Carted - Envelope/flyer/postcard

Pascal from CARTED sent his latest postcard call.   See his website at CARTED.http://www.carted.eu/

Melissa Fletcher - Envelope/card/zines

Melissa sent this from Jackson TN  USA. Christmas card and rubber stamp 'zines.

A1/others - Recycled envelope

Much travelled envelope from me to Julien Beere. Not sure of the date.  Found it on his blog. He says there's no such address so amazed it got to him. The Post Office does work wonders sometimes!

PLG - Postcard

Postcard on heavy card from PLG in Germany this week.

OBRIGADO

OBRIGADO - You are invited to contribute to an ongoing festival of mail art during the month of December 2013 on the above theme (Spanish for ''Thank You") to celebrate a year of visual arts in Northwich town centre of the 2nd artist run VAC Gallery in Northwich, Cheshire, UK. Work will be available for sale to fund future gallery projects. Work unsold will remain in the gallery archive. Please send work via the postal system ( all media, all sizes ) to - OBRIGADO, The VAC Gallery, 93 Brunner Court, Northwich, Cheshire , CW9 5DR. UK from now until December 31st 2013. Documentation in the form of an online blog to be announced.

Rod Summers - Collage/ collaborations/ postcards

From Rod Summers/ VEC in The Netherlands after his projects in Venice earlier in the month. Collage by Rod and Vittore Baroni. Limited ed. booklet- postcards.

Gregori Antonin - Envelope/Enclosures

Gregori sent this packet today from Minneapolis.  Enclosed are Ray Johnson catalogue, photos and letter.

Adanaland - Postcard

Perforated postcard from Alan at Adanaland in Essex.  On the reverse is a view of Wivenhoe - his home town.

PLG - Wooden Box

Peter sent this box from Germany yesterday.  On the reverse he has written "This box was not made by :" and then the PLG stamp. Stamped one end "Forget about art and money: Plant a tree".

PLG - Postcard

Collaged postcard from Peter in Germany. On the reverse he has written - " N   S  E  W ( around the metal eye) WHICH?   and a rubber stamp that says "How to draw nothing"

Ken B. Miller - Postcard

Collaged postcard from Ken in Newtown PA.   Ken says "  I've finally got a bit of time to send out some actual "Mail Art", though I fear it may be short lived - in one month I start back at college to get my masters degree in Information Systems!"    Good luck with that Ken!     www.shoutingatthepostman.com

PLG - Postcard

Postcard from PLG in Germany.

D.C.Spaulding - Envelope/enclosures

D.C.Spaulding from Lomita CA sent this today.

Angelica Paez - Envelope/collage/ATC etc.

Collaged postcard, ATC, and other ephemera from Angelica in Texas.  http://scrapatorium.blogspot.co.uk/

Vittore Baroni et al - Octopost Documentation

Vittore sent the long awaited documentation for the impressive Pneumatic Circus project today consisting of a USB  plug in catalogue and assorted postcards and leaflets.   WWW.OCTOPOST.ME

Creative Thing AKA Leslie Caldera - Envelope / artistamps

Leslie sent these Kurt Schwitters stamps and letter for my birthday which is that same as Kurt's.  20th June.

Sabine Remy - Envelope/enclosures

Enclosed in packet from Sabine are postcards, Sabine sent these from Germany.  See her website HERE.http://miriskum.de/

Lothar Trott - Postcard

Collaged card from Lothar in Helvetia  Switzerland today.

D.C.Spaulding - Postcard

A Postcard with fake "chewed" corner celebrating the Jackalope - a mythical creature that is said to enjoy the taste of mail art.

John Held Jnr. & Andrew McClintock - Catalogue

24 page litho printed catalogue from the San Francisoc Institute from an exhibition of Gutai and mail art inspired by Gutai - Feb 8th - March 30th 2013.  WWW.SFAI.EDU

Creative Thing - Stamp sheet/ Envelope

Creative Thing ( Leslie Caldera )  sent this from California.  Arrived today.

Blaster Al Ackerman - Cassette Tape 1980's

Sad news of Blaster's death made me rummage in the old tape pile to find this mail art "gem" from the mid 80's I would guess.  Blaster was one of my first mail art contacts. I think Dave Zack probably put us in touch  when Blaster was working on his short lived "White Worm Review". He had somehow seen or been sent a collage of mine featuring a white worm and asked very politely if he could use it in a forthcoming issue.  I said yes ofcourse and our decade long correspondance was born.

Ehse Records says -

Doctor Al Ackerman and "Blaster" are the most commonly used pseudonyms of well-known Americanmail artist and still little-known writer who has been active since the early 1970s. A Vietnam veteran, Ackerman worked in hospitals in Texas in the 70's, where his extrordinarily pessimistic but also highly idiosyncratic worldview further crystallized. He moved from Texas to Baltimore where he became highly collaborative and a fixture of the burgeoning experimental cultural scene from 1992-2010, after being financially encourage by Rupert Wondolowski and John Berndt to make the move. In 2010 he moved back to Texas due to ill health, and currently lives in Austin with his daughter. 

Heavily influenced by post-war pulp writers like L. Ron Hubbard, Theodore Sturgeon, Raymond Chandlerand Fredric Brown (with whom Ackerman corresponded as a young person) as well as by modernists likeRay Johnson, Francis Ponge and the Oulipo, Ackerman's writing has dealt playfully, if obsessively, with themes of madness, derangement, and weird phenomena. He has been described as "the perfect synthisis of Flan O'Brian, Boris Vian, S.J. Perlman and H.P. Lovecraft though  that hardly does justice to his unique, instantly recognizable prose style. 

His visual work is also in the tradition of black humor, often including a trademark character, "thehebephrenic," a demented character with a wide upper lip and two protruding teeth. His output from the 70's to the 90's was primarily in the form of photocopied "Mail art" editions sent to other correspondents, and sometimes featured in gallery shows and underground publications. His most famous character, "The Ling Master" (based on the premise of what Lamonte Cranston (aka "The Shadow") would have been like if instead of being a super hero he had been an eccentric shut-in) has been the subject of considerable attention--including translations of stories into foreign languages, 

In the 90's, collections of his writing and drawings began to appear in professionally produced books. His voluminous output was anthologized in The Blaster Omnibus and given a one-man show at the Chela Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. Other books include Let Me Eat Massive Pieces of Clay, I Taught My Dog to Shoot a Gun, and Corn and Smoke. Over the past twenty years, he has been mostly frequently published The Lost and Found Times, published by frequent collaborator John M. Bennett, and by theShattered Wig Review published by Rupert Wondolowski, although his massive body of work is difficult to track due to his regular use of a variety of pseudonyms (which he relates to his childhood love of the pulps), including Eel Leonard, Luther Blissett (nom de plume) (a reference to the footballer of the same name), and Swarthy Turk Sellers among many others, as well as regular anonymous and collaborative works. His latest book entitled "Misto Peas: Tiny Special Stories", was published in 2009 by Luna Bisonte Productions. The book contains reworkings or "hacks" of poet John M. Bennett's writing--one of many streams of longtime activity by Ackerman. 

Ackerman's deep influence on extreme cultural figures far outstrips his public visibility. His influence in the 80s was strongly influential in the formation of Neoism and on Neoism founder Istvan Kantor, Neoists tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE and John Berndt, performance artist Andre Stitt, photographer Richard Kern (who published Ackerman's writing in his magazine Dumb Fucker) and musicians Genesis P-Orridgewho used one of Ackerman's letters as the text of Throbbing Gristle's song "Hamburger Lady." Many of his stories have been made into videos by his longtime friend Steve "Sleeze" Steele, and one story, about a man who give his life over to the creation of a garment made of Vienna sausages, was given feature-length film treatment by Catherine Pancake under the name The Suit.

In 2005 a long playing record of his spoken performances, titled I am Drunk, was issued on Ehse.

Blaster Al Ackerman  -  If Not This Then What?

M. Greenfield - Envelope and enclosures

Mark sends some new Ray Not stickers, pass along sheet and a letter.

Blaster Al Ackerman R.I.P.

Sad to here of the passing of a mail art  legend.  A short obituary HERE.

Art Nahpro - Envelope

Art Nahpro (Paul Jackson)  collaged envelope from 1995.  Front and back.

Robin Crozier/David Dellafiora - Memo/ry

From Robin in 1994.

Kobb Laboratories

Kobb Laboratories latest 'zine featuring video and 'zine reviews etc. Also includes postcard, Fluxus Buck and mask. Send something for review to Dr. William Kobb, PO Box 30231, Pensacola, FL 32503, U.S.A.

Great Midwestern Correspondunce School

Grigori Antonin curated show "John Cage - 100 Years" in Minneapolis this year. 30 page full colour catalogue - here featuring the front cover byPedro Bericat and the back by Bruno Chiarlone.

Flip Books at Printroom

Festschrift for an Archive by Jason Simon (US) & The Flip Collection III An international collection of flipbooks by artists. Featuring: Spin by Martha Colburn (US/NL) This presentation is part of the programme of the 42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam Opening reception: 25 January 2013, 7 – 10 pm Schietbaanstraat 17, Rotterdam The exhibition runs until 16 February Festschrift for an Archive is a set of books commemorating the demise of the much-loved Film Stills Archive department that the Museum of Modern Art ran for decades. In his publication project Jason Simon has reproduced the judgements of the National Labor Relations Board regarding MoMA’s decision to ship the museum’s massive Film Still Archive off to cold storage as a response to a strike led in part by the archive’s associate curator. Simon has individualized each book with a film still representing some aspect of labor struggle. Ranging over film history these include stills from “Car Wash”, “The Crowd”, “I’m All Right Jack”, “Modern Times”, “Nine to Five”, “The Organizer”, “Salt of the Earth”, and “Strike”. Rarely has the connection between labour and cinema quite been so material as in the story of the FSA The Flip Collection III The Flip Collection is an international, growing collection of flipbooks, part of PrintRoom’s travelling collection of publications by artists, designers, photographers and theoreticians. A flipbook (also called thumb cinema) is a booklet that, for a short moment, becomes a film. Spin by Martha Colburn PrintRoom invited Martha Colburn (US/NL) to transform a selection of her film material into a flipbook. See for yourself, in just a few seconds, what a seductive lady and a spider have in common. Contributions by: Ghenadie Popescu (MD), Maike Hemmers (DE/NL), Gözde Türkkan | Mimiko (TR), Georg Traber CH), Elena Gilbert (US/DE), Max Senden (NL), Rachel Sender (ES/NL), Antje Van Wichelen (BE), Lawrence-Olivier Mahadoo (US/FR), Han Hoogerbrugge (NL), Sarah Vanagt (BE) & Katrien Vermeire (BE), Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva (NL/RU), Esther Urlus (NL), Bas Fontein (NL), Gloria Glitzer (DE), Quinten Swagerman (NL), Scott Blake (US), Ricardo Leal Gomes (PT), Roger Bygott (UK), Alice Rice (US), Jenny Suhonen (FI), Loes Verstappen (NL), Ernesto Morales (MX), Terhi Ekebom (FI), Andre Pielage (NL), Jenni Rope (FI), Mariana Zanetti (BR), Kati Rapia (FI), Samuli Otto-Henrik Saarinen (FI), Anne Roecklein (US), Marieke Verbiesen (NL/SE), Derek Parker (US), Lise Duclaux (BE), Jan Voss (NL), Com Amoras (PT), Maurizio Montalti (IT), Tomas Schats (NL), Michael Leigh (UK), Guilia Garbin (IT/UK) among others.