Collab mail art book by Laura Ortiz (Canada) & De Villo Sloan (USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

                                                       Cover of UNO by Laura Ortiz (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) & De Villo Sloan (me) 

                                                                               (Auburn, New York, USA) (Oct.-Nov. 2019)

 

November 28, 2019 - As part of our recent Asemic Front 2 collabs (my ongoing mail art call, Laura Ortiz assembled a series of our thematically connected pieces into an artist's book. I have titled it UNO due to the frequency of the letters U-N-O in the text as well as the appearance of the word "one." I also believe "uno" represents what I perceive to be the seamless quality achieved in these compositions where our styles and thematic concerns are blended perfectly. Deepest thanks to Laura Ortiz for producing this sequence.

 

   

 

By Laura Ortiz & De Villo Sloan

 

  

 

 

By Laura Ortiz & De Villo Sloan

 

  

 

 

By Laura Ortiz & De Villo Sloan

 

  

 

 

By Laura Ortiz & De Villo Sloan

 

  

 

 

By Laura Ortiz & De Villo Sloan

 

 

 

 

 

By Laura Ortiz & De Villo Sloan

 

 

 

 

 

By Laura Ortiz & De Villo Sloan

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Back cover of UNO by Laura Ortiz & De Villo Sloan

 

 

 

[De Villo Sloan]

Concrete and visual poetry have been part of the mail art network so you find a lot of folks doing image-text. In fact, they might have faded away or not spread internationally were it not for the network. Asemic writing is a new manifestation (or some say fad) in visual poetry (although people were doing it before it was naamed in the 90s.)

What Laura and I did in these pieces is essentially concrete poetry. Laura is admired for her asemic writing so I'll bend the definition. The pieces have some asemic symbols.

Asemic Front tends to attract established visual poets, but then newer folks are welcome and get involved.

[De Villo Sloan]

Thank you, Jennifer. The pages were very hard to photograph because Laura used multiple overlays. The original is stunning - thx to Laura. She did the major work creating the book. AF2 is not usually a collab book project but fine if it happens. I mean, I don't call for books.

A process has evolved for AF2: Someone wants to participate. I make starters and mail them. The artist completes the work and mails it back. I document and keep the work. I have started to wonder if the participant should get hard copy too. But no one has asked. It's just fallen into a groove.

AF2 also uses solo work and collabs where I'm not involved at all. The focus is on collabs by visual poets who do mail art.