RECEIVED: Grocery List & Authentic Male-Art from Diane Keys (Elgin, Illinois, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by IUOMA member Diane Keys (Elgin, Illinois, USA)

 

June 29, 2011 - Diane Keys (DK) sent me a nice mail-art package covering the current grocery list craze, gender roles, and (above) a pic of some very appealing shoes, a touch that always wins my heart.

 

The post-card size collage above features a receipt from an animal hospital (just begging the recipient to fill in a narrative) and a fairly not dangerous envelope clasp - classic DK, as always refreshingly non-linear, non-metaphorical, yet nevertheless packed with meaning for friends of the reigning Elgin Empress of Trashpo.

 

Next is the morphed shopping list and an explanatory note from the desk of DK:

 

The grocery list craze was inadvertently started by poet John Bennett (Ohio, USA) and the fake lists were inspired by Oh Boy's (California, USA) fake collage project, at least that's my take on it. I've noted before DK coats her mail-art with glue (?) and, yes, this one is particularly lumpy. DK chops a lot of text, and she has a real knack for creating interesting little poems, as you can by looking at that aspect of the work above.

 

Somehow DK was involved in shopping lists, maybe because her cooking disasters are sometimes ingeniously turned into art, which provides a vague segue to the gender material she sent me. Diane tore pages out of a book that give instructions about how to use tools to cut wood. Here's a representative example:

 

I'm certain these were sent in response to Dark wall's ongoing mail-art epic "Life of DK." It's a kind of documentary chronicling DK's life and mail-art career - with incidents real and imagined.

 

One piece used material from an old Girl Scout Handbook, which sparked a discussion about gender role depictions for boys and girls. I complained I couldn't find a lot about boys, so I think the pages are to be used in collages but might be best used if I pass them along to Dark wall. Here's the section from Dark wall's "Life of DK":

 

 

All this for the sake of gender balance. DK's envelopes never fail to impress. She puts together a great package of interesting materials:

 

And the usual suspect:

 

 

Many thanks as ever, DK!

[De Villo Sloan]

Order your DKoder ring now! Identical to the DKoder ring seen in smash Hollywood blockbuster Roadkill 4

[DKeys]

Stan Lee is awesome

Did you figure out what yours says yet?

[De Villo Sloan]

I never leave home without my DKoder rings! I have all of them, and I'm a proud member of the Postage Due Club.

[De Villo Sloan]

Find the secret messages DK left just for you with the one and only DKoder ring! 

[DKeys]

The sea monkeys are shipped separately. Satisfaction guaranteed (does not apply within the continental united states)

[De Villo Sloan]

Yipee! I got my DKoder ring! Now I'm in the Postage Due Club! Mom said: "Don't send DK money." But it was worth it!

[De Villo Sloan]

[De Villo Sloan]

One of them is already quarantined and facing deportation

[DKeys]

DVS, only Two chunks o skunk in circulation.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

she can always practice on sonja's menagerie.

we can eat the failures.