Nancy Bell Scott's Blog (364)

This is a beautiful scroll- parchment- burnt- and/or rust-like asemic piece from Kerri. That's quite a combination of adjectives ... and every single one describes something special to me. I love this piece.

Svenja sent this action-packed card…

Alicia did some fantastic graphite (or graphite-like) scribbling on her piece featuring Betty Friedan and Vanessa Place. Some other queens are featured also in the torn handwritings. Alicia's turn of mind--I love it.

A card from Mim is always a treat, and…

At the end of 2012 Magwood sent a little folded boekie of recent drawings with collage elements: 

Her portrayals are usually immediate and often poignant. These works plus the note she enclosed are both. All of her work is unfailingly expressive and…

Ruud's painted envelopes are so alive; I'd like to see a huge group of them amassed one day. They talk: 

This arrived last October, and contained the latest of Ruud's IUOMA materials, which I always enjoy seeing. Special note to Dean: Sometimes Ruud's materials contain requests for your latest stamps or other IUOMA statements or decorations you may have created.…

This is belated, as most recent blogs have been and many to come will be:

There is so much to think about here. Pasadena (where Stan Askew lives)--a place I never reached because I got off the train in Santa Fe. Money is well represented on this card--pennies, a nickel, a ten-dollar bill. And dice, which maybe mind-traveled from Vegas, one can never be sure. Some things…

Kat has been active in Guido Vermeulen's great group this year that celebrates birthdays: IUOMA, loved ones, composers and other artists...i.e., anyone and anything you want.

Johns always catches my attention, because of his complicated relationship with my man Robert Rauschenberg and because he is Jasper Johns, whose work is never dull and much studied. Katerina sent…

*Thank you" again, Claudia…

Huh? Who wouldn't want to be there when Alicia cleans up? My hand is staying down. This is a stunner: 

This so-called clean-up hits a home run in my view. And it's hard to portray via scanner, but the central face in this piece is a translucent overlay on the faces lurking underneath. A Lady of the Lake. It is an intelligent, humble, searching face, with depth literally…

His First Day of Issue mail arts are extra special:  A notebook here, sitting somewhere between many other notebooks on the shelves, has many Edith Wharton quotes in it. I hope it turns up again before I'm dead. In the meantime, I love having this beauty from Bifidus. On…

This first piece from Keith arrived a week ago, and what an elegant yet whimsical beauty it is. Did he know I have a thing for dots? Probably not. But everything about it works, not just the dots--other composition aspects, great colors--and waxy textures, which I'd love to hear about if you're inclined.

*Thank you,*…

That is one gorgeous, colorful, laughing man. One of your many finest, Frieder. I embarrassed Frieder a few months ago by declaring in someone else's blog post that "I like everything he does." He then sent this, probably thinking it's nothing if you read the back, but as usual I think it's really something:…

They speak for themselves. Rebecca is multi-faceted, as seen in these two very different and appealing pieces, both from this past winter: 

and the other side: 

Plus one of Rebecca's fused plastic and bits of trash stitched pieces (it really is a…

After working on it, Dean Marks now says "BUT I KINDA LIKE IT!" So do I, yep, it's colorful, looks Italian or French, and features wine and grapes--can't go wrong with those ingredients: There it hangs now near the piano corner, lightening the heavy load of the…

Is KDJ missed or what? Yesssss. She sent this piece in November, as well as a most generous gift of a well-known collage book I'd not yet obtained. It became an instant favorite: KDJ, since you're not forgotten, why be gone? Ack, not to pressure, but as you can see it is sorely tempting to try. ...

KDJ started the IUOMA group "I'm Enchanted With David," and here is but…

Svenja is not capable of sending faceless mail art. See, here she tried, yet the face still speaks: 

I love it.

Jim sent a fine, foodword-ridden, sharply composed collage based on a photo he took at the New York State Fair in Syracuse--very nicely done: …

In December Thom sent a calendar that proves what we already know: this poor cobtastic guy is overworked. And, it appears, always has been:

It arrived in a cheerful envelope and with a lovely note:

Not the only arrival from Kat, by far, but it…

Mail art *worlds* hitting your house when you're stuck in it for months? You people are so wonderful. Someone somewhere sometime said "Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep." I know this for a fact, having tried to write this thank you too many times to count, and words failed. So: Thank You. You sent clever, beautiful, funny, minimal, thought-provoking, inspiring mail art for months, beyond hope or imagination. We exchanged before,…

Was the package marked "rusty iron" that arrived today and appeared to be empty mailed not long ago? Methinks it might have gotten here PRONTO due to its weight--almost lighter than the packaging paper itself, almost lighter than air. But I was fooled:

Not quite yet, though at first after snipping an end off, I found that Erni had apparently enclosed nothing.…

Ok, "Off-Scene Akademie" wasn't on the package this time, but "Eat Art" must emanate from that view and its priors. Stills of an Apple Biscuit from Germany experiencing life in OOB today: A whole.

Bite one: Bite two:…

This is the second time Katerina has stitched a found can to a K.N. blue painting, but this time we have 3 at once:  There the piece is, now on a wall, as it arrived in a large envelope. Katerina may have thought I'd want to cut the cans free and eventually do something else with them, but this is a work of art unto itself from Kat.'s own mail-art sensibility, and I love it. It…