Thom Courcelle's Blog (211)

Sometimes we get something in the mail that exceeds expectations and excels beyond requirements of the medium of mail art. So this is a new "category" or "genus" or "subspecies" of blog post that I am creating for my documenting reviews: "Something…

Perhaps these artistamps by Jack of Cascadia Artpost say it best... We are indeed in a stormy season. But a stormy political front always means there will be some inspired art from the politically oppressed. And if you're an artist who DOESN'T feel politically oppressed...you're not paying attention. With the National Endowment for the Arts and the National…

Solstice and News Years wishes received from friends near and far... clockwise from upper right:

"New Years Rooster 2017" by Angie Cope (USA)

"New Years Wishes" arrived in an amazing FABRIC ENVELOPE from Ouis (France)...bonus for the safety pin making it through the mail and a great safety pin artistamp.

"Have an…

New Friend, Sa Mue sends this nifty print-and-collage with a wonderful note about her former travels to my hometown in Vermont...

Melissa Wand sent this thrilling envelope with treasures inside: a collage with a…

Clockwise from Upper Right:

"Resist the Norm; Rebuke the Expected; Refute Conformity" by Amalgamated Confusion (USA)

"King Kong Audition" by David Stafford (USA)

"Remembrance of Harley" montage of the mail artist and his work by Cascadia Artpost (USA)

"Assembly in Orbit" by William Mellott…

I've been remiss in posting received mail art of late... Guess I've been preoccupied with recent events. I've also been busy furiously knitting (literally and figuratively) pink hats for the rebellion. It's taken up a lot of free time, but the time is ripe for activism. So, dear friends, please forgive my tardiness...…

These came separately in the mail more than a week apart. How lucky am I to get double-whammied??! The first one (top) is a painted envelope that Ruud has apparently been saving in his mail launcher for several years. "Sometimes it takes time for a piece to start traveling," Ruud notes. I have a large stash of envelope and postcard pieces I have…

Some short time ago, Nancy Bell Scott posted her own picture of this lovely work she completed, and titled it "Finish Line." And I am the lucky recipient. But on the back of the piece she has written a new title: "The Road Between."

I'm not sure, but I think I like the latter title. "The Finish Line" seems so...final. Like we pushed…

I couldn't have asked for a nicer surprise if I had gone trick-or-treating door-to-door!  So wonderful to hear from Mary, who has been a regular Halloween mail-art friend. This year, she sent a hand-stitched quilted piece on cardboard with plenty of Halloween themed characters—cats and bats and skeletons and ghosts... The soft, cozy fabric makes them all seem…

Just ask David Stafford!!!

Yes...but what KIND of casserole, God's chosen want to know... I mean, it's the Last Supper, after all. The reverse of the postcard goes into even greater detail...

If I didn't know better, and if the postcard weren't so stiff, I might've guessed that this piece was an old used paper napkin on which…

I got quite a mail art surprise from Dean (that Artist in Seine). Completely unexpected and a thrill to gawk at and peruse through. As "boekie" mail art goes, this one's a star—a collection of all sorts of classic and antique images, papers, ephemera, textiles and even holograms (!) that make for une grande tournée d'art collage.

Wish that you…

The thing about Mail Art is... that they often work REALLY well as bookmarks. Especially really magnificent and beautiful pieces of Mail Art that I wanna keep near me so that I remember to blog about them.

But the OTHER thing about using Mail Art as bookmarks...is that if you read as much as I do and have a gazillion books around that you're…

Boy, did I get  wonderful mailing from Melissa Wand.  I had sent her a Souvenir of the 2016 U.S. Election, and she sent me back this envelope with a couple of cute politically-themed postcards,a nice note, and several political cartoon clippings.

But I have to admit that the best part of Melissa's mailing was the envelope...because it IMMEDIATELY…

Riddle: What has scales, is weighed on a scale, and on a scale of one-to-ten ranks as a twelve?

Why that would be Allison Baker's first mail art piece to me! Allison didn't hold back at all in testing the limitations of the post office's mailing parameters for dimension, size, or shape. This fishy-shaped…

A most unusual piece of mail art arrived recently from the Netherlands...

Although the envelope is constructed with a traditional "sealing flap" (see picture directly above), there were instructions on the…

Mike Dyart sends some "Esoteric Art" that contains a history of the Nothingists—extremists countering the no less extreme demands of the Everythingists...

This is the history of Russian Dadaists (supposedly). Mike's quasi-serious history of a geo-political art history is illustrated with an empty landscape of formerly swaying corn-stalked field…

Mail Art postcards galore...

Above, Jan Hodgkin, Washington State, USA

Ian C. Dengler, Texas USA, shares some humorous artistamp postage... A closer look:…

Fiorentina sent me a sample of her artwork from some of the pieces she had earlier posted online which I found so admirable. It is just as beautiful in person as it is on the computer screen. She also turned it into a little "table tent" so that I could stand it upright and admire it face-on.

Such detail and flourish! And characters with much…

Here is a gallery of some of the wonderful, amazing mail art that has hit my mailbox recently...

Jack of Cascadia Artpost has been generous to me this summer. This is the second in a series that I have received from Jack titled "Commodity Civilization," with some pretty astonishing collage work, and some of the most genius artistamps I've…

I'm a bit tardy adding my shower of applause that is deserved of Gina Ulgen for her magnificent Shakespearean mailing. What was it that Shakespeare said about lateness?

"Better three hours too soon than a minute too late."

Oh...wait. That doesn't really describe me. I'm definitely a minute (or more) late with…