Mail Art 16: The Quasi-Holiday Edition

When we last left off, my three best friends had decided that we should avoid sending each other Christmas presents this year---as the distance and postage would be too great. Instead, Vye presented the idea of the Ultimate Christmas Card Challenge! We make cards for the others in our group. That required some thought....

In the meantime, other mail art called...

THE BRIDE WORE DEATH: This is kind of a rushed disappointment. My IUOMA (International Union of Mail Artists) pal Maxima Strange came down with pneumonia. I wanted to send her a note wishing her well. I cranked this out and then realized...it was going to be a while before I went off island again. She'll probably be all better by the time this arrives...if it ever gets mailed.

SATAN'S WINNEBAGO: In my previous post, I had an envelope I'd made called SATAN'S PORT-O-POTTY. I actually liked it and found it very amusing. So, I thought what other silly things could I attach Satan to for a laugh? Out popped SATAN'S WINNEBAGO. While Winnebago is a funny word, the envelope (on a massively busy background) was a fail. But I'm sure I'll be back with other "Satanic" envelopes and grind this trend into the ground (as I did with the haunted house envelopes). NEXT!!!

And finally getting to the holidays, it's... CANNIBAL SANTA: Ho Ho Ho! 'Tis the season. But, even though it's the holidays, don't expect gingerbread and sugar plums. It's a creepy Christmas in Monster-A-GoGo's mail art fun house! I'm sending this to an older friend in Utah I haven't had much contact with lately. She used to be a big fan of horror flicks. Now that she's in her mid-70s...that's not so much the case. I hope she appreciates the envelope though, and gets the grisly humor.

HOLIDAY HORROR: Just when I thought I was getting my creepy Christmas on...it's back to the haunted house schtick again--just dressed up in holiday wrappings. Sigh...

THE CHRISTMAS PRESENCE...: Another holiday-themed haunted house envelope. Snore. It didn't even come out that good. Plus, it is going to a mail artist in the Netherlands. Although she speaks (well, WRITES) very good English, I'm noit so sure she'll get the subtle play on words in the title. Snore. Another loser piece.

NORTH POLE ZOMBIES: Christmas horror that is NOT just another haunted house thing. Hooray!

Doing the Christmas-themed horror mail art envelopes certainly put me in the mood for my Christmas card challenege with my friends. But, jeepers! I think I had used all of the cool creepy Christmas images I could find. I'd have to recycle them. They may have seen them in my blog...but not in real life. So, I began...

I opted to attempt to make pop-up cards. It worked, but I had a lot of trouble with it. It was harder than it looks.

The note inside reads "I hope Santa brings you everything you hope for this Christmas. I, personally, am hoping for some new legs. But as we celebrate, let’s not forget the TRUE meaning of Christmas…

that Halloween came and went too quickly and we need more time to celebrate it. EEEEK! Have yourself a scary little Christmas!CHEERS!" Yep--no bons-bons and sugar plums here. (Golly, I hope they don't mind... Eh.)

And here are their envelopes...almost innocent looking except that Santa is just a skull. EEEK!

I had this large red envelope that I made use of as an ad for a movie about a faux serial killer gingerbread man known as THE COOKIE CUTTER! The envelope was almost the size as the ones I made those pop-up cards for my friends...so inside of this card is another card--just like the ones I made for those friends. Scary Christmas in pop-up 3D! Ha!

IUOMA's P. Landon sent me a postcard for the holidays...

She'd colored it red and green--Christmas colors--and added a holiday greeting.

So off I went to make her something... It's weird. Lately friends who got a Christmas card from me that showed where I live, in all of it's snow-covered splendor, have commented that it looks so very much like something out of a Hallmark movie. New local residents here have been commenting online that, with all of my town's cutsie, Mayberry-ish holiday traditions, that they, too, feel like they are living in a Hallmark movie. I don't feel that way, but I can see what they mean. In trying to think of my next holiday horror for my envelopes, the Hallmark thing popped into my head and you get... "The snow was falling. The scenery was picturesque. Everything was Christmas perfect...except for the endless screaming and bloodshed. It was definitely... "NOT ANOTHER HALLMARK CHRISTMAS MOVIE". Yes, I've had to reuse some of the Christmas pictuures I scavanged from the internet over again. Sorry. There are just so few good Christmas horror images out there that I can use.

I came across the image of this creature with holly and holly berries in its hair. Clearly Christmas-related. It turns out it's the Krampus. But it didn't look like most Krampuses I'd seen before. Then I got to wondering if I could make it into the personification of some other Christmas-related thing. Frosty the Snowman and Jack Frost had been done. What was left? It almost became something about Mistletoe (and I might still do something like that later... Hmm.) But then, as I was playing Christmas music (and some of it is so b-a-d!), it hit me! It's a musical demon who can NOT stand Christmas songs done badly.

He's PITCH: THE CHRISTMAS CAROLER. Already really reaching--this is going to have a harder audience when it arrives in its destination in France. Helene Lagache seems to write well enough English, but will she understand this made up myth and character? Will she "get' all of the musical puns? High-octave, tone-deaf terror--that NEVER misses a beat! Pray that you are never OFF KEY! It's doomed to be lost in translation. Oh well. I tried. Maybe I'll revisit that mistletoe idea after all...

On second thought... I'm taking another break from mail art. I've been sick. I'm tired. Christmas is coming --- and I am NO WHERE NEAR ready. And beyond Christmas, there are other projects I am working on...finishing going through my moving boxes, filing away (in my flat file drawers) and/or hanging up my movie poster collection, and working on my lil home tiki bar. I have so much to do and only a few weeks left before I leave for California for 6 weeks. Time to switch gears. Mail art will have to more or less take a back seat for a while--maybe until the spring thaw. (That last envelope was no winner, that's for sure. I think I need to recharge my mail art batteries...)

THANK YOU for visiting. Have a marvelous holiday season.

CHEERS!

See the earlier parts you may have missed:

Part 1: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/03/i-used-to-be-mail-artist.html

Part 2: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/03/return-to-sender-mail-art-2-son-of-mail.html

Part 3: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/04/postage-due-mail-art-3.html

Part 4: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/04/dead-letter-office-mail-art-4-horror-of.html

Part 5: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/05/address-unknown-mail-art-5-ghost-of.html

Part 6: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/06/please-forward-mail-art-6-house-of-mail.html

Part 7: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/07/delivery-attempted-mail-art-7-terror-of.html

Part 8: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/07/notice-left-mail-art-8.html

Part 9: https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2022/07/mail-hold-ordered-mail-art-9.html