De Villo Sloan's Blog – August 2018 Archive (13)

Add & pass sent by Massimo Medola (Bologna, Italy)

August 30, 2018 - News of the (possible) tragic loss of the great E – Ambassador of Utopia (Guivry, France) swept through the network last year. For some reason, I was chosen as a destination for add & pass sheets memorializing E.

I was proud to feature much work by E – Ambassador of Utopia on blogs in the past. He was a great and generous friend. Still, I have never been sure…

I think this blog (link below) by long-time networker Rafael Gonzalez (Spain) is hysterical, especially given the amount of add & passes that are circulating via IUOMA-Ning.

Personally, I've always believed it's impossible to f---- up an add & pass. They're foolproof. Like so much mailart the idea of "anyone can do it" underlies the genre.

But Rafael - who has been doing mail art a long time - is worried that he is messing up the add & pass.

It should give us…

Mail art by Jean-Philippe Gilliot (Saint Ghislain, Belgium)

August 27, 2018 - I am not familiar with Jean-Philippe Gilliott, and I do not believe he is an IUOMA member. But a quick search indicates he is well-known in the network and has done much work of note. I am thrilled to learn about and receive his work because I am a huge fan of the great Belgian collage artists, poets and correspondence artists, among them Little Shiva, Thierry…

Disintegrated bark fragment (with my address) rescued by the US Postal Service. Who sent it?

August 25, 2018 - Postcards are endlessly wonderful, but it is also nice to receive physical objects via the mail. These “objects poems,” “found material,” “cryptic totems” – whatever you prefer to call them – are also a unique genre of mail art. I believe this propensity for sending objects is rooted in Fluxus but also not necessarily exclusive to…

“Surrogate” – a collage with asemics – by IUOMA member Amy Irwen (Rosemount, Minnesota, USA)

August 21, 2018 - Amy Irwen participated in my Asemic Front project previously with collabs. Now she has sent a beautiful solo collage with asemic writing which I am thrilled to share. The circular asemics are an excellent structural device as are the text-image relations that make this piece visual poetry as well. Here is a closer…

Mail art by IUOMA member barbargirl (Key West, Florida, USA)

August 20, 2018 - barbargirl sent me this lovely and beautifully composed, post-card-size collage.

IUOMA-Ning is experiencing yet another wave of new talent. These artists are enriching the network and we are seeing distinctive talents and approaches emerge. I think of barbargirl as part of this new new wave. With time, perhaps I will be able to learn more about her and her…

Mail art by Annette Kesterson (San Francisco, California, USA)

August 14.2018 - Longtime correspondent Annette Kesterson sent me this wonderful postcard-size piece I am absolutely thrilled to share.

I adore this colorful, lovely textured abstract art that keeps the action in painting. (This seems a little different from classic AK, but then again she is eclectic.) Annette Kesterson suggests in this piece (see below) speed and…

News of a book of Ray Johnson interviews (compiled from multiple authors) is circulating among networkers and might be of interest to IUOMA members. Here's a link with more info:…

Mail art (Artist Trading Card) by IUOMA member Gerda Osteneck (Regina, Canada)

August 6, 2018 - Gerda Osteneck has officially been named a Legend of Trashpo by none other than the Queen of Trash herself: Diane Keys. Many networkers know that Gerda Osteneck’s art also transcends Trashpo. She does excellent work in many different genres, including the ATC (Artist Trading Card). Gerda Osteneck has mastered several aesthetic…

This great article with pics is circulating about a mail art show at the Smithsonian:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/collaborative-mail-art-puts-post-postmodernism-180969783/#BkDCsLZYGfDxq1qL.01

Included is a Ray Johnson piece to our own Richard Canard (Richard C) (Richard in the…

Mail art by Derya Avci (Elazig, Turkey)

August 3, 2018 - I have not received much mail art from Turkey. So this piece by Derya Avci is a thrill, although I do not believe she is an IUOMA member. Maybe she will be! 

I hope you will share my view that this work could easily be at home in an art museum or a very fine gallery. Derya Avci is a subtle and skilled expressionist painter. Yet the work is also very much in the…

Mail art by IUOMA member Ruth Giles (Tunbridge Wells, Britain)

August 1, 2018 - Networkers often ask me, “DVS how is mail-arting in the Digital Age different from back in the Golden Age of Snail Mail Art when you sauntered down the winding trail under a sky so much more expansive and blue than it is today?”

This wonderful package from Ruth Giles in Britain gives me a perfect opportunity to offer an example of the difference…