I've been kind of laying off of the mail art for the most part as Halloween arrived, I had company, and I needed to get a jump on my Christmas cards. (It initially looked like I'd be doing close to 200 this year. YIKES!)
About two weeks before Halloween, I went into Seattle to be a guest (What??) on TIKI WITH RAY, a tiki YouTube show that has quite a following. Ray (Wyland) asked me to be a guest because I have my tiki blog, MONSTER-A-GOGO: THE TIKI TOURIST. (The episode with me can be seen HERE.) My friends Erich and Amy were there. Amy is a mail artist and she brought up the whole mail art thing to Ray. He was curious, so we showed him some examples. He said he wanted some mail art. So, okay... Time to churn out some mail art for Ray.
TIKI BAR OF TERROR: Wanting to incorporate tiki for Ray...as well as Ray himself...I came up with the title, tag lines, and some tiki bar pictures. I looked for a picture of Ray online that could pass for him being scared. This was the best I could come up with. I couldn't find a good ghost anywhere...so I just reused one. "So scary you may find a 'pu pu platter' in your shorts!" Zowie! (D)
THE HOUSE OF THE UNSPEAKABLE: I was so disappointed with the TIKI BAR OF TERROR, I tried again. THE HOUSE OF THE UNSPEAKABLE wasn't that great either...and the (very minor) joke about it is---you don't know what the horror/drama/shocking aspect of it is--because it's UNSPEAKABLE. (Yea...that lame of humor.)(D)
MORBID MANOR: Because TIKI BAR OF TERROR wasn't so fab...and HOUSE OF THE UNSPEAKABLE was flat out lame, I hoped the third time was the charm---so out came MORBID MANOR. (TIKI BAR OF TERROR--the first one of the three--turned out to be the better of the three. Ha!)(D)
IUOMA's (
International Union of Mail Artists) P. Landon sent me this creepy cool creature as a postcard for Halloween. (THANK YOU!)
So, of course, I had to respond in kind...
MANSION OF HORRORS: More derivitive sameness. Nothing to see here. Move along... BUT--because another batch o' envelopes we undelivered from weeks ago, starting with this envelope, the addressee is listed on the front and on the back (as the return address). Hopefully, if the post office wants to send it back--the recipient will STILL get it.(D)
TIKI WITH RAY's Ray Wyland was kind enough to send me a photo of himself after he received TIKI BAR OF TERROR. He also posted this picture on
Instagram, saying "This is The COOLEST gift ever!! Thank you@mister_monster_a_gogo for this incredible piece of Mail Art. I love it so much." Groovy!
He also sent this picture (after changing his shirt, apparently) from his swanky tiki bedroom! Ooooo I so need to make myself a tiki bar/room.
'Ray received the 2nd envelope (finally--after receiving the 1st and 3rd one) and posted this to his Instagram.
My "neighbor" (she lives on the next island up from me) mail artist, Jan Hodgman, messaged me recently that if I ever wanted to share more of my mail art with her, she'd gladly receive it. I took that as a request, so...
PARANORMAL PANDEMONIUM popped out. Meh...(?)
As I said, I took a break from my mail art to focus on Christmas cards. But one day I got this note in my Instagram:
Zowie! That sounds fun. (It even advertises "tiki drinks"!) But, although I'm sure they thought my mail art was some sort of product I could sell, I regretfully had to tell them I had nothing to "vend". I'm sure they were just looking at any and every account that had some sort of "product". But how nice to have even been asked--all based on my silly mail art. (And you KNOW some of the elements in their ad are going to be worked into my mail art at some point. Ha!)
Time went on. I didn't work on any more envelopes as I was frantically trying to get my Christmas cards done before Thanksgiving. I had started before Halloween and finished a week before Thanksgiving. There are 206 (so far. A straggler or two that I'll remember at the last minute usually pops up before Christmas.) cards here, all including personal hand-written notes (with the exception of the cards I had made--but stupidly forgot to leave space for a note. Those had typed-out letters included.). Why so many? I sent cards to everyone I had an address for. EVERYONE! You do not know the person's situation. My card may be the only card they get this year. It just lets them know someone is thinking about them, despite having minimal contact. It's always nice to get things in the mail. Hopefully, they'll enjoy receiving a card, as silly as that sounds.
The day after I finished the cards, I was going off-island. Time for a mail art run...but gasp! I had NO mail art to send. Hmm. I had to rectify that quickly. This one,
RESIDENCE OF THE DEAD, was kind of a fail. The title is too small. The ghost practically disappears. (Do YOU see it?) How to fix a dud envelope? My fabulous skulls stuck all over do wonders. Truly! They helped this turd out immensely. (?)
Speaking of "crap"--here we literally have
SATAN'S PORT-O-POTTY! It was also excreted quickly to get ready for tomorrow's (now later today's) trip "going to the USA" (as we call going to the mainland here.) I don't even know what the plot of SATAN'S PORT-O-POTTY could be if it were a real flick. Ha! (?) It turned out rather fun though. Hooray! (?)
In trying to get my mail art groove on again after taking several weeks off to do the Christmas cards, I kind of struck out on this one. That's kind of okay. It was an aborted idea for Maxima's YULE project (I sent in something else that seemed like more of what she wanted.) This idea was rather unformed and thus, the envelope is kind of plain. (?)
With the exception of the very first piece o' mail art I sent her, I don't believe BonnieDiva has received a single thing I've mailed her since. Perhaps it's the "pop offs" (pieces coming off the edges of the envelopes) that usually are featured on my pieces that has gotten her mail confiscated? This one is pop-off free. I HOPE she gets it (as dull as it is...) (?)
Where did this one come from? I found the lettering that spells out CTHULHU in a pile of scraps (I rememeber making it, but don't remember what it was for. Clearly it was an abandoned idea)...and just pulled this together from what I had laying around. I thought it'd be crap, but I actually kind of like the final result. Cthulhu is a mythical creation of early 20th century horror author H.P. Lovecraft's. Pictures of what Cthulhu is supposed to look like make it look (to me) rather doofy. It does have tentacles of some sort though, so I disguised the creature (one of the "Old Ones") with the title. All you see is an eye and the tentacles emerging around it. The title is a minor joke as well, riffing off of the BRADY BUNCH reunion movie, A VERY BRADY CHRISTMAS. (?)
I received a very nice letter from Coco Muchmore, talking mostly on why she loves the octopus and expounding on its miraculous virtues. She also included some octopus poetry she's come across and wrapped it all up in a beatiful envelope. It was an enlightening joy to have received. THANK YOU, Coco!
Coco was already on my radar for the need to make something for--and this mailing from her just pushed her to the front of the line as far as getting some mail from me. (Shhh! She may not realizer it -- I certainly don't understand how she cannot, though--but Coco is one of a handful of my favorite people I've encountered since returning to the mail art world.)I used some leftover odds and ends mixed with some new images I found. It's just okay. I HOPE she likes it. (?)
Coming up, I've got a challenge ahead. Three of my dearest friends (NON-mail artists) live in various places around California. We would normally get together for the holidays and birthdays, but since I moved to Washington, it's made things complicated. For example, i am still working on sending part of Vye's birthday present to her---and her birthday was in August. It was Shookie who suggested that the four of us NOT exchange gifts this year because the hassle of doing so. Instead, Vye had the idea of a Christmas card challenge. HUH? Vye's idea is that we each make the "wackiest/funniest/prettiest/divinest Christmas cards of all time for each other."
Okay...except as I explained the day we had this conversation, I had just mailed off all 206 Christmas cards I had made out---including the cards for them. But, I would go ahead and do new cards---these crazy cards--for the challenge.
I have NO IDEA what I will do...but it smells like mail art to me. Stay tuned for the next exciting (eh!) chapter of my mail art diaries to see what I come up with. Hmm.
Thank you for visiting.
CHEERS!
'Ray received the 2nd envelope (finally--after receiving the 1st and 3rd one) and posted this to his Instagram.
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