June 2015 Mail Art - To and From.

E's altered vintage image I used to decorate 2 envelopes

Mail art from E

E's "Typewriter Heaven" - vintage typewriter image

E's mail art to me includes lots of excellent vintage stamps

my mail art to E, toile la la art and image

Toile La La mail art altered hat with veil image

Number One asleep in a too-small cubbyhole

Surprise! Number One tests her balance in a game of peekaboo.

I am a prolific mail art correspondent. Mail art is a great way to channel, combine, and share my interests in art, fashion, history, collage, and journaling.  The main recipients are my friend E - with whom I've shared correspondence off and on for many many years - and my daughter M.  I've found E particularly loves historical items of all sorts, fonts, stamps, embossed seals, and texture.  I discovered her love for texture when I incorporated stitching in a letter to E.  M likes new, different - modern, and she notices (of all things) the sound of the paper! 

In the past two years of exchange, E and I have become more elaborate in our mail creations - incorporating many found items, vintage clippings and ephemera.  Lately we've even been recycling each other's artwork.  You can see an example in the top 2 envelopes above.  

I added a monocle and chain to the eyes of a vintage man illustration E sent in a letter to me.  She made him pants of text - which I thought looked very dapper!  As he looked so elegant, I thought her man belonged on the outside of an envelope.  I created two envelopes using each half of him - and then gave him a focal point.  A vintage woman in a foundation garment is the focal point I chose for E's letter, but for M's letter I created some modern art for him to view.

Often E writes her letters to me on vintage magazine pages or other paper ephemera.  From one of those pages I clipped a woman in a 30s/40s visor hat - and to indulge my millinery inclinations, I added a red veil and a cluster of flowers.  Then I sent her back to E via envelope.

My constant companion during these creative pursuits is Number One - who distracts me by balancing on the stair rail and contributes her fur to tape, glue, paint, and paste.

Apparitions Shadows Reflections

Haunted furniture... certainly not what I sought in a secondhand bookstore, perusing the pages of an enormous book picturing over 5000 antiques.  The heavy book balanced on my knee, I paused in the "looking-glass" section.  So many of the mirrors reflected views of old-fashioned interiors - the first thing to capture my attention, but they also exuded a certain atmosphere - which perfectly clean, but inwardly dusty crackled and speckly mirrors will do.  Some mirrors seem to reflect something about to happen - or happening just out of the realm of vision... a swishing of skirts, parting of curtains, a hand reaching for books or luggage, an inspection of one's appearance.  Here, you can see them too: