September 13, 2010 - Found a very nice piece of mail-art in my P.O. box from Cheryl Penn last Saturday.
This is the front of the envelope. The woman at the P.O. desk said…
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Added by De Villo Sloan on October 14, 2010 at 2:30am —
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(from 'deep square wave structure" by Karl Kempton)
October 11, 2010 - So, okay, I'm not actually mailing this. I didn't want to change the blog format for a one-time thing. Cheryl, it's amazing how Mehrl Bennett could put things in… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on October 12, 2010 at 11:00am —
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October 11, 2010 - Hugo Porcaro (Rev. Hugo) sent me this absolutely uplifting piece of mail-art that I can completely appreciate and that - as seems to happen in this mysterious flow of things - couldn't have come at a better time. Rev. Hugo washes it all away with joyous mail-art that reminds me what I'm here for and I am born again. His IOUMA profile says St.…
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Added by De Villo Sloan on October 11, 2010 at 11:00am —
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October 9, 2010 - Discovering Mehrl Bennett's art and visual poetry has been yet another benefit of being a part of the IUOMA. Mehrl (aka Visual Mom) is part of a community of artists and poets that, for me, is a center of vispo in the U.S. This group includes IUOMA members Ficus Strangulensis, Sheila Murphy, Jim Leftwich, Matthew Stolte, and of course John Bennett. There are many… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on October 10, 2010 at 2:00pm —
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October 7, 2010 - Karen Champlin sent me a new set of her mail-art assemblages, which I appreciate very much. It just seems to me her work gets better and better. In a previous blog, I discussed at length the relation of her work to vispo. Her use of textual material becomes increasingly more diverse and complex. This piece is the first example of something I've received from her that… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on October 8, 2010 at 10:00am —
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October 5, 2010 - Jon Foster from the southeastern part of the U.S. sent me this very economical or minimalist piece of mail-art that I appreciate very much. The majority of space is distressed blank cardboard. Although, as you can see faintly, there is some - what I take to be - indented store coding of the "found variety." The obscured eyes are… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on October 7, 2010 at 9:30am —
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October 5, 2010 - This is the final installment from the series of mail-art prints Brent Leopold in Pennsylvania sent me. In the beginning I focused on the larger prints in the collection. Some of the smaller pieces (you can't judge size well from the scans) are very interesting. Brent produced somewhere around 1,300 prints last summer. A real project would be to look through the… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on October 6, 2010 at 9:30am —
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(Re-enactment of Simba eating Erni Bar's mail-art; no mail-art was harmed.)
October 4, 2010 - Dear Erni, I deeply appreciate that you sent me chocolate from Germany. I would advise most people not to ingest mail-art. But Erni, you are a very good IUOMA friend and fellow Dharma Bum. I had no concern…
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Added by De Villo Sloan on October 5, 2010 at 10:30am —
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October 2, 2010 - Ruud Janssen, IOUMA founder and artist, is just the best in my book. With everything else he's doing, he manages to keep his mail-art flowing and respond to all kinds of requests and questions. Several weeks ago I received mail-art from him in one of his hand-painted envelopes. It included an add-and-pass sheet to gather Fluxus mail-art documentation for the TAM… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on October 3, 2010 at 12:00pm —
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September 30, 2010 - This posting is the second part (looks like a total of three) of one batch of outstanding mail-art prints Brent sent me from Pennsylvania. He did an amazing run of about 1,300 prints this summer. In one of the messages we exchanged, he was talking about how much he enjoys mail-art as an alternative to gallery shows - he does show his work on the ground too. All… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on October 1, 2010 at 11:00am —
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September 30, 2010 - Kiera Pannell, an object constantly in motion during the summer, seems to be settled for a while in the UK. She always told me she was from Canada, and the mail-art from her is addressed from everywhere else in the world. IUOMA members who were here over the summer might remember Kiera traveled across Europe and was… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on October 1, 2010 at 2:00am —
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September 29, 2010 - A long-anticipated piece of mail-art arrived in New York from Marie Wintzer about a week ago. I follow Marie's blog and have seen her postings here at the IUOMA, so I knew what I was getting. But nothing really substitutes for the original work itself. The central, post-card size image (above) is rich with layering, text/ure, and is made meticulously (remember… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on September 30, 2010 at 10:30am —
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September 28, 2010 - JF CHAPELLE sent me the piece above, which was included in an envelope that also contained a postcard you can see scanned further below. First the documentation for the entire piece. This past July I mailed the item pictured below to JF (photo courtesy of JF from his IUOMA portfolio). It consists of the plastic arm of a Barbie doll from Walmart, a… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on September 29, 2010 at 10:30am —
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September 28, 2010 - In the expansive global community of mail-art, Brent Leopold and I are neighbors. I received one of my first pieces of mail-art as an IUOMA member from Brent. More recently, I saw some of his new prints posted on gail d whitter's blog (she's in Canada and a very interesting veteran of the legendary Vancouver poetry scene in addition to being a mail-artist). gail… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on September 28, 2010 at 11:00am —
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September 27, 2010: A second installment of mail art arrived from my unknown correspondent in Minnesota. I've been waiting for an opportunity to say some small thing about cryptic mail-art (yes, I've joined the hyphen camp), as I think it is fairly unique to what we do and a definite part of any mail-art history I know. I only know a very small part of it compared to others here. I go first to Webster's…
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Added by De Villo Sloan on September 28, 2010 at 2:00am —
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September 25, 2010 - Like a number of other IUOMA friends, I'm working through and taking time to appreciate just a phenomenal wave of mail-art arriving. I received my first envelope from Sherri Ayers. In addition, to her art she included a very nice hand-written message and an invitation to participate in a mail-art poetry show. Sherri sends paint swatches. You compose poems based… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on September 27, 2010 at 6:30pm —
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September 25, 2010 - I received a very thoughtful post card-size piece of mail-art from IUOMA friend Mim Golub Scalin that could possibly - and things are certainly open to multiple but all equally valid interpretations - make reference to a number of topics that have emerged here at various times ranging from vispo, to ripped collage, to shoes and fixing people's shoes. More of her… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on September 27, 2010 at 1:00am —
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September 25, 2010 - Cheryl Penn is an artist in South Africa who I see as working in that borderland between written text and visual image. For lack of anything better, this area can be called the visual-verbal. This is a limited edition (1/7) mail-artists book. I included what is actually the back cover of her book, because everything she is doing is very much centered in an… Continue
Added by De Villo Sloan on September 25, 2010 at 1:00pm —
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September 23, 2010: Ptrzia (TICTAC) sent me a wonderful package reflecting her identity as a a conceptual artist, and I feel a real affinity for what she is doing. I'm just finishing reading "Fluxus Experience" by Hannah Higgins (University of California Press 2002). I picked this book because Higgins is the daughter of Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins: two…
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Added by De Villo Sloan on September 24, 2010 at 10:30am —
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Added by De Villo Sloan on September 23, 2010 at 3:00am —
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