Peeps Photo Project

I was kindly sent an invitation from Cascadia Artpost to participate in his new mail art project: 

Peeps Photo Project

It was a lovely surprise package in my mailbox yesterday. 

I am eager to get started photographing these weetle peeples!!

Outgoing

Mailart Mission Accomplished!

I have had a long-time goal of being included on Brain Cell Issue #888.

Well, my penfriends, I made it!!

My rubber stamp design was included in Issue #888 in the upper left-hand corner in a pretty teal/blue ink.
"Flemina Island PMP-008, with palm frond".

 PMP = Postal Modern Permit

With the frequent mail I sent Mr. Cohen's way, I also was on Issue #887.

Above: My rubber stamp self-portrait, My "BLA" hand-carved stamp, AND my Infinite Network stamp were all included in green ink on the bottom left-hand side. Also included was the "Flemina Island PMP-008" in orange ink towards the middle-right. 

A pleasant surprise that the artistamp I designed for Vittore Baroni's GAC call for submissions (which was put on the documentation cover!) was included in green ink on the bottom right-hand corner. This must have trailed in on someone else's mail. How fun!

Brain Cell #885 included my small return address stamp at the tippitytop in pink ink.

 This so totally made my mail art week/month/year!

Do YOU have any current or future mail art goals?

Incoming: Artistamp Sheets

I have been the lucky recipient of some fantastic artistamp sheets recently!

Jay Block

Jay Block

Jay Block

Creative Thing

Creative Thing

Incoming: Stan Askew

My first incoming from Stan Askew. Every time I have seen his art pop up on various mail art blogs and documentation, I oooooed and awwwwwed. Stan has been on my TBM (To Be Mailed) list for years (um, it's a long list...).

I oogled his entry at the mail/art/book exhibit in San Francisco. Didn't realize he was in attendance until I read about it on the HeebeeJeebee blog. Perhaps he saw my comment I left in the 4th Dimension because next thing I know, a Stan Askew envy-lope is in my mailbox!

Made my day! Thank you!

The Green Whiskman

(loved the incoming envie almost as much as the collage!)

(Here he is in all of his glory. The Green Whiskman mono collage, 

originally created for Nick Bantock's book, The Forgetting Room)

(Here the Whiskman sits in his new environment, my kitchen)

Nick recently downsized his house and had a "cleaning out" sale once he got to his new space and needed the room. Unfortunately, I missed out on the sale of his rubberstamps (can you flippin' imagine how awesome his stamp collection was/is?!?) But at least I was able to purchase an original piece. I felt akin to Lester Burnham in American Beauty. "...I've always wanted and now I have it. I RULE!" 

"Keeping Posted" c. 1949 by Elvgren. 

While I'm showing you my mail-themed kitchen, here is "my Girl", as I affectionately call her. 

Elvgren painted a few other postal-themed girls, which I hope to add to my collection one day. But, I fell in love with this one first and she will always hold a special place in my heart.

The Magnificence of eX Postal Facto...Friday, 2-14-14

Officially have been back home in Florida for a week, but my mind is still reeling from all the goodness of Ex Postal Facto. I'm not going to elaborate on what the weekend was about, as you can read about here, here and here.

This is my experience of the XPF weekend. 

I do believe my attendance was kismet, as I was one of the lucky people who snagged "Delta Glitch" tickets for my flight to San Francisco. From SF, I was flying out to Portland, OR, to visit my best friend from high school, then from Portland back to Jacksonville, FL. My ticket to SF cost me $25 and my ticket from Portland to Jax cost me $27. o.O I know!! There was only a two hour window where one could score those ticket prices before Delta fixed their software mistake. Lucky me.

XPF was my valentine this year.

Had a cool apartment through Airbnb.com all booked and I was going to be on the 27th floor with an awesome view of the city and right across the street from the SF Library, where the lectures on Sunday were taking place. Unfortunately, my Airbnb host cancelled on me 2 weeks before my trip. I had all of my transportation mapped out, etc. I was sorta disheartened and thinking maybe I should forgo the trip. 

I have never traveled to the West Coast, nor have I traveled by myself. Admittedly, I was intimidated, yet excited about stretching my wings. 

Scrambled to find another place to stay and lucked out with a nice apartment for the same price as the first, though I was near the Ferry Building and not in the center of the city as was originally planned. But, when I received the address for where I was staying and the address number was "88" I felt satisfied that I was on the right path once again and was a bit more confident to take this journey.

Side note: I live my life by "8"s. I got married on August 8th, 2002. If I could have waited until 2008 to marry my hubby, I would have, but that would have been too long!

If two roads diverged in the wood and one marker said "Path 2" and another marker said "Path 8", I would take 8 every time. No questions asked, even if it looked spookier or was full of spiderwebs...I'm a bit obsessive about it really, sometimes. But it is a symbol (infinity) that I put my faith into and I follow it when it comes in front of my path. I would rather pay $8 for something than $6.97. I put :28 seconds on the microwave instead of :30. I pay $40.80 to fill my tank instead of $40.00. Ok, you get the point - I'm done now...

Back to XPF: I flew in on the 14th. In hindsight, I should have flown out on Thursday the 13th, but in the end it didn't matter because I was flying through Atlanta and they had cancelled the majority of flights on TUE/WED/THUR because of the snow. So, I landed at 4:30pm. I had all intentions of going to the "meet & greet" at Arch Draft prior to the mail/art/book reception, but as I sat in the Super Shuttle during rush hour and watched the clock tick to 6pm, I knew that wasn't going to happen.

I checked into my apartment real quick then rushed to get a cab where my Airbnb host said would be my best bet. Get to that place, and no cab stand. I've never hailed a taxi in my life, so I walked around the streets of San Francisco trying to orient myself in the direction I need to go to get to the San Francisco Center for the Book. Found my eyes leaking uncontrollably, feeling lost and overwhelmed in the biggest city I've ever stepped foot in. I remembered someone mentioning Uber, so I downloaded the app and after a few tries, finally got a ride to the SF Center for the Book for the opening night of XPF. I think I was in such a panic mode for the fact that I had 5% battery left on my phone and I probably couldn't have found my way back to my apartment without a map. After flying ALL DAY and quickly stopping to drop off my bags, totally forgot about charging my phone. My bad.

I made it to where I needed to be at about 7:30pm, with the event only going until 9pm.

Great crowd at the mail/art/book exhibit opening reception!

I was determined not to let the beginning of my arrival in SF bring me down and I immediately jumped into the glorious fray that was XPF! I met sooooo many penfriends that I knew from Twitter, Instagram, my mail network & legends from the Eternal Network.

There was a room where you could create your own valentines. The room was jam packed, but I braved the swarm of people and created a few stamped cards.

I am a planner and list-maker. I had a huge stack of mail that I was going to send from the event to my mail art pals that were not in attendance (and some who were). But, yeah. I left that stack of mail back at the apartment in my LWA bag that I was tired of toting around airports all day. I kept kicking my self all week about this. I only managed to turn in one piece of mail to the XPF Postmaster, and it was to my daughter, Nova. I scribbled my address down sloppily (ick) and sent it to my home address. At least I managed that!

Soon after my arrival and greeting numerous people that I knew, but never met in person, Jennie Hinchcliff of Red Letter Day and Head Postmistress and Visionary of the whole XPF shabang took the stage to thank everyone for coming out and supporting the event.

I have been a huge fan of Jennie (and her penmanship) ever since Good Mail Day was published in 2009.

We've exchanged mail art pieces and every time I receive mail from her in my mailbox, I gush and make my husband and family look at it. "Look, see, I got mail from Jennie!!! Isn't it awesome!!?!" She doesn't know this, but a couple of her postcards are framed and hanging on the walls of my airmail-themed kitchen...

While we didn't have a chance to chat long at XPF, I did get a quick selfie with her and she graciously signed my copy of Good Mail Day. Next time I'm in SF, I will get in touch and we can have a "civilized conversation" that would, of course, be on the topics of paper, postal ephemera and pens - I'm sure! 

XPF weekend also marked the first art exhibit where I had a piece of my art in a show that I physically attended -- all official behind the glass and shtuff! I create stuff ALL of the time, but I rarely show it to the world. I think that's what drew me to mail art. I can create and create and send it to someone that I think might appreciate it. And if they don't, I don't have to hear about it. Sometimes I make strange and weird things and I don't want to have to explain it to anyone. Art is in the eye of the beholder. I may have made it, but once it's out there, it's up to the viewer to determine what it means to them. 

The esoteric and the ephemeral combined is what really attracts me to mail as an art form. Anything goes. 

Stan Askew's contribution to mail/art/book. Totally didn't even know he was there that weekend until I was back home. I would have sought him out and told him how much I admire his mail art. Ya know, infinity symbol usage and whatnot!!

The whole evening at the gallery, I just could not believe that I was finally there. All of the months of anticipation had culminated to that moment in time and I am so grateful that I can look back and say "I Attended Ex Postal Facto"!!

Most long-winded post ever here on this blog. I will leave you with the tease that tomorrow, I'm posting about all of the fun ephemeral goodies I was able to get my hands on. Plus, I still have Saturday and Sunday to tell you about! 

Tomorrow, I'll show you the inside of my XPF Passport, which is the BEST souvenir ever.

'Til next time...

B

eX Postal Facto HeebeeJeebee Special

A belated post of incoming mail from Heebee JeebeeLand.

This scrumptious piece of mail art from Test Tower features glorious artistamp homage to the upcoming eX Postal Facto conference in San Francisco.

I leave you with a 4th Dimension Proverb: "Each mind has its own method and we cannot oversee each other's secret. The path is for your steps alone."  That about sums it [life] up.

My Collage Art Hero: Nick Bantock

Nick Bantock recently posted on FaceBook that his "studio is stuffed to the gunnels with drawings, prints, collages, paintings, faux mail, dubious documents, and 3D pieces." He wants to get these pieces out of his studio and into the world.

I'm currently looking into what's available and it would make me uber happy to have a Nick Bantock original.

I credit Nick with inspiring my enthusiasm of mail art, with his Griffin & Sabine double trilogy, back in the early 90s, along with other works.

I'm very much excited about his upcoming new book release: The Trickster's Hat: A Mischievous Apprenticeship in Creativity due out in early January 2014.

Artistamp New Edition: Old School Air Mail

I created this artistamp to include on the postcard I'm working on for the Keep the Post Office Public! mail art call.

Incoming Postal ATC from Andria @ Drawing Near

Incoming ATC from Andria at Drawing Near. I'm mailing out my ATC trade to her this weekend. I'll post the one I made as soon as she has received it.

Outgoing: to Test Tower at the 4th Dimension

Now that Test received this envelope, I'm going to post it now. It seems my ATC skills are top of the game at Heebee Jeebeeland, which just tickles me purple. He posted about it here.

Lake Worth, Florida Centennial

My mail art envelope sent in celebration of Lake Worth's Centennial arrived safely, after all. I was beginning to wonder...

http://lakeworthcentennial.wordpress.com/

Incoming - PostcardX

Outgoing to Haasteren - Tiki Time

New Issue Artistamps and Postmarks

Orphaned Postcard Project

Before the move, I received three postcards from the Orphaned Postcard Project. I picked them because I've been there, and will have something to write about. I'm finally getting these back in the mail to Bonnie Jean.

Bonnie sent these to me in an autumn foliage art card and put some precious vintage stamps on the envie!