Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Doodlebug, Fiddlebug, Fiddlehead, Fidgetglyph

Today, I received the following drawing from kiyotei. (This is how this blog is supposed to work, by the way--by reporting on mailart as it arrives!)

kiyotei is of that type of mailartist I most admire (but don't at all emulate). He, like Roy Arenella, creates art that reacts to the art he receives. This method creates an almost collaborative art and truly brings the process of mailing and exchanging of art into the process of creating mailart.


kiyotei, "Dead Fiddlebug" (19 May 2005)

What this little drawing does is riff off part of a fidgetglyph entitled "ovo" that I sent him. kiyotei (again, like Roy Arenella) seems to have been intrigued by the weird mandibular conclusion to that fidgetglyph, so this drawing incorporates that portion of the fidgetglyph into his drawing (as its head)--thus tranforming it into a fidgetglyph. Of course, we have to assume that the bug is a fiddlebug (which we can tell from the decoration on its underside and the title on the other side of the card) because kiyotei was thinking of fidgetglyphs.

But, best of all, kiyotei has no idea that I had fiddleheads for dinner last night. Fiddleheads (the curved heads of opening ferns) are among my favorites vegetables, and they are available only for a small period of time each spring. I'm thinking of making a fiddlehead pie over the weekend--if the fiddleheads can hold out long enough.

un violon d'ingres

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