Artless Blog

[DKeys]

Nancy, hope you don't mind me posting this--

This is an excerpt from a note from NBS that I thought was very evocative and poetic. I love the image of mail art being a 'colorful riotous crowd of crazy people"

 

What do you do with received MA? There's so much I love and can't stand to just file away in a box or closet. Right now, four months' worth is on my desk in a big but low box so that it looks like a colorful riot of MA standing up every which way--like a crowd of crazy people or something.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Nothing can compare to a permanent installation. Good luck there tonight. The world outside it can wreak havoc like you wouldn't believe. Your cats sound artful, like Guido Vermeulen's cat Tarantino.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Today I had to make a big poster for a forthcoming exhibition, and it could not be done in my Permanent Installation because the working area (with or without cat) on the Mission Control Centre was just too small.

So I asked the cats if I could commandeer the kitchen table for a while, and if I did would they behave. gthey sort of agreed to this, and so I made up my poster, painted it, and went away for a while.

When I came back, the poster was ruined -- it looked as if one cat had rolled all over it, and the other cat had walked in the resulting mess.

When I eventually found the two miscreants, one of them (Bianca) had red paint all over all her back and tummy that i am still trying to remove, and the other (Trouble) had three white and one blue feet which he doesn't sem to mind.

Tonight I will redo the poster on the floor in my Permanent Installation, and make sure that the door is firmly closed therafter so that there can be no further sabotage.

Regards, Val

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Doesn't that look familiar...good work, D. :D

[DKeys]

[DKeys]

I know Ruud, Brain Cell is an excellent project. I like how Superhero has adapted it to include whole pieces of mail art. It gives a very nice overview of art received by month I'm assuming.

[Ruud Janssen]

Superhero's concept is the digital version of Ryosuke's Brain Cells that runs decades.

[DKeys]

 

 

I think Superhero has come up with the most ingenious way to view and document all his mail art received. I can't imagine how much time it takes to make these, but a link to his artist fractals are below. So fun to look at!!

 

https://plus.google.com/u/0/112354604569262275604/posts/4kumr1Q1ZXq

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Right you are, Val, I like how you think. You may have just changed my life in a big way! Merci beaucoup. The "it's my mess, don't touch it" has kept my husband (and even our cats!) from touching my art space for a long time. But the "permanent installation"--I never thought of it, and love it. As of this second, that's exactly what it is.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Nancy, bonjour!

Thanks for the picture and explanation.

Perhaps you should follow my example, and call your space a 'Permanent Installation'?Then it is i) a work of art in itself; ii) immune from critical comments like 'Why don't you tidy that mess up?', 'How can you work in such chaos?' etc; and iii) gives you all the excuses you need to clutter it up more and to rearrange things indefinitely, justifying such activities by saying that they are part of the 'ongoing artisitic process dimension' (I think you will get the drift of this) of your Permanent Installation.

Or 'It's my mess! Don't touch it!'.

Of course, and this is for you Diane, too, when the cat refuses to come in because it can't find anywhere to sit or lie, then you might realise that you do have a problem.

I wrote a (self-published) autobiographical book about my Study a few years ago (when I was a writer not a fighter, Elton, and before I became an artist), called 'Journey around my Study'. It described my life through all the things that I had collected over the years and stored/displayed/shelved etc in my Study. As the collection has grown a lot since then, I occasionally feel the need to re-write chapters, but then I never get round to it somehow....possibly because Bianca is ensconced on the only available writing surface.

There weren't punk rockers, or skateboards, when I was about the age of the young boy, Diane. When I was his age, I wanted to be a professional cyclist and race in the Tour de France; A bit later on I wanted to be a Rolling Stone.

Eventually I did get to make a record with the Stones...but that's another story;

Bon weekend, boys and girls, Val

[DKeys]

Great site Val, and Nancy your studio looks wonderful! Warm and inviting as I would expect from you.

V Marque, I don't think I thanked you for the postcard! The little punk rocker boy who wants to be a mail artist when he grows up is great. To know at such a young age:) the choices I would have made (or not).