Thom Courcelle's Blog (217)

Add-a-Head Add-n-Pass (Feel free to download these images and make standard copy-sheet size—8.5 x 11 inches)

Add a head…or two…or five…and pass this along to another…

David recently sent me a hefty Manila envelope and when I opened it, this happened...

Ephemera! Glorious! Ephemera!!! A LOT of it!!

David has either been collecting magazines since he was a toddler (or since his parents were toddlers), or he happened upon a yard sale with a mother load of Good Housekeeping magazines from the WWII…

Sometimes I get something in the mail that I just think, “...Whoa. What did I do to deserve something like that showing up in my mailbox?”  It’s “Something More Than Mail Art.”  Exhibit A:

Holy Seamonsters, Batman!

...That’s an…

Hedgehogs and sea lions and cat burglar kitties, OH MY!!!

Carina keeps in touch with late-winter greetings...and animals that the groundhog would only see if he hadn't seen his shadow on Feb. 2nd. But indeed he did, meaning six more weeks of winter weather. In fact...there's a snow storm expected to roll in here tomorrow dumping another 6 inches…

As soon as Fiorentina Giannotta came onto the scene of IUOMA, I knew I needed to make supplication for her mail art. I LOVE her portraits...so much color, so much detail, so much whimsy, so many layers of texture... look how she fills the space of her canvas in the piece to the right. And the historical vestments and hair wigs, etcetera, all add to a sense of…

This blog is continuing a series of posts describing received correspondence that is "Something More Than Mail Art"—(SMTMA)—mail art that exceeds the standards of anticipation. (For a fuller description, see my previous blog post: …

Sometimes we get something in the mail that exceeds expectations and excels beyond requirements of the medium of mail art. So this is a new "category" or "genus" or "subspecies" of blog post that I am creating for my documenting reviews: "Something…

Perhaps these artistamps by Jack of Cascadia Artpost say it best... We are indeed in a stormy season. But a stormy political front always means there will be some inspired art from the politically oppressed. And if you're an artist who DOESN'T feel politically oppressed...you're not paying attention. With the National Endowment for the Arts and the National…

Solstice and News Years wishes received from friends near and far... clockwise from upper right:

"New Years Rooster 2017" by Angie Cope (USA)

"New Years Wishes" arrived in an amazing FABRIC ENVELOPE from Ouis (France)...bonus for the safety pin making it through the mail and a great safety pin artistamp.

"Have an…

New Friend, Sa Mue sends this nifty print-and-collage with a wonderful note about her former travels to my hometown in Vermont...

Melissa Wand sent this thrilling envelope with treasures inside: a collage with a…

Clockwise from Upper Right:

"Resist the Norm; Rebuke the Expected; Refute Conformity" by Amalgamated Confusion (USA)

"King Kong Audition" by David Stafford (USA)

"Remembrance of Harley" montage of the mail artist and his work by Cascadia Artpost (USA)

"Assembly in Orbit" by William Mellott…

I've been remiss in posting received mail art of late... Guess I've been preoccupied with recent events. I've also been busy furiously knitting (literally and figuratively) pink hats for the rebellion. It's taken up a lot of free time, but the time is ripe for activism. So, dear friends, please forgive my tardiness...…

These came separately in the mail more than a week apart. How lucky am I to get double-whammied??! The first one (top) is a painted envelope that Ruud has apparently been saving in his mail launcher for several years. "Sometimes it takes time for a piece to start traveling," Ruud notes. I have a large stash of envelope and postcard pieces I have…

Some short time ago, Nancy Bell Scott posted her own picture of this lovely work she completed, and titled it "Finish Line." And I am the lucky recipient. But on the back of the piece she has written a new title: "The Road Between."

I'm not sure, but I think I like the latter title. "The Finish Line" seems so...final. Like we pushed…

I couldn't have asked for a nicer surprise if I had gone trick-or-treating door-to-door!  So wonderful to hear from Mary, who has been a regular Halloween mail-art friend. This year, she sent a hand-stitched quilted piece on cardboard with plenty of Halloween themed characters—cats and bats and skeletons and ghosts... The soft, cozy fabric makes them all seem…

Just ask David Stafford!!!

Yes...but what KIND of casserole, God's chosen want to know... I mean, it's the Last Supper, after all. The reverse of the postcard goes into even greater detail...

If I didn't know better, and if the postcard weren't so stiff, I might've guessed that this piece was an old used paper napkin on which David…

I got quite a mail art surprise from Dean (that Artist in Seine). Completely unexpected and a thrill to gawk at and peruse through. As "boekie" mail art goes, this one's a star—a collection of all sorts of classic and antique images, papers, ephemera, textiles and even holograms (!) that make for une grande tournée d'art collage.

Wish that you all…

The thing about Mail Art is... that they often work REALLY well as bookmarks. Especially really magnificent and beautiful pieces of Mail Art that I wanna keep near me so that I remember to blog about them.

But the OTHER thing about using Mail Art as bookmarks...is that if you read as much as I do and have a gazillion books around that you're using…

Boy, did I get  wonderful mailing from Melissa Wand.  I had sent her a Souvenir of the 2016 U.S. Election, and she sent me back this envelope with a couple of cute politically-themed postcards,a nice note, and several political cartoon clippings.

But I have to admit that the best part of Melissa's mailing was the envelope...because it IMMEDIATELY…

Riddle: What has scales, is weighed on a scale, and on a scale of one-to-ten ranks as a twelve?

Why that would be Allison Baker's first mail art piece to me! Allison didn't hold back at all in testing the limitations of the post office's mailing parameters for dimension, size, or shape. This fishy-shaped…