Mail Art #27: It Came Creeping In From The Post Office!

 

And we are back...just as the post office has raised the price of stamps again. Swell. Hopefully that will be a deterant for some thinking of sending me something...

Before we get to the mail, I wanted to give a shout out to Thomas Brown and his Mail Art News blog. He has been "reporting" on the current mail art scene (adding to mail art historty) and has been kind enough to have included some of my posts. How nice and what a champion for the hobby he is. 

Someone I am always delighted to hear from is Coco Muchmore. I got this quite a while back.

At the time she sent it, I had no idea it would take so long (MORE than a month) to get a response off to her.

THE FAMILY GHOST: Nearly 5 weeks later, she is getting this as her reply. It's simple and harkens back to something from the 50s, like something by William Castle, perhaps. The tag lines came out a little dark. The top reads: After Uncle Albert's funeral, everyone came home...including Uncle Albert!" The bottom one reads: "It's hard saying goodbye to a loved one...especially when they won't leave!" I like it. I hope Coco does, too. This is one of FIVE I somehow whipped together in a single long afternoon (after more than a week of nothing). Amazing. I had been jotting down ideas...and these few I was able to put together rather quickly.

FEAR PRUDENCE: This is a title that came to me that I luckily wrote down. I was trying to think of different words I could use with the word "Fear." (If you'll recall, I've been stuck for ideas.) It occurred to me that I could appear to write over one word with an F and make it "Fear" That would work for "Dear." But Dear who? Then the Beatles song DEAR PRUDENCE came to mind. Dear became Fear...now why do we FEAR PRUDENCE? Aha! It's kind of a long, drawn out tagline "plot", but you get the general idea from this "poster". But does ANYONE name people Prudence any more?

Mike Parsons sent me a homemafe art card/ post card. 

This was sent in mid-June, so I am only about 6 weeks behind in responding (at the time I am writing this).

CARDINAL SYNN: I don't know what sort of movie CARDINAL SYNN would be. I found the figure, thought he was creepy-interesting...but didn't know how to use him.  I used a similar (same?) figure ealier in something I called THE DEATH POPE (which was rather lame). Why the demotion from pope to cardinal? I just liked the play on words with his name--cardinal synn/sin. (I don't even know what the cardinal sins are, but...)

THE INSOMNIAC: Of the five envelopes I made today (Here and shown above. One has been held back for a bit...), I think I like this one the best...even though there's NOT much going on. Maybe it's the background? Maybe it's the creepy guy entirely fitting in the frame of the envelope from top to bottom? The creepy taglines? I don't know. I do prefer my humorous joke-y horror titles, but some--like this one--end up being just straight out horror, Usually they are less interesting...but I am drawn to this one for some reason. I hope Maxima Strange likes it.

I had a piece o' mail from Ken B. Miller.

There was one of his collages and a letter written on the pack of a Xeroxed old wig ad! Ha! I think he had also included an "add & pass" (a piece of paper that mail artists add a bit of...something to and then mail it on to someone else). I think I'd already sent it on to someone else--although I didn't add anything to it. (Add & Passes are NOT my thing.)

PREMATURE DECOMPOSITION: This is the mess I came up for him. Interesting concept--poor execution. (Well how easy do you think it is finding photos of living guys who are already rotting away? And coming up with tag lines for something like this? Ugh!) It is what it is... The tag line "Jared had a great life...until his ear fell off" was changed to "Jared had a great life...until his face started falling off." I don't know what happened to that latter tag line. It disappeared, so I just used the stupid original one.

HAPPY HOUR OF THE DEAD: This was just a quickie made with things already cut out and laying around. Lame tag lines...but the whole project was a super fast one as I  was heading off island the next day and had a chance to post this. Whoo hoo! Ready or not, here it comes Tara!

THE ROOM AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS: This one also suffered from being rushed. I was going off island the next day (This was a different day.) and had nothing to mail. Way late into the night I worked and got this ready. It's only now that I realize two taglines accridentally got pasted on together. Oops! There were supposed to be in different spots. Oh well. Ho hum...

NUDISTS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE: Okay--not the greatest envelope ever...and very reminiscent of one I did earlier, HAUNTED NUDIST COLONY or something like that. When I stumbled across the naked guy (He was in a shower actually.) covering himself with his arm out for protection, I knew I had to use it. Once it was in my head, there was no getting it out...unless I made it. It didn't come out great...but then I realized who am I going to send this to? Naked people on an envelope--even though everything's covered? Who would want that? By default, it went to Thomas Brown of the Mail Art News. (See the SHOUT OUT to him at the top of the page!) He seems to like silly things. It does not, however, eliminate a name from the list of people I "owe." ARGH! Will that list ever go down? "Experience the SUPER-AU-NATURAL!" Ha!

I was shocked, but delightfully surprised to receive mail from Adam Roussopoulos. 

Adam has been doing an amazing job as a mail art historian of sorts. Unlike Thomas Brown and his Mail Art News (see above), instead of chronicling what is going on in the world today mail art-wise, he has taken to preserving the likeness of today's mail art community through rubber stamps. At last count, he has done (I believe) about 237 mail artist portrait stamps. Here is the current crop he has just finished.

I was actually very surprised to have been included. When I left IUOMA, I told Mr. Roussopoulos not to bother with mine. I didn't feel worthy since I had left IUOMA. But wow! How nice that he did it anyway!

SATAN'S DEPARTMENT STORE:  This is what I sent him back, one from the silly "Satan" titles that started back with SATAN'S PORT-O-POTTY. I hope he likes it...and gets that it is a joke. It is a small gesture after receiving such a cool surprise. (Now I just need to track down an ink pad again... Ha!)

Ooooo I found one. Adam's envelope was the first thing I stamped with it (on the back). FABULOUS!

I don't know if this belongs here ot not--but it is kind of mail art related... I hate WalMart. However, where I live, it really is the only department store-like place around. I go in as infrequently as I can. Earlier today I had to stop by for some reason and they were having their Back to School promotion going on. Oh my stars! They had the glue sticks I use/prefer (The ones at the Dollar Tree are CRAP!) for 50 cents each! WHAT!?! Usually these cost between $2 to $4 to buy (depending on where you go-go). But 50 cents each? That's like getting 4 for one of the lowest priced ones I can find normally. I stocked up! That means I'll be churning out more mail art for a long while still. (Hopefully!)

I'm a big, life-long collector of vintage movie posters. Usually, I collect old horror movie posters. (Hence the reason most of my envelopes always try to look like horror movie posters.) I DO collect other genres as well. On one of the movie poster forum sites I belong to (All Poster Forum), a while back I mentioned on some thread that one of my all-time favorite (BAD) movies is VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Of course, I already have the one sheet. However, another collector from the site, Mark Lawd in the U.K. decided to send me a surprise. It's a VALLEY OF THE DOLLS British quad! WOW-zer! How super, duper nice of him. 

THE NIGHT CREEPER: I should have sent Mark a poster back as a thank you. However, I really do NOT know what he likes/collects...and, truth be told, ever since my move to Washington, my poster collection has been a disaster area. I don't know where anything is. Instead of a real poster, he gets one of my fake ones. I just wish it had come out better. Oh well. You just never know how they'll come out... I hope he likes it and realizes how special his gift was.

Oh my stars! That is 10... FINALLY! I can launch this post. 

I do have ideas (good, bad, and really, really bad) for future envelopes. I have been jotting them down. When those blank periods come (when I run out of ideas), I can always pull one of the unused stinkers from the list and make that! Ha! But really...I have been writing everything down. I even have a few Christmas titles in mind already. Ho ho ho! (Wait! It's still only July!)

Thanks for visiting.

CHEERS!

Jump to the next post HERE!

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

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