Mail Art News #55: Weekly Review 9-13-2023

booklet from Adam R., circa 2020-2021, courtesy of the
Brown Megacorporation Mail Art Archives

As I await the arrival of Autumn-Fall and ponder if pumpkin spiced mail art is possible, it occurs to me that my Mail Art News activities will vary based on a number of factors:

Free time: Setting aside time each week for blogging = no problem for now. This fluctuates depending on what else is happening in my life each week. Busy lives, time constraints.
Internet searching: Looking through social media websites and the internet-at-large for mail art related content. Saving links and images ahead of time. Do I feeeel like including a piece of mail art I've seen or an event in the blog post? Can't include everything I see. Motivational factors, psychology.
Networking: Sending and receiving mail. Posting and commenting online. Emailing. You have to have something(s) to send. If you get little mail, there is little to document. If you get a lot of mail, there is a lot to document.
Development: Generating ideas for new blog posts. Relatively easy since this is a free form blog, similar to free form radio. The weekly review format is working well and this can be supplemented with interviews or posts focused on specific topics (early 1900s mail art for example). If you would like to collaborate on something, send me an email: mailartnews@gmail.com

outgoing mail, T. Brown

Remembering that I've made hundreds and hundreds of images (of varying quality) over the last twenty years, I decided it was time to put the color printer to work. This is the Epson ET-2800 that I bought this year. Still really impressed with it.

Here's documentation of a recent set that landed in New York state. Thanks Julie Matevish for documenting.

T. Brown, sent to Julie Matevish, Sept 2023

Once you collage it, it's your work, wink wink. I did include some collage works, such as the Pepperminotaur and the Chess Chakras, but all the other works are 100% mine. If I do happen to send work that was 100% created by someone else, then I write the name of the artist on the back. This may help future art historians. Or future art historians might not even care. No matter. The mail art must flow. I've been using my Mail Art News QR codes that Sarah Roe sent me. It's a nice touch in this modern high-tech world.

What's this holding on / letting go business? I'm glad you asked. In the mind-body (sometimes, somewheres, somewhys, somehows, somewhos, somewhats, somewhens), you may notice any of the following categorical actions happening:

holding on to old loves
holding on to old likes
holding on to old dislikes
holding on to old hates

letting go of old loves
letting go of old likes
letting go of old dislikes
letting go of old hates

holding on to new loves
holding on to new likes
holding on to new dislikes
holding on to new hates

letting go of new loves
letting go of new likes
letting go of new dislikes
letting go of new hates

So where are you in all of this? Actively managing these actions, perhaps.

soon to be outgoing mail, T. Brown, Sept 2023

That's about it for the outgoing mail. Let's take a look at some incoming mail and then I will share some interesting finds from IUOMA and Facebook.

incoming from Rebekka Schmidt

A simple comic where a marker torments an artist by sabotaging the artist's will? It's a fun drawing, but it brings up a topic of real depth: intuitive drawing, which is basically drawing what wants to be drawn. This can be very illuminating and art therapists use it as part of a healing process for patients. The subconscious mind interacts in a vast realm. Due to the demands of everyday survival, the conscious mind can become hyperspecifically focused on a limited number of activities, thereby limiting a person's connection to the resources of the subconscious mind. Intuitive drawing can be helpful there.

incoming from Rebekka Schmidt

Below is one of the most unusual pieces of mail art we've received at Mail Art News headquarters. Mail Art News media specialist, Ariel Greenwood's mother sent her a milk jug full of troll dolls.

One final piece of incoming mail art. It's a ZMAG rubber stamp from Adam R. Very cool. I won't be able to attend this month's ZMAG meeting because of a prior commitment, but I will be there in spirit. I'm being asked to give a presentation on Mail Art news at an upcoming meeting, but I'd have to battle against my introvert / observer tendencies in order to talk at length in a Zoom meeting. I might have to consult the runes on this one. Probably best if I just said a few words each meeting and went over the highlights. Anyway, cool stamp though!

Meanwhile back at IUOMA...

(How to Move a Knight?) Tim Collapse documented by Mikel Untzilla

Carmela Rizzuto's outgoing mail to William S. Paley

work by Bruno Derouault documented by Richard Baudet

Mail Art Martha reports that her dining room wall has been a mail art gallery since the start of 2023. Clearly, the world needs mail art cafes in every major city, where guests can eat and drink and then move to a room in the back where they can make mail art for a few hours, alone or with friends and relatives. Make it happen, ye business minded creative types!

Then on Facebook, Chuck Welch made a post documenting a trove of Czech avant garde conceptual art and visual poetry. Czech it out.

Mark Corroto's post in the Early Mail Art group on Facebook alerted me to the existence of the mail artist Bern Porter (1911-2004). Now I'm looking for a website where I could see his mail art works, but haven't seen one yet. There's a Ruud Janssen interview on the IUOMA blog. You can see examples of Bern Porter's art at this MOMA page, and the following Vimeo video sheds light on his personality and creative style.

Joy Glows Where Confusion Was: A Film About, With, and Without Bern Porter from Mark Melnicove on Vimeo.

This other image on Facebook (below) is very intriguing. I've reached out to Guy Bleus for more info. Hopefully I will have more to say on it next week.

The following text was posted with the image:

Ruggero Maggi
Project catalogue "Archivio AMAZON" 1979 - 2023
MAM Montecarotto Museum
a cura di Stefano Schiavoni
A pretty book : The Mail Art Amazon history
Sent to P.O.Box 100 - 3700 Tongeren - B.
T.A.C. 42.292 Guy Bleus Archives :
Ruggero Maggi / Amazon / Italy : # 000 052

That's about it, mail art friends. I will close with photos from two books, as promised last week: A Century of Artists' Letters, which surprisingly contains very few examples of actual illustrations on letters, and Mailbox USA, a book full of fun mailboxes. There's a decorated mailbox around the corner from me that I will take a picture of if I remember.