Thom Courcelle's Blog (204)

GOTIJ, INDEED!!  Some lovely women of South Africa have sent me enough art to roll around in!  No; I wouldn't roll around on it!  But it's plentiful enugh to make me feel spoiled!  Some solo work, and some collaborative...  And amazingly it all of it arrived on the same exact day.  It must have been a plot to overwhelm my ocular senses with artistic delight...

First to suffer the blow of my letter opener was a nice thick envelope from Lesley Magwood Fraser:…

"How?" I ask, "HOW...does she come up with such brilliant, delicate work to send through the mail?" Always so mysterious, so many details to be picked-through... I often want to attach some grandiose meaning or subtext to Marie's work because it so often seems like there is a great Story behind it.  It often feels like a top secret spy document encrypted with shadowy knowledge that will either change or save the world forever...

The relay from Agent 007 containing…

Many fond embraces from beautiful postal friends arrived for the celebration of St. Valentine's Day...

Did those hearts grab your attention?? That was actually a postcard from my Aunt Sally, who regularly sends me creative and unusual postcards... postal surprises must run in the family!

From Pretty Lily Sue, a super beautiful Valentines using…

Behold the latest hoard of magnificence!

From Angie, a sympathetic bow to the season:

Fortunately, Angie, the snow level has abated.  Still cold, but sunny--you can see the Olympic Mountains across from Elliott Bay today:

From…

Well, Seattle is experiencing what the news is calling "Snowpacolypse 2012."  Although, coming originally from snow-bound Vermont, it seems a mystery to me that this "light dusting" could cause so much distress.  Regardless, everything seems shut down: schools, businesses, bus routes...  I am able to walk to my workplace, but the building's heating unit went bust, and after working there a few hours couldn't feel my fingers anymore, and left early.  So today I'm working from home, doing some…

Received yet another astonishing piece from Guido Vermeulen recently... This one really "struck me" as fascinating, maybe because of the all-seeing eye at the center of the piece...

Guido titled this piece: "No Paseran!"  And how could one?  I was arrested by it the moment I saw it.  To me this piece evokes multiple imagery at once--the first thing I see is the…

Roberto always know how to brighten the corner where I am... because his works are always filled with color that celebrates the rainbow!  What an envelope!!  This is the biggest, brightest GOTIJ envelope I've ever got!

And special treats inside as well!...…

Some hand-drawn, some retooled and repurposed, all of them amusing...

From Nadine Wendell-Mojica in California, USA

From Val Herman, Sigean, France... I am supposed to share this one with my niece!

All kinds of little…

Ms. Wahl has sent another humorous piece to tickle my funny bone...

The text overlaying that funny print photograph says, "New mail art especially for you! Your dancing IUOMA friend, Svenja."

The reverse side of this hand-made card has another [actual] black-and-white photograph of lumberjacks... possibly doing a pole dance??!?...…

A couple of amazing Mail Art projects received in Book form... one from Marie Wintzer and another from Rob of Inkovia, both from the opposite side of the Pacific...

Marie's envelope was fascinating in and of itself--an impressionistic cityscape depicting people walking among the streets, between buildings, old and new, on a sunny-yellow day.  It's BEAUTIFUL…

Several mail art pieces have been incoming that are themed towards the Northern Hemisphere's Autumnal Equinox.  This year's fall season seems to be hurtling itself through the calendar days quicker than I have time to appreciate it.  So I am glad to receive mail from friends who have taken the time to contemplate and appreciate the season, and remind me that the Eleusinian Mysteries march onward through their ritual timeline regardless of whether I have time to observe them or not.  Here in…

Friends from South Africa have been thinking of me recently. A second mailing of South African provenance arrived of GOTIJ-standard caliber.  Strikingly, the format was similar to that of another South African compatriot's piece recently received--it was an accordion piece, and it also depicted an animal, though of the more aerie variety.  One really had to discover the avian fellow, however, as he splashed around in a bath of liquid alphabet characters.…

Galloping into my mailbox and rocking my world... or is that rocking into my mailbox and making my heart gallop?... was a stunning, double-sided, tri-fold accordion piece from Lesley Magwood Fraser.  One side depicting a block print of some creative invention--a black beauty on rocking arcs, and embellished by some intricately cut-out cartoons of a [less than] graceful, but comic, dismount.…

This time of year, it is we craftspersons--knitters and quilters and other artisans--who start to get a little shock of realization that we better get crackin' if we want to finish projects before the high winter holidays.  There are sweaters or hats or mittens or socks to knit, or wall hangings or new baby blankets to finish piecing and batting together.  It's a crazy time of furious fingers and stitches flying off needles.  Even more maddening, I have multiple family members with birthdays…

Well, first off, I am one lucky turkey-butt for all the wonderful postal friends I have and for the mail art I receive regularly.  I could sit here and make plaintive excuses for why it is that at this time of year I seem less and less able to come visit my favorite web community, but nobody really wants to hear sob stories about ugly work schedules and keeping one's circadian rhythms as normal as possible during these dark, dark, colder calendar days. Ugh... one gets up when it is dark.…

I sometimes get in the habit of blogging multiple pieces of mail art due to time constraints and volume, even though many of the works of art deserve their own independent posting. One of those amazing pieces, that I didn't want folks to miss, was a recent gift from Svenja Wahl that REALLY MADE MY DAY!!

 If you are looking at the photo of Svenja's envelope art…

If mail art came in a candy sack, I would be dragging my haul along the ground back to my lair so I could roll around in all my sweets!  As it is, I got some really SWEET mail art in celebration of All Hallow's Eve--the day that marks the thinnest veil between this world and the other where our forebears ethereally mingle. Just look at this stash:

This is truly some…

But wait… There’s more.  Domestic mail artists have been prolific with their artwork, too, proving that Americans produce garbage just as colorful as their overseas brethren.

From Marcia Cirillo, in Texas, a treasure map to where some fantastic Trash might be located for our next trash treasure hunt…

From Michael Orr in Cornpone land (that’s…

Mmm, Mmmmm, Mmm! We’ve been having fun with Lady Ga-Garbajo’s Group of Trashpo enthusiasts. And I have recently received some spectacular examples from abroad (..a WHAT??!!) I mean some friends from international locales:

From the Haptic Werewolf, Erni Bär, some vegetarian bratwurst et frites. I love how the card says “UHU,” which I’m sure is text phone lingo…

I have been reveling in the most wonderful stuff from Nadine Wendell. Most recently she sent me a piece of Trashpo that I just LOVED!  Simply a piece of corrugated cardboard that has been altered with the most diverse of materials: print illustrations, ad cards, rafia wrapping, a safe sex brochure, paint, rubber stamping, Nadine's personal doodle-drawings, and a [found?] junior prom picture that Nadine craftily attached so that I could lift it up and see on the reverse what the young lady in…