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/

[cheryl penn]

Shhhh DVS - no giving away family secrets - EVERYONE will want one!

[De Villo Sloan]

I'm changing my position - it's an alien!

[cheryl penn]

Ok you asked for it - official title title is Jelly Bean. P.S. The ACTUAL argument was that the American contingent did not believe that this was a Chinchilla :-) X 

[De Villo Sloan]

Nancy, in that collage with your family. Excuse my ignorance, but is that Hitler expelling them from Norway or something? And that woman who looks like Mother Theresa - what is that scene all about?

[cheryl penn]

One clipped cross patch coming up :-) X

[Nancy Bell Scott]

It is strange, no question about it. And the thing is, he spent most of his life in Brooklyn after emigrating -- you'd think in NYC of all places someone would have clued them in eventually!  I have an extra nice picture of him somewhere; he certainly didn't look like kaka.

[De Villo Sloan]

Cheryl, may we see the crosspatches? I think they have been clipped.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Yes they were. Here's a pic of 1/28th of them right now, waiting for someone to say something.

I would LOVE to see pics of the crosshatches.

[De Villo Sloan]

Were they all in one house? Ka ka from Norway, if you say so! I'm sure sometime tomorrow you will find pics of the crosspatches here.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Kaka was what everyone called my great-grandfather after he came here from Norway.  There were 584 people in the family over here and no one thought a thing of it.

Still love crosspatch!  Funny about the possum attempt, but Cheryl would be too intelligent to give up the sterling name crosspatch and substitute it with a loser like possum.