Artaud Machine by meeah williams (Brooklyn, New York, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member meeah williams (Brooklyn, New York, USA)

March 17, 2014 - Contending as I must with hair contests, runaway beatnik girls and monkey diapers, I have been terribly remiss in not sharing sooner FAB work by Brooklyn correspondent meeah williams. She knows that I am a HUGE fan of the late Antonin Artaud (not to be confused with Grigori Antonin Artaud). She delivered with this amazing work.

In an envelope inside the mailing envelope, I found this remarkable series of, I can only call it, vispo that captures with incredible accuracy the nightmare vision that was Artaud's life and lives in his writing and art. These pieces seem as if they were loose pages of a mail-art zine, which only adds to the effect with another degree of fragmentation.

Here is a beautiful asemic piece, but the series always manages to present the monolithic, spectral darkness that looms like a menacing shadow in all of Artaud's work. Artaud is Poe and Kafka deconstructed (Baudelaire as well, I hasten to add); that's why the deconstructionists have always adored him. As visionary, he foresaw the horrors of the 20th century; and he remains a prophet of the 21st. If Artaud did not produce any asemic writing, he wrote about seeing asemic symbols.

These images by meeah williams can be a bit unsettling, but I think she locates the essence of Artaud.

This pulpy piece (above) was placed among the other work that seems far more referential to Artaud, creating yet another interesting digression into the noir.

I think this is just a fantastic, sometimes disquieting, journey through Artaud's world told in compelling images. Here is the envelope that contained the work presented above:

The reverse:

"Be a saint in any form" - certainly Artaud had his own religious visions and delusions. Here is the outside mailing envelope:

And the front:

Deepest thanks to meeah williams for the fantastic mail-art! Here's a link to meeah's mail-art blog. She's a good writer:

http://walkingeyeball.blogspot.com/

[De Villo Sloan]

Thanks, Susan. meeah certainly had a concept with this mailing!

[Susan McAllister]

Wow, that's amazing.