RECEIVED: Asemics and Letter Art from Theresa Ann Alshire Williams (Bradner, Ohio, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member Theresa Alshire Williams (Bowling Green, Ohio, USA)

 

August 20, 2011 - Theresa Ann Alshire Williams is a mail-artist who works in collage, poetry, and correspondence. This wonderful piece she sent me I believe describes through images and tonality a large portion of the mid-American landscape. The mail-art also reveals her increasing mastery of asemic writing. ("Kansas" was carefully wrapped in red tissue paper, which I included in the scan.)

 

For me, the images in the collage reflect the space and clarity of the physical landscape. As symbols, they express the dominant beliefs and values of the people who colonized that land and whose imported culture was changed by it, transformed into something else altogether.  Only in the more abstract images toward the bottom do I start to see a questioning - perhaps an opening deconstruction - of the images from the top.

 

I mentioned before to Theresa I thought her collage work was beginning to transform into visual poetry. The relatively minimal images are made far more complex by the overlay of asemic writing that, through its shapes, seems to seek integration with the images. She also included very nice pieces of correspondence:

 

 

I always appreciate receiving notes and letters. These give a sense what can be achieved with the form. After all, Ray Johnson founded a Correspondence School. First, Theresa presents the letter to Jim and then the letter to me commenting on it, an interesting approach.

 

The author Richard Brautigan is a major reference here. Theresa's writing mirrors what I think of as the journalistic, documentary style of Brautigan, or at least the part associated with Jack Kerouac in On the Road.

 

This ultimately ties "Kansas" to Theresa's correspondence: It strikes me as a communication from someone on that road, their thoughts of friends and fellow travelers intermingling with the landscape. The use of the typewriter (and Olympia is a brand as well as a place) strengthens the reference to that style and era.

 

This is a mail-art message with a great deal of resonance. I am thrilled to have received it. Many thanks, Theresa! I look forward to more exchanges. Theresa Ann Alshire Williams has a very interesting, ongoing correspondence project. It's definitely worth a peek:

http://theletterproject.wordpress.com/

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Poor Jelly Bean, what a cat has to endure ;-(

And how about Chocolate and Marshmellow?

Do we get to see piics of them, too?

(my favorite is Chocolate...one could eat it up!)

[De Villo Sloan]

Jelly Bean would be a perfect addition to the scene.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Oh, and there's a partial caption of the royalty photo -- Catherine and Guido take note -- "Leopold III., the new king of the Belgians, taking the oath to observe ..." and "astrid and the royal children look ..."

[Nancy Bell Scott]

De Villo, it's from a mostly demolished March 3/1934 edition of The Illustrated London News. Just pulled it out of a box. One frightening partial page is of some "astonishing beetles," as it says, and wow, are they. Another section, which is actually intact, is about the Acropolis, "weakened by rain, to be strengthened with cement." GREAT photos. I'll stop now.

[cheryl penn]

Jelly Bean either looks like a Harrier Jet or a wiggie lion. Sigh. No middle ground.

[De Villo Sloan]

Cheryl once showed us a picture of Jelly Bean watching the monkeys through the window. Those monkeys must be howling with laughter now. The lion cut isn't working on the brave and fierce front.

[De Villo Sloan]

Nancy, the photo of the royalty and the church - it is intriguing. I don't know enough of history to figure it out. It IS all very interesting.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Jelly Bean is adorable, thank you for posting!  Around here that's called a "lion cut."  One of our cats had one a few years ago when the hair mats took over and we couldn't see her through them.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Too late, Cheryl:  I already want one, am not afraid of cute aliens! Does he live in a museum?

And talk about family secrets: Expose us why don't you, DVS. My ancestors were expelled from many places, but always by Mother Teresa. It's embarrassing because she wasn't that strong physically.

[De Villo Sloan]

I can understand grooming a cat like that but they took a lot off Jelly Bean's belly.