Mail Art 19: A Blast From The Past & Up To Date!

 Welcome back! 

While digging through files in my rapidly dying computer, I was delighted to come across a cache of images of some of my old mail art!

From the dates I can make out, they appear to all be from 1987 to 1991. They were all sent to my aunt. (Her married last name was "Kokesh".)

Seeing them all again, I more or less remember them.  I do remember I had an assignment in college once where we had to show/present something unusual about us that we do. In a panic, I asked my aunt if she had saved any envelopes. She sent me these.

The thing is, she was "just my aunt." (But oh, how I sooooo wish she were still here.) I never sent her my "best" stuff. That was reserved for my friends. 

I continued to make mail art well beyond 1991. I did it, at least, into the early 2000s.But who knows where any of it (if any still exists) is today?

It is eveident that, even back then, I was often going outside the confines of the envelopes borders. That's a practice I continued to do when I returned to the hobby...but have more or less stopped doing because my mailings have a habit of NOT showing up where I am sending them if there are pop-offs.

Some of them had nice surprises, like the moai (Easter Island-like tiki, as I am a big tiki bar geek) or the appearance of my monster girl character. (I used to draw her all of the time!)

Most--but clearly not all--were designed to emulate movie posters for made up movies, which is mostly what I still do today. 

It is weird seeing envelopes that were doodles/drawings. I remember them--I did them--but I just don't/can't doodle/draw any more. (Not that I was any good at it back then...)

I also used to color everything back then. That whole weird background is a doodle. If you'll notice in this picture, almost everything else (the figures, most of the verbiage boxes, etc.) have been colored with markers...something I do NOT do nowadays.

I loved the stamps back then, too. Stamps now are...just not as fun. And look at that price? Yowza! Only 25 cents to mail something back then. What does a stamp cost now? Something like 60 cents or so? Jeepers!

This one from 1987 has a (boring) stamp that was only 22 cents! Jinkies! HOW did postage get so expensive?

Back in the day during that class presentation, someone asked I sent all of my mail out decorated. No way. Mail art takes quite a while to do. It may not look like much, but I spent (wasted?) HOURS doing these. I certainly didn't waste my time making mail art out for credit card and utility bill payments. If I liked you, you got mail art (at least once). 

Aside from family and friends, most of my output went to those in the mail art community that I was in contact with. Where are they all now? Most I do not even remember their names (real or mail art aliases) any more.

Some, like this AWFUL drawing, are just plain embarrassing. (Remember, I did not send my "best" stuff to my aunt... She got a lot of mail from me--but most of it was the stuff I was less proud of.)

I'm also surprised to see, in the envelopes that are not faux movie poster-esque, is the creativity I strived for. This isn't a great example, but the topsy-turvy aspect of this one (it could be read either right-side up or upside-down) is still a bit interesting. And again, it's all colored with markers.

These little peg people I doodled certainly look very 80s. (Well, their "hair" does, anyway...)

I really can't draw to save my life...especially these days. But I do remember this one. As poorly drawn as it is, I actually really like this. WHERE did this idea come from though? Weird.

Yowza--I have no idea where the stamp was on this one, but it made it through the mail withOUT one. There is something the post office stamped on it, "Evidence of postage having been applied", but I have no idea where it could have been looking at this now.

Sometimes you just run out of ideas...like this one. It's a triple feature of three bad ideas on one envelope. None of the faux movies ads work. That still holds true today. Some of my newer stuff is uninspired and bland. Oh well, it happens.

This is the last of the old envelopes in the file. It was a fun little flashback-o-rama and I'm glad I found these. Hopefully seeing these old chestnuts will inspire me anew. (Or not...)

Now on to the new stuff...

While I was in California, I promised IUOMA (International Union of Mail Artists) member, Marcia Rosenberger in Brazil, that I would send her something when I got back home. When I returned to Washington though, I was so overwhelmed with mail art that I "owed" others, I had to postpone making something for her until I could get caught up. Not wanting to break my promise, the very first new thing I made this go-round is for her. However... My computer was dying--and I got a new one. Then my printer was held hostage by HP (insisting I subscribe to their expensive ink cartridge program--or making my printer unusable. Anyone else experience this?). So, while a new printer is in the back of my mind, for now I needed to rely on the library for my printing needs. I made a bunch of Word documents with addresses, photos, titles, tag lines, etc. However, at the library, I failed to realize that fonts I have at home are NOT necessarily on the library's computers/printers. Also, the envelope I envisioned for Marcia, I somehow forgot to print the file for. So she got one of the others I had thought up instead (in order to maximize my library time), For better or worse, this is what she got. And--as lame as it is, the international postage stamps really makes it that much worse. Ugh! Sorry, Marcia.

Of course, CANNIBAL CLOWNS (and all of the images I found for possible use on the envelope) inspired a full-blown CANNIBAL CIRCUS. The lettering for CIRCUS was a photo I'd printed (Thank goodness). CANNIBAL was just some red paprer I drew letters on (since the library's font for it was boring). Again, the stamp is painful...

While I was on the clown/circus train of thought before my venturing to the library, I also came up with FUNHOUSE OF FEAR. Notice the pedestrian-looking font for the title. It's the same bland font as in Marcia's envelope (but at least Marcia's is bigger sized). This one got a few pop-offs (the stamp, the Funhouse roof, and the screaming woman's hair). I hope it arrives okay.

With some leftover clowns and circus imagery, I made this quickie, BIG TOP OF TERROR.  I didn't realize that my tagline for this one was almost identical to the one for FUNHOUSE OF FEAR. Oops!

This next one is the final result of the envelope that was originally intended for Marcia Rosenberger above. I had the picture of the girl with the flowers in her hair (from the Russian horror movie "VIY"). She reminded me of the recent horror flick, MIDSOMMAR...so I made a ripoff of it riffing off of the Shakespeare play A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and making it more obviously horror. And--yes! Another pop-off (The flower girl's sleeve)!

CULT OF HORRORS...Yeah, I've got nothing here. I had the "Blood actually soars into the audience in 3D" bit figured out..But how do I use it? Throw on a title, vague taglines, a skull, a stomach upset warning and a scared old woman...and there is still nothing there. If this were a real movie, you'd have very little idea of what it was about. eh...whatever.

When I first joined IUOMA. I received a ton of mail. I promptly removed my address from the site and responded to all of the mail I received with mail art in return. One of those early mailers was Paulo Teles. I sent him something...but he NEVER received it. (I found this out over the holidays.) So, Paulo has been high on my list to get something too...and he got this. It's rather "meh" as well. Nothing is popping off, so hopefully this time he will receive it.

SUBURBAN VOODOO? Huh? What could that even be about? This one came totally out of left field...and malls are basically dead these days. I have zero idea what I was thinking or what part of my brain short circuited and spat this out. I will just blame it on the residual side effects of the drugs that knocked me out for the colonoscopy I had earlier. (TMI, I am sure… Sorry!) You know, they warn you against operating cars, making legal decisions, and even cooking afterwards. But making mail art? It was NEVER discussed (and clearly SHOULD be. Ha!) What do I like about it? The "SEE: WEIRD food court rituals" bit. That makes me smile. I wonder what those rituals could be...

Here's yet another unexciting piece... HORROR AT THE TIKI BAR. This is for my new tiki friend, Gillian, who I met at a tiki bar in Petaluma, CA. It's not the best envelope ever, but... On a side note, the zombie guy on the left is wearing a toupee of sorts. The top of his head was cropped off in the picture (How rude!), so I found some "hair" and pasted it on the missing section. Ha! 

Of course, working on Gillian's tiki envelope made me think of my other new-ish tiki pal, Ray (who interviewed me on his show, TIKI WITH RAY, a few months back.) The most recent picture Ray posted on his Instagram shows him wearing one of his Tiki Goth Club shirts. I don't know why, but it got me to thinking of mystery solvers like the SCOOBY DOO gang or THE HARDY BOYS, or even SPIN & MARTY (if you know who they were). I don't know why, but I ended up with the shocking and suspenseful whodunit-- TIKI GOTH CLUB & THE MYSTERY OF THE EMPTY SCORPION BOWL. Oh my stars! The HORROR of a missing cocktail! EEEK! Hopefully he'll be amused.

That's 10 new pieces and 21 vintage ones. This is a H-U-G-E post. I'm wiped out. My creative (that's questionable) streak was mostly due to being stuck at home for my bowel prep day before my colonoscopy...which also left me stuck at home to recover after the procedure. Now that that fun and excitement is behind me (Ha!), I have so much else to work on. Mailart will have to take a back seat for a while. Not forever--just a while.

Anyway, thanks for visiting. I'll see you next time---whenever that is...

CHEERS!

Skip up to the next post here:

https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/2023/03/mail-art-20-mail-call.html

Miss a post? Take a scroll through and see previous enstallments on my home page here:

https://monsterago-go.blogspot.com/