Mailart 365 has moved

Went home alone on the train, which was a bit sad.

In the midst of the mailart exhibition i have been rapidly approaching a deadline for Cheryl Penn's Mailart Makes the World a Town Zine.  This is a page but I am also sending out some thank you email postcards.

My duahgter has been cleaning out her room and I keep going through the rubbish just in case there is something I NEED.  I loved the view of this oxford college info (circle view) and wondered if it might inspire something for the 'mailart makes the world a town' zine. It hasn't but it made me wonder about you all and your worlds...

Christo pink.  Island thoughts and a childhood memory of Gilligan's island and the absurdity of the real son of Gilligan (Patrick Denver) spending the summer with his mum, Maggie, on Cranberry Island. and I always love a little dream psychology.

They are testing children using made up words here in England.  I made up some words while listening to a tape of rainforest sounds.  Then painted to some cameroonian music.  I'm going to let the kids try a similar exercise and see what they come up with.  Or maybe this is too weird?

Inspired by conversations about the purity of trash in trashpo and encouraged by DeVillo Sloan to work in my particular intuitive way, I launched into a trashpo book today.  It is a diamond slot and tab book 1/2 A6 size and what you see is two pages, exactly postcard size as a spread. I haven't decided whether to send the book into Theresa Ann's small things, to DK, the queen of Trashpo or to Cheryl Penn who collects boekies.

We found the holes in the fence and wired them shut and sunk the fence in new soil.  I feel very protective of the new birds but haven't managed to name them yet. My sister asked if the fox was cute.

In moments of drizzle (rather than downpours) we planted in the raised beds.

Mailart unlocks my blocks!

First had fun reading Maters Collage (Lark Books) to inspire me.  I always need lots of inspiration before I go to a school and work with a new group of young people. The brief for my day with year 9 (13 -14 yrs) is to respond to War Horse (film) - I've read the book but not seen the film, In Flander's Fields and Dulce et Decorum Est. I always have to spend a long time playing before I know what the heck I'm going to do. I had the idea of using some photos they take as a starting point so I've collected some WW1 objects from a kind neighbour. We'll do some word gathering and then we are going to use old frames (because I got a box at a carboot sale for next to nothing) to make some collages. I decided not to do my trial about Warhorse and the texts they will use as I think I can explain my process through a related text and that may avoid having lots of copies of what they think I want - we can think together if I haven't done the thinking ahead.  So I decided to respond to Birdsong. First I made the mailart  because mailart is perfect for testing ideas. Then I came took apart a frame and replaced the glass with mount board and collaged with old maps and pva as a starting point...

Oh the joy of not having a plan, aleotoric mailart.  Took a random page from a leftover altered book project and let words jump out at me.  It was an art history book and somehow my brother in law's ugly divorce came through and obviously  it was a response to Katerina's beautiful both sides now CD that I received earlier in the week!

"T" is for thatch but one thatching is enough!

Oh the pitfalls of using American words. My children can't bear it when I use the English version as they say it sounds wrong.  Can't win! I think I use sweater but I probably alternate. 'J' is for JUMPER not sweater.

Silly but fun to make.  Great tits feed at our window daily and their name still makes me giggle. G is for Great Tits... I really needed a few more birds.

 These things completely confounded me when I arrived in England! I wouldn't drive round one so I was quite limited as to where I could go... I'm struck by how they can look like nerves.

I love the way stories come to the surface as I make a mailart! Y is for yew which won't grow on our heavy clay soil, boo hoo.