Drawing Asemically Full

A couple of days of cards, starting with yesterday’s:

Arenella’s “FULL” (arrived 29 July)

Roy Arenella sends me a simple card marked “317C” (the 317th mailing of the year, and it is a simple Card, rather than a PhotoCard). A twenty-cent Babe Ruth stamp has just hit a home run on the obverse of the card, and two rubberstamped hands shake. On the reverse, I find a wonderful and simple visual pwoermd, the word “FULL” rubberstamped in an outlined typeface, but with an upside-down U. Although we could read the U as a horseshoe with the luck spilling out of it, that interpretation doesn’t work with the word “FULL.” The U is filled to the brim in this view, straining at its upper end as it holds in whatever is making it full.


Roy Arenella, "FULL" (1996)

A Playground for the Eyes (arrived 30 July 2004)

From Carlsbad, whose cavern I still remember touring back in the mid-1970s, kiyotei sends me a beautiful thick card cut out of artist’s board. He attaches a 70-cent stamp to it, underneath which he writes “Postage Due My Arse!” He refers back to a quizzical message from the Postal Service on his last mailing. Last week, kiyotei sent me four wonderful coasters in the mail (though, alas, only three arrived). Upon each of the coasters kiyotei had stuck a full 37-cent stamp, yet the post office wrapped labels around each of the coasters saying that 12 cents postage was due because of the special handling needs of the coasters, but the coasters were closer to postcard size, so why wouldn’t 37 cents be enough? We don’t know.

The rest of the reverse of the card includes a flurry of rubberstampings (in green and deep red, but especially in gold), a couple of artist’s stamps, and a small bit of golden asemic text, appropriately since he signed the card “asemically yours, the Trickster.”

kiyotei, "GEOF HUTH" (July 2004)
The obverse is another diagrammatic extravaganza, with lines going everywhere, a couple of pseudo-cancellation stamps—and letter stamps advancing to the center of the card in waves, and spelling out my name!


kiyotei, reverse of postcard
Confluences (arrived 30 July 2004)

Roy Arenella sends me a postcard of a David Smith sculpture entitled “Hudson River Landscape.” Now, I don’t live in the Hudson River Valley, but it’s nearby, and the river that names my valley, the Mohawk, and the Hudson meet near here as well.

Around the picture of this sculpture, Roy has transcribed a quote from David Smith: “Drawing is the most direct, closest to the true self……………even before song.” This quotation served as the inspiration for Roy’s fidgetglyph on the reverse of the card.


Roy Arenella, "EVENB4SONg" (14 May 2003)

When I first saw this little bit of text, I was struck by how much it resembled some of my own fidgetglyphs, yet Roy created this in 2003, before he even knew of my existence. Of course, I start reading every postcard on the message side, and when I did this time I had a little trouble decoding this fidgetglyph, even though it is stylistically so similar to many of mine. It’s nice to learn how others will have to struggle with my own glyphs.

Since this card is focused on song, Roy has (of course) decorated the reverse of the card with a 22-cent “Performing Arts” stamp featuring Jerome Kern, composer of popular song.

Oh, this was card # 319CC. I assume one of the Cs is “card,” but I haven’t thought of anything for the second C to mean yet.

un violon d’ingres