As I may have mentioned I am behind in my bloggin'. In fact, some people have sent me more than several things that I haven't gotten around to acknowledging. Believe me, I will catch up but it may take a while. Katerina of Thessaloniki is one such person who, I think, has sent me four, count 'em, four artworks. (Frederick's of Hollywood is another but we'll save his story for some other time). Many of you have remarked that Katerina's Blue Period began this spring when the Aegean turns from…

Janine has been sending me things like crazy this spring. Like this joyful Matissean envelope.

And inside....

...this cornucopia of color, a garland of shoes with Mr. Pritt and me trapped behind scissorhands...Smashpo,…

I am so far behind in my blogging that I may never catch up. Forgive me, everybody. But I am starting here with a piece that arrived from Dean just before we departed for Europe.

It’s a wonderful riff on the Vizma Art Barns or whatever they are with one of Dean’s strange stories on the back that creates more loose ends than it ties up. Which, of course, is the way we…

Let’s lay this blogjam to rest with the lawyerly grouping of French, James & Granlund. Apparently Austin James has a secret life. But have no fear. His piece “Mood No. 6: My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult,” is definitely drawn from the gentler side of the Thrill Killers. Isadora Duncan is what comes to mind. Thank you, Austin.

Next Carina Granlund sent me…

The Cheryl Penn Dilemma What are we to do with Cheryl Penn? Her art, always masterful, always protean (look it up, I did) always dreamlike in its complexity or complex in its dreamworld evocations. Shifting beneath your feet as you reach out to its varied meanings and tangled up in the dreamworlds of others, mingling at some height high above the earth. The Penn-o-sphere. The air up there is rarified (Esoterically distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people) but not hard…

Thanks to Nancy Bell Scott or whoever coined the term Blogjam. It’s the perfect word for my current affliction. Apologies to all whose mail art has been languishing near my scanner. Let me begin with Stephanie Blake’s Whirligig Mugshot which amazed both of us by arriving without a scratch. Not even a torn edge.

 I know many of you will be tempted to try…

Some of you may remember the Orchard Beach Codex. For those who don't a quick recap. The OBC, so-called because it washed ashore in Old Orchard Beach, Maine in 1947, is an obscure collection of medieval documents cobbled together some around the turn of one of the centuries. At one time, many scholars say, the OBC was over 6,000 pages long, its pages consisting of a compendium Bible quotes, language primers, advice for the lovelorn and recipes for kippered snacks. Over time the OBC was…

This just in! The latest boekie (Sp?) from Skybridge Studios: A solid gold hit! An artifact from the Summer of Love (sorry, you missed it, kids), An accordion mash up that bestrides several worlds all at once including but not limited to: Jefferson Airplane, Grace Slick, Alice in Wonderland, Recreation drugs and Froggie Went a Courtin'. I have thrown Zeus into the mix because he just hates, hates, hates to be left out. …

Another triple header this week starting with a lovely Valentine from Katerina Nikoltsou....I think this reads Love Again but it could be a Greek word as well. I wish I'd had the time to send out Valentine's this year....maybe next year...Thank you, Katerina...Hope all's well in turbulent Greece.

 Next up: Big Hair from Starnberg...the fabulous Mona Lisa Winehouse from…

It's been a good week on Alamo Drive for mail art. First up: Lesley Magwood Fraser's strange creature.

 It could be a turtle or an echidna or a spina bifida. We just don't know. However, scientists at Bell Labs suggested that colorization may help identify this little guy.…

I received this yesterday from Dean Marks, the King of Bar Code Art....Though at this point he's probably more like the Emperor or the High Priest or even the God of Bar Code Art. He has taken it beyond the beyond. Check it out.

Now I have to admit the first thing that I thought of was not bar code. I don't think the two dimensional scan can convey the tactile…

Four cool pieces from around the globe. First off a zen cookie from Mim in Virginia with a sort of blackboard effect. Unfortunately I had to drop out of my Asemic Writing class at the community college so I can’t quite decipher the writing and it may not be writing at all. It could be a bat hurtling through space having lost its radar in the stratosphere. But there is definitely a cookie in there. Thank you, Mim.…

Christmas arrived early this week in the form of a brown paper package not tied up with string but it certainly contained a few of Nancy Bell Scott’s favorite things. 38 of them, in fact. All carefully annotated and laid out like specimens from a Library of Congress collection. There are bits of string, rust, a rock from Mexico and Nancy’s drugs of choice:…

We were sitting around the enormous hearth at Klavworster’s Grotto when the subject of ghosts came up. “Africa is filled with ghosts,” old De Toit said. He closed his eyes and we watched as he conjured the spirits he spoke of. I closed mine too and felt the racing of the dead, human and animal, across a cave painting, the endless hunt, frozen in time. We were all…

Dean Marks, merry prankster in Paris, sent me this gargantuan card. The scans do not convey its heft, supplied by a piece of plexiglas from a fallen traffic signal. In other words, industrial strength trashpo or Traffic Light from the City of Lights (they can spare one). Featured on the front is another of Dean's barcode creations to which he has affixed my head. Aside from aiding and abetting my cult, the entire thing resembles a costume drawing for an Ubu Roi update. The barcode booties…

It's not often we receive full frontal nudity in our mailbox here on Alamo Drive. Especially when it concerns the mail of the species. But KDJ goes boldly where others fear to tread and besides she's merely recording an actual historical event: The Day Johnny Walker Left His Pants at Home. Much like Lady Godiva's famous ride without her extensive PR team, Johnny Walker's Walk, as it's known in the deep, deep impenetrably deep South, was one of those watershed events that turned the tide.…