Mail Art #31

Hi there! Welcome back. It's...been a while, several MONTHS actually, since my last mail art post. That is because I was trying to "winter" in California. My computer and mail art stuff was back in Washington. But...there was an interruption in my trip. I came home briefly and was able to finish up enough mail art for a post (FINALLY!). So, take a gander if you'd like, at the mail art I made from October-ish until now.

Heading away for so long, I was afraid I'd miss Maxima Strange's Goth Emporium assembly zine projects. I had sent in the one for the theme "EYEBALL" (in my last post), of which almost all of the spots available for it had been filled by the time of my trip. I went ahead and did the next theme, CARNIVAL (also seen in the last post). But the way she breezed through the previous one (NIGHT CREATURES) and was rapidly getting responses for EYEBALL, I didn't want to take a chance that CARNIVAL would be done just as fast and she'd move on to the next theme, UNDERWORLD. So...I printed up everything I'd need, intending to do it while away. However, I decided to just go ahead and make them. Although they are all a bit different, the one below best captures what I was going for (whatever that is).

Underworld? What does that mean? The first thing that came to my mind was Hell. I have zero religious background (and I am happy about that). Hell, as far as I know, was always depicted as being within the Earth? I briefly thought of the River Styx thing---but is that in the Underworld? Or does Underworld simply mean the afterlife? I don't know---and the point is mute as the cards are done. The layout changes a bit because of size issues. Also, the figures change. I thought I was printing the same image. Except as I was cutting them out, one of them had a boy behind the girl and the other was the girl alone. Huh? They are two separate pictures of the same girl! Ha! 

WELCOME TO HELL: Since I usually make an envelope version of my cards, here's what I came up with. It's basically the same except with a title (WELCOME TO HELL), taglines, and the "Warning" blurb. Even though I'm sending  the cards to Maxima, I decided to just go ahead and send her the envelope version as well. It seems like half of the things I send her go missing anyway. I wonder if she'll get this?

And…remember that poster I made a while back? It's b-a-c-k on the blog. Huh? I spotted it in the wild. The friend I made it for, Tiki With Ray, was promoting some of the prizes that he’d be giving away at the party I’d made the poster for. Someone responded about their disappointment in not being able to go. And I spotted something in the post.

Oh my stars! She had taken her copy of the poster, framed it, and had it hanging on her wall. Zowie! Not only has my silly mail art been reproduced as a poster, it’s framed and on a total stranger’s wall. How amazing!

My friend, mail artist Amy Kiessling, sent me these photos of her and her boyfriend Chris as they appeared in a costume contest at a club they belong to. Can you guess what they are? Put your thinking caps on..

Chris was a postman and Amy was….snail mail! Brilliant!!! They won first prize and… what is that stuck to Amy’s slithery snail tail? It’s a piece o’ mail art…

Oh my stars! It’s the piece I’d sent her, based on the poster for that party. (It keeps popping up! Ha!)

Before leaving for California, I also prepped the next two cards for Maxima’s Goth Emporium project. For the one called SUPERNATURAL, this is what I came up with.

I’m not wild about it, but it’s something. I had to be quick and print it all up if I wanted to get it all cut out and put together while in California.

I also brought materials for the Emporium’s project called GOTHIC WOMEN. In my haste to get ready and leave home for months on end, I was stifled for an idea. GOTHIC WOMEN??? Huh? How could I do that? The first “gothic woman” that popped into my head was the woman in Grant Wood’s Americana masterpiece, AMERICAN GOTHIC. This is what I came up with…

As luck would have it, not long after arriving in California, I flew out to Chicago for an incredible adventure. While there, I got to visit the Art Institute of Chicago, which is home to so many incredible paintings by the world’s best-known artists. And, yes! There was Grant Wood’s painting! No one was bothering with it when I came by, so I got really close, my nose maybe an inch from it (and there was no glass in front of it or anything) and gave it a good, long look. Wow! I was just in awe of it and all of the other well-known works I got to see. (At least until a museum guard told me to back it up a bit. Oops.)

The pitchfork is wrong (and I’d never noticed that stray strand of hair she has), but I like it over all. Seeing the original in Chicago made this more personal to me. (I’d also played the old farmer in a super brief scene in THE MUSIC MAN in high school. So there’s that, too.) Fun fact, the woman in the painting is NOT the farmer’s wife, as everyone assumes. According to the information posted near the painting at the museum, the woman is the farmer’s daughter. Poor girl. No wonder she offed him. Ha!

I’m not sure if this should be in the mail art blog post or not (It does pertain to mail though…), but in between the cards for Maxima’s projects, I was busy, busy, busy writing out my Christmas cards. My list was HUGE this year. I started writing them Halloween night, in the hopes of having them completed by Thanksgiving. I write a note in my cards—-not just sign them. It took seemingly forever, but I did it. (Note to self for next year…smaller cards are easier to make out!) Here they are, all 240 of them. (Actually only 232 are pictured. I remembered several more after this was taken. D’oh!)

HOMICIDAL FOR THE HOLIDAYS: Using several scrap images I’d had (I brought several pages with me.), I tried to fashion an envelope. It was looking pretty good…until I started gluing it down. I tried to give it a holiday theme. Can you tell? This was the last one I did in 2023…

While in California, I was lucky enough to meet up with fellow mail artist Tara Odorizzi once again. She is very talented and such a sweet, grounded young woman.  She later dropped some homemade cookies off at the house. Zowie! Thank you, Tara. I had such a nice time visiting with you. Cheers!

Marcia Rosenberger is a mail artist in Brazil. I’ve sent her a few things over the last couple of years. 

She recently had a mail art show of her mail art archives. She sent a picture of the program and the various pages.

There was my name (next to Maxima Strange’s! How fun!), Monster-A-GoGo! 

Looking at some of the pictures she posted from the show, I was thrilled to spot a picture that had an envelope I’d sent to her in it. I zoomed in just to be sure and…yep! That was mine! (It’s the purplish one between the two women. There’s my face on it, too!) How nice that Marcia included my envelope in her show. Thank you, Marcia!

My friends and I did our (2nd) annual homemade Christmas card exchange. Last year I had made pop-up cards for them. At the last minute, our friend Nedra decided to join in with the exchange. I quickly made her a card, too...only hers I wanted to be different. Years ago (decades, really...), I had seen this image of a fat, old, naked Santa that I wanted to use for her card. While looking for it, I came accross all of these other scantily clad Santas. (Oops!) There was, however, a cluster of this one beefcake Santa in various poses that, at the time, I thought I would use for the next year's cards. I did. This is what I came up with:

They are all basically the same. Here's the one for Nedra, for example. There's a seasonal cover.

Inside there is a sentiment and a question pondering if she was "naughty or nice". She is then instructed to open the box below.

For Vye, it was more of the same.

I had a little trouble with hers. The "Santa" kept getting his arms stuck. However, as with Nedra's, he is clearly indicating the "nice" side of Vye's card.

Shookie's had a bit more of an elaborate cover. It was the one I made first, but those free hand letters I cut out were a nightmare to do...so no one else got any.

Inside, her card was essentially the same as the others with a slightly different pose from "Santa".

Erich's card--outside and in--looked very much like the others, so I'll spare you. (In other words, I can not find the photos of them at the moment.) But was he naughty or nice? I wanted his response to be a bit...different. This is what his Santa told him...

Yes, he was given the finger! Ha!

What did everyone else make? Here is what I received. From Nedra (this was her first year participating), the outside was wrapping paper.

Inside, she had this wild, abstract horror Christmas scene with blood spatters and googly eyes around a Christmas tree. 

Shookie’s card’s exterior was rather traditional. 

Inside was a cheery message with an incredible painting inside. The light coming in from above and the underwater plants were impressive. 

The message about Christmas bringing me Joy was clever. Shookie has a thing for mermaids. Her mermaid in a teacup was very cute. The topper was that the mermaid is wearing a name tag that reads “Joy”. Ha!

Vye’s card was stuffed in a large envelope made of protective bubble wrap. It was big and bulky. What had she made? I pulled mine out and…whatever it was, it was huge. Oh my stars! What an amazing surprise. It was a Christmas puppet with a movable mouth you can cotrol from the back! 

Googly eyes added to the puppet’s fine and festive features!

Erich also made us cards, but as I write this, I can’t find the one he made me at the moment. Maybe I left it in California? You can spot his in this edited down version of our Zoom-ed card opening, though:

Not long after the holidays had wound down, I got to meet up with Tara Odorizzi once again. What a delight! 

DEATH NIGHT:  Although I was still away from home and just had a few scrap pieces laying around, I was getting antsy. So, I decided to make an envelope. It’s not very good, but considering it was made entirely with what I had on hand, it isn’t that awful. Of course it was for the amazing Tara. 

A VERY CTHULHU NEW YEAR: Here is another envelope made up mostly of scraps. This was originally going to go to another mail artist that I don’t “owe” anything to, but I should send something to. I got the background, people, and tentacles on and… I liked the layout so far, but had no “theme”. Hmm. 

While I thought about it, mail art legend Ruud Janssen (who, among other things, started and runs IUOMA, the International Union of Mail Artists) unknowingly did something for me. He doesn’t know me at all. But since he did me a courtesy, I bumped him up to being the recipient. Looking at the two leftover tentacles I’d stuck on reminded me of one of my favorite envelopes from last (?) year, A VERY CTHULHU CHRISTMAS (which was a riff of of A VERY BRADY CHRISTMAS)! Of course! It’s a new year, why not A VERY CTHULHU NEW YEAR as well? Ha! Cthulhu, for those who don’t know, is an “old god” created by classic horror author H. P. Lovecraft. 

Drat it all. The recipient’s first name was somehow spelled wrong. I went back and redid it… It was the iPad! I put in RUUD and it “corrected “ itself to RUDD. Grrr! Here it is fixed…

I had to return home about a month earlier than planned. It was only for 2 weeks and then I'd be returning to California right adterwards for the remainder of my planned time there. Among other things, this quick trip home allowed me to finish up the envelope to Ruud Jansen above--and also do some other mail art as well!

BE MY BLOODY VALENTINE: With Valentine's Day less than a month away, I thought I'd send my mail art lady friends some mail art valentines. They are all essentially the same, with the exception of different elements here and there--so I count them all as one envelope.

I had purchased these heart-shaped doillies to use, but this first one was a nightmare to glue. It kept ripping and was just a mess--so after the first one, I abandoned them.

Using other hearts found online, I tried to come up with a layout style I liked. 

Then I realized having the evil cupid on the right side would annoy the post office as the stamps were out of place. 

When I moved things over though, the heart seemed not to fit where I wanted it.

After I had pretty much finished them, I thought of one last detail--paint, er...BLOOD splatters! That was a bit of a disaster though. Some of the splattered paint obscured some addresses and the one below had a huge blob fall on and obscure a character's head. (I had to clean it off--and left a mess!)

I have to figure out how to size my splatter. Some splatters were just too big.

Trying to use different elements to figure out which were the best to use was tricky. Sometimes, like here, the envelopes were pretty sparse looking. 

Other times, the backgrounds were too busy and the wording got a bit lost.

OR the wording almost faded into the backgrounds...

Late in the game, I discovered that a complementary color (instead of just a shade of red or pink) looked best.

Towards the end, some of my background images were too small for the envelope, so I improvised. I ripped them in half and padded them out with a swath of pink paper through the middle. 

I couldn't go back and reprint the backgrounds as my red printer ink was dying. Anyway, the envelopes aren't great, but I hope the ladies like them.

While I was gone (since mid-October), the mail had totally accumulated into a small mountian.

Among bills, Christmas cards and gifts, junk mail and flyers, there was also a lot of mail art! UGH! Behind again...

The first piece I encountered was from Ken B. Miller. 

Inside was a letter (on the back of some sheet music), one of his collage cards, a zine, and a couple of stickers. Thank you.

SHE COMES BY NIGHT: This is what I came up with for him. Ugh...I'm rusty. I'm also out of red. (The title barely came out an orangey pink color--instead of red.) The female figure in the foreground was originally rather colorful--but the lack of red left her largely yellow with blue highlights. (No purples, pinks, reds, or oranges) Oh well. I tried...

Doggone it! I forgot the stamp. Stamps ruin everything...(even the ones that aren't that good to begin with).

One of the many pieces o' mail art I received while I was away was from Adam Roussopoulos, the rubber stamp guru who had a project making rubber stamps of all of the contemporary mail artists (myself--in my Monster-A-GoGo guise--included).

Along with a note, he included four wrappers from the old (1980s) horror bubble gum card series FRIGHT FLICKS. (I totally remember those from back in the day--and probably have a bunch tucked away somehwere...)

Also included was a fake poster for a bogus concert that he had made. Ha!

A VERY CTHULHU VALANTINE'S DAY: Unfortunately, what I made for him in response turned out to be utter crap! I came across more tentacles I had previously printed up and was in a Valentine mood... Since I'd recently done A VERY CTHULHU NEW YEAR, why not A VERY CTHULHU VALANTINE'S DAY? Why? Because it sucks! Except for the title and tag line, everything was pre-existing. The title was supposed to be red...but I'm low on ink. I'm amazed I got what I got. But ugh. It's just NOT very good. Oh well...

Also in my pile o' mail, from Halloween came this card from P. Landon.

It was Halloween meets Batman...but mostly Halloween.

The inside card had nothing to do wuth the Caped Crusaders. Instead, it was a card that P had altered.

I was especially fond of the spiderweb stickers and the raised skull stickers. Cool. THANK YOU!

GROUNDHOG DAY MASSACRE: Even though it will arrive late and even though I've already done Valentine-themed envelopes (Groundhog Day comes before Valentine's Day.), since I was in a holiday mood, I went for it anyway. Eh...

Mike Parsons sent me this homemade postcard while I was away.

FOOD COURT OF FEAR: This is what I concocted to send him back. FOOD COURT OF FEAR? Oh my... LAME!

The last bit to share for this post is a homemade Christmas postcard from Coco Muchmore! Thank you.

NIGHT OF THE CREEPY CRAWLIES: This is what I came up with for Coco. I did the layout last night. I thought it looked okay. It just had no theme. I thought about it overnight and all day today. Nothing came to mind. What I ended up with --the creepy crawlies (or, perhaps, the heebie jeebies would have been better?)--is essentially NOTHING! But I personified them ("They are coming for you."), so maybe it makes a bit more sense. No?  Eh, whatever. This post has been soooooo long in coming--MORE than 3 months--that I am happy it is just finished.

I know this was quite a l-o-n-g post, but it did cover months and months of various mail art projects. Thanks for joining me. I'll return to Washington on February 17th. Hopefully by early March or so I'll have more to share with you.

I hope your new year is going great!

CHEERS!