Mail Art Bonanza: Snow-Bound Edition

[Thom Courcelle]

Well, Seattle is experiencing what the news is calling "Snowpacolypse 2012."  Although, coming originally from snow-bound Vermont, it seems a mystery to me that this "light dusting" could cause so much distress.  Regardless, everything seems shut down: schools, businesses, bus routes...  I am able to walk to my workplace, but the building's heating unit went bust, and after working there a few hours couldn't feel my fingers anymore, and left early.  So today I'm working from home, doing some programming code and working on a grant.  BUT, some mail arrived yesterday to brighten the bleak whiteness of the landscape outside!...

I think Katerina must be prescient, or have vision dreams to have sent this piece!  It kind of matches the snowy trees outside my window perfectly!  (She does come form the land of the Oracles, after all...) This piece is really THICK, being made on top of corrugated cardboard.  Just like with her SandPo creations, Katerina is able to evoke a dreamy landscape with a minimal amount of medium--something that fascinates me!

The opposite side of this piece is just as wintery-snowy-themed with a cutesy polar bear drifting along on his shrinking iceberg.  Snowy days like today make it hard to remember that global warming is creating less and less habitat for these beautiful guys.

One more shot against the snow:

Diane Keys must be a little sensitive to the visions, too!  Her TrashPo piece is basted onto a zinc white background... but she knew I needed a little color to brighten my landscape.  So there are pinks blossoming out of the blanket white:

This Trash collage is made up of more than one "artist's grocery list!"  There are lists of paint colors embedded here, and even if it's only words, those words "paint a picture" of more colorful brushstrokes across a canvas:

Yellow Iron Oxide

Green-Gold

Cobalt Teal

Turquoise

Zinc White

Magenta

Cobalt Blue

Just as colorful for its humor and adventure was a velum envelope from Louise Kiner stuffed with goodies from a recent trip to Montréal, Québec.  I LOVE Montréal, and was born and grew up just over the border below that city.  We used to go to Expos baseball games and field trips to the Biosphere, and it was the closest "big city" to go have some fun when I was growing up.  Zombie Kitty accompanied Louise on her sojourne and sent a map with paw prints indicating the best points of interest in the city.  Zombie Kitty says, "We walked a LOT!"

All KINDS of goodies in this package:  a hand-drawn sketch of the view from Room 612 of L'Hôtel Maritime; a mini map of la Vieille Cité; a metro ticket; an exhibit tour guide from the Montréal Museum of Art; a letter; and even a packet of sugar from Dunns Famous Deli!  SWEET!  Thank you, Louise!  This was AWESOME--a real traveler's journal of a package... Now I'll have to try your (and Zombie Kitty's) favorite haunts the next time I'm home and able to make a side trip to that beautiful city!

Another AMAZING PACKAGE that arrived from Dharma dada Erni Bär... Whoa.  If mail art provides me with sustenance for my aesthetic soul, then Erni's package provides me with sustenance for... well, for my tummy!  Having established our similar dietary predilections, Erni has sent me the art materials and a directive for mixing the aesthetics of mail art and food.  WHAT A PROJECT!  And you can bet that I'll have a blast documenting this art undertaking, Erni!

I can tell you right now that a proper work of [food] art is something that should be shared and experienced in good company.  Therefore, I will plan this art project as a dinner party among friends who can participate in its creation and appreciate its fruits (so to speak).  I already have some people in mind, but must wait for one of them to return from a trip at the Karmê Chöling Meditation Retreat Center near Barnet, Vermont.   One of my favorite blessings is to say that, "We eat together in company so that we might hear in the breaking of bread the song of the universe."  Hopefully, we will hear the timbre of mail art, too, Erni!  Danke!

Two more that arrived not yesterday, but recently, and deserve proper recognition:

From Sally Wassink in San Francisco, a super-creative use of old calendar material.  A way to count the days before the sun comes back out to melt all this snow!  So crafty and detailed that I had trouble figuring out how exactly it could all be folded up again properly.  It was like a puzzle... Loved this!

And from the master, David Stafford in Alburquerque, a serpentine reminder of what it feels like waiting-out the loooooong darkness of winter.  The reverse side has its own graphic story-line:

Transcribed here with apologies for my awful photography:

GOYA: The dream of reason produces monsters.

THE HAPPY WORM: ...And yet we continue to humor this dubious organ.

GOYA: Again and again!

THE HAPPY WORM: What else can you do? Without it you would be just like me.

GOYA:  Happy? 

*******

Thanks one and all for sending me mail art and entertainment during my snow-bound arrest! Wonderful! 

[De Villo Sloan]

Hi Thom, a fantastic read & wonderful work too see. You have art by some of my favs & also introduce me to others whom I don't know. I suppose it was a gift of randomness, yet the embedding of a color chart in Diane's piece is a perfect vispo concept, juxtaposing names of colors with colors.

I especially enjoyed the autobiographical material in your blog: The news is raging with reports on your weather situation! Thanks for the update. And you are a New Englander (Vermont) relocated to Seattle! Interesting. Yes, Erni has a spiritual tie to Vermont. Also I liked the memory of Montreal.

Nice work!