Flying Mailboxes

RF Côté, Flying Postbox Collage (27 Nov 2006)
I'm happy to report that I received a new piece of mailart from Reg. All mannet of mailboxes appear on the card, flying in formation. And if you look closely, you'll note that an artist's stamp is pasted on top of this image, a stamp that reproduces in miniature the postboxes flying already away.

un violon d'ingres

A Noted Silence

Ficus strangulensis, "cured bond" (22 Nov 2006)
The front of this card from Fike is a found scrap of text, a bit erased, and lightly contrasted. The back is a pasted note from Fike telling his mailart friends about the death of his father and how that has slowed his mailart. (Others have begun to post their copies of this card already.) Take care, Fike.

un violon d'ingres

Hands Held in Profile with Head

frips, Handheld Profile (21 Nov 2006) frips sends me a beautiful Prussian blue block printing on a simple card--no threads threading through it, but the margin of the stamps sticking over the edge as she often does, and a faintly printed text on the front of the card that I could hardly see. un violon d'ingres

Oppoetics

Roy Arenella, "OPEN / POEM" (Nov 2006)

This card from Roy is the 334th he mailed out this year. My numbers are much lower, but still it amazes me to think of the quantity of mailart, the number of pieces, one person might distribute in a year.

This is a simple card from the hand of Roy. He draws a few letters and a couple of arcing arrows (showing, I'm supposing, the different possible entryways into a visual poem). This piece is an example of Roy's oppo (optical poetry), which is clearly verbal, often quietly visual, and designed precisely to be a textual object of contemplation. Note that this poem spells two almost anagrammatic words, and that the first two lines of the poem (reading against the grain) give us the name of this form of poetry ("OPPO").

Quiet and insistent. Like a cat urging you to pet its head.

un violon d'ingres

Cornertangles

Mick Boyle, "Will you finally find" (Obverse, 15 Nov 2006)
Mick appears to like to draw radishes, since I've received a number of cards so decorated by him. They are delicate simple little things, I think (maybe) connected to the plucking of these beasts from the grip of the earth at the end of the season of growth.


Mick Boyle, "Will you finally find" (Reverse, 15 Nov 2006)
But the real "text" of this card appears to be the revers, where a bit of pencil frottage, a couple of pasted slips of paper (one enworded), and a dullish splash of silver ink come together to form a new nude crescending a staircase. The text entrances me a bit--not quite a question, certainly not a statement, it floats withing this field of corners looking for a place.

un violon d'ingres