Thom Courcelle's Blog (217)

This wonderful card came from Debbie Dosanko in Japan.  Debbie notes, "This is an illustration and quote from my translation of an Ainu folktale published in the TOMO Anthology this spring."  Owls have somehow been prevalent this fall.  A barn owl swooped about an inch from my brother's head at our farm a couple weeks ago.  And a snowy owl was documented in the Capitol Hill…

Neil sent an exciting package to me recently. (When ISN'T it exciting to get a big package??!!  WHHHOoooOOHHooo!!) 

Upon opening it I found two nice balls of yarn--just PERFECT for creating some DK Oracle™ bags for the Trashpo folks!! AND... some original art boekies that Neil created that incorporate doodles, character sketches, rubber stamps, and scratch notes.  Several pages are like a bestiary of wormish-dragons.  They're…

Hi friends! I'm recently returned from travels abroad--a lovely holiday, thank you--and I received some great mail that collected while I was away! A great fun time to go through the loot upon my return, and I wanted to share some with you (it may take multiple blog postes to get through it all...)

Many pieces were Hallowe'en-themed, so it is appropriate that I'm documenting it on the hallowed day itself...

Amy Irwen's awesome little package was WAY more 'TREAT' than 'trick!'…

Katerina Nikoltsou might be the Greek version of America's Johnny Appleseed...  She has apparently been strewing blue grass seeds all over the Greek Isles!  

Now there is so much of it sprouting everywhere  around the ruins of Greece that the goddess Athena has returned from Mount Olymous with her magical WEED-WHACKER to trim the blue blades into a more…

Some of you might know that Halloween is one of my favorite mail-art-posting holidays.  This year, I got an early Halloween surprise from Vizma in Australia!  A whole, scarey, spooky art book!!  And since a picture is worth a thousand words, Here it is posted page-by-page, so that you can have as much fun perusing it as I did...

First the envelope:…

Galloping through many lands to reach my address, this piece depicting multiple eras of British Isle history from Bifidus Jones:

This multi-colored finger puppet with button eyes arrived attached to board from Suus in Mokam:

And, a new set of…

A souvenir of the World Stamp Championship in Jakarta, Indonesia (with added ephemera):

...even with an image close to my cobtastic heart!...…

Ohhh..a big red envelope arrived from Japan with delectibles that could only have come from the artisticly devious mind of Marie Wintzer...  MULITPLE interesting pieces, many of them in leaflet or booklet form.  First  to catch my eye was an instructional booklet on some altered sheet music...…

Many famous painters through history were so prolific in their practice that they used their canvases over and over so as not to waste their resources. Nadine, too, is always exercising her portraiture talent depicting the people she encounters, and she often paints on BOTH sides of her canvas-medium, doubling the usefulness of her materials.  It's like getting a bonus in the mail!  Take this paint on board piece she recently sent my way...…

Stripes can be slimming--if worn in the right direction. But Dean Marks sent me a BIG mail art piece with stripes in every which direction!  Hey wait... that's one of his famous bar code masterpieces!

I thought there might be a secret message hidden in the jumble, so I brought this piece to the grocery store and asked the check-out girl to scan it for me.…

Nancy Bell Scott's been at it again--turning ephemera, art-fragments, and clippings into mailart treasure. Several pages and views of this flip-book-style work are here presented for your viewing enjoyment (some commentary by the recipient included, as he was unable to restrain himself...)

Though the main artwork is diverse and enthralling, one of the…

Uh oh!...

UH OH!!!....

Oh... never mind.  It's fine...

It's just Trashpo from…

Creative genius from David Stafford...

The depicted sacred scroll (possibly inspired by School House Rock's "I'm just a bill, up on Capitol Hill..."???):

The envelope in it's complete view:…

Lucky me, I received a bright yellow envelope from Marie with wonderful things inside to delight my senses!

Loved the graphics on the outside of the envelope...the back had artworks with collaged orange fruits to announce the MinXus Solar Festival 2012.  They looked like little tarot cards to me... the three of pentacles and the six of pentacles (?)…

...And the world is full of all kinds of magical creatures--bandits, ogres, and sorcerers!

This gem arrived in a thick wad of plastic wrap, noting on the outside the delectible contents that awaited inside, and the ominous instructions: "Open carefully; GOOD LUCK!"…

Now I will have to put on my starched white shirt and dress slacks and go door-to-door to pass out my pamphlets and discuss the saving grace of DKult [art]...

All of this paraphernalia arrived stuffed in a Kane County Jury Commission envelope--repurposed and re-addressed to me. (I hope our DKult leader isn't shirking her civic duties by sending her jury summons…

You better believe it!!!  But so, also, is Carina's amazing artwork sent to me!

This is definietly a mixed media piece. I think it is collage with quite a lot of tape-transfer technique imagery.  But there are some hand-penciled embellishments, too.  Overall a stunner!  Thanks bunches,…

This piece is a response from Lesley to a New Yorker article I read and sent to her about figure drawing.  (Lesley is always terrific at working on a theme or quotation that we happen to exchange back and forth--she is a great art conversationalist in that sense!) I suppose this piece of mail art could have been included in my post of recently received Book Form artworks, because it is an accordion-style piece. But it works as a single artwork when opened up as well.  It's hard for…

Several have been received of late.  The most miniature example of the collection was a brilliant one from Sally Wassink (California, USA) and arrived in its own minature envelope...…

Trying to catch-up and recognize some wonderful artists who've blessed my mailbox over the past couple weeks...

Sandra Pinon (France) send an amazing collage piece naked through the postal service:

Got my first trade with Vizma Bruns (Australia), and she was the sweetest sweety-pie to make it fiber-themed!  Notice the crocheted eyes and lips!  They are…