Postcard-a-Palooza Spring-Summer 2025

[Thom Courcelle]

Feast thine eyes upon the postcard-a-palooza that has blessed my mailbox this spring and summer:

I feel like I should apologize to those who were waiting or mystified whether their mailers arrived at my humble mailbox in this small valley tucked away in Vermont. Well…yes, they have. I had a challenging spring with multiple illnesses—the memories of which are now receding into a personal file marked “oooof...hope not to ever go through THAT again (2025).”

Anyway…the compulsion and ability to document incoming mail art was de-prioritized in competition to coddling and nurturing myself into better health. But I always had the “pile” there waiting for the day…And now the day has come!

To each I thank thee. Most of you will have received back some mai art already; and if not, some will surely be posted to you soon.

Eddie O’Neill’s rubber stamp and vintage postage stamp art:

Attie Ourie’s imagined geographic island map with sea currents marked in red. The reverse side contains encrypted directions to the hidden archipelago in ascetics. (I do wish I had some way to reply to you, Attie. I would love nothing less than to be able to shower you with reciprocal mail art! But I also understand the compulsion for privacy and the simple love of releasing your art out into the universe with no expectations…)

new correspondent friend, Blaine, sends an apropos visual of a mortified Lady Liberty…overseen by the postage stamp portraits of American heroes who know just how she feels…

Chépin Mora similarly sends a sympathetic message of support…and her underwater mail art of a whale pod reminds me to dive deep, think big, and ride the current of resistance among like-minded creatures.

Coco Muchmore is part of this pod team; we keep one another apprised of our latest protest rallies and creative protest signs…

Debra Mulnick, too, in her little corner of Idaho is fighting the good fight…which for us so often means expressing our feelings through the making of art. True, yes? Her photo with collaged appliqué lace cutouts  in a transparent plastic envelope was FABULOUS!

James Chester, a bit farther down in eastern California, sends a checkerboard print with advertisement collage for Ozempic: “No dose adjustment is recommended for patients with renal impairment” Noted!!!! And some additional good advice on the reverse of his postcard: “There are no solutions at the bottom of a doom scroll.” I can vouch for that…

Jimmy Connors always finds the most interesting images to cross-contaminate in his magnificent collages. There were even a few doodles on the reverse side of his postcard:

Katerina Nikoltsou sent a seasonal postcard (with a reminder of her mailart summer break). I love how in her classy collage works she often incorporates images of the Greek culture that surrounds her. This particular postcard has an image of an antiquities platter or bowlthat depicts—I would say—the voyage of Odysseus, with dolphins zooming around the boat and a grapevine growing up the mast...a boat that takes him on his decades-long adventures. Summer on the Greek seas!

It had been awhile since I’d heard from stripygoose in the U.K. Lucky me, I received one of her “leaf bird” series:

Tamara Wyndham has been busy studying Jackson Pollack. Have she been attending the same art classes as Ed Sheeran??!

And finally, I LOVE this linocut portrait of Harriet Tubman by Tofu. The reverse of the card also contained some artistamps of “American Heroes” lesser known in history books, but important players in our history none-the-less. I am saddened—but not surprised in the least—that the current administration has nixed the planned change to replace Jackson on the US twenty-dollar bill with Harriet Tubman. I hope that someday she gets her due respect and honor.

Thanks to all who have shared their creative art with me these past months!

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Thanks for blogging, Thom, and enjoy a sunny Vermont summer!