Author Archives: andy

February 22, 2013

my REAL wall in Suffolk


Posted shortly after we returned from Chinese New Year in Hong Kong – check out the the New Year Snake from DumpsterDiver in the centre.

Your postcards followed me and Elena to Suffolk where they found themselves on a gate in a field. Not just any gate though – it’s the gate of Mailartist Rebecca Guyver and in the distance you can see Patricks bothy in the field.

Some real stars of the post are represented on the wall today. Starting in the top left, we have 365er Stripygoose, who sent this watercolor to Elena a while back with a Barbados stamp, so from somewhere much warmer than here.

Working down the fence post, is a new artist Susan McAllister who seems to be using Sharpies for this piece.

Below her, a watercolor from Katerina Nikoltsou and below that a note from Heleen de Vaan. The note accompanied a book, in which Heleen was one of the featured artists, naming me and my REAL wall as one of her artistic inspirations! What an honour!

Down the central column you see art from Lisa Feltypants, who I met virtually and in the post in the original Twitter #mailart project about 2 years ago. I was a fan of her art as soon as I saw it and still am today. This plate was done on a camping trip and sent to me after I requested it on Twitter.

Below her is UK mailartist Lee Jackson who always sends very small packages containing little books.

Dumpsterdiversanonymous always makes an awesome Chinese New Years Card, and this year I was on the receiving end of a year of the snake card!

The final one in that column is from Jenn Philips, who until recently was called Jenn Angus. She married my friend Ivan Philips, with whom I went to India in 2007 so congrats to you both! She’s recently come to London where she saw lots of theatre.

The final colum features art from Gina from Taiwan. Gina got in touch via Postcrossing direct message and I sent one back to her straight away, which is really rare for me, but I loved her card and wanted to make sure that she got a reply. I know I know, I should always do that, but you know how it is.

Rebecca Resinski and I swapped lots of pics of the sky in 2008. Check them out at http://www.your-sky-our-sky.blogspot.co.uk/ and finally the last of the bunch and definitely not the least comes from Gutwrench on Etsy, who I will tell you time and again is worth every penny of your money in the post. Check out her Etsy site at http://www.etsy.com/shop/gutwrench

February 21, 2013

my REAL wall visits Rebecca Guyver – Part 2


It’s been a while since I posted all the post that I have received on a wall anywhere, and the more I procrastinated and left it, the worse the problem seems to have become. I have a pile of postcards in need of posting on a wall and decided while at Rebecca’s place, that I would finally get around to posting them all.

So here they are, on the wall of Rebecca’s studio in Suffolk.

Thanks to everyone who has sent in, including Stripygoose, Katerina, Lancilotto and Mailart Martha.

February 19, 2013

my REAL wall visits Rebecca Guyver – Part 1

This weekend Elena and I paid a visit to someone very special. Rebecca Guyver is an artist who first sent in a class set of mailart to our Little Big Stories mailart call for Pimlico library. Since then we’ve exchanged mailart and crossed paths on IUOMA and last year, when Rebecca finished her 365 in style, Stripygoose and I conspired to go up and meet her over a weekend.

Things came and went and fell through and finally, this weekend, Elena bought me a skydiving package, which meant I got to jump from a plane in Suffolk. Remembering that Rebecca just happened to live in Suffolk, we made our arrangements and stayed over at hers on Friday night!

The day was spent at the local boot fair and looking around town and Rebecca was the perfect host, and in the afternoon we got down to the business of mailart in the studio.

This chair was the first thing we saw when we got out the car and it lives in the studio. It’s the bed of Lyra the Guyver family dog and that shredded stuff you see in the foreground is her pillow. Was her pillow.

I had to get the mailart into this scene as it made me smile to see the cute dog surrounded by the destruction.

Lyra the dog

February 17, 2013

my REAL wall on the cable car in Hong Kong

Elena and I have just come back from Hong Kong, where we were for 5 days. We were very very lucky to have been given the flights and our accommodation by the Hong Kong Tourist Board and Cathay Pacific, because we went with our carnival group, Sunshine International Arts and danced in costume in the Chinese New Year festival.

The whole thing was an incredible experience, but 5 days in full costume, dancing on the road meant we were exhausted when we came back. We did however, get a few half days here and there to get out and about, so I took the opportunity to take your postcards out for a little tour of the country.

It’s been a while since I posted in public, and I must admit I was a little too shy to post in downtown Hong Kong, where the whole of humanity would have crowded around curiously asking questions, but when we got the cable car in Lantau Island up the giant copper Buddha on the mountain we found ourselves alone and I took the chance to get a couple of pics.

my REAL wall on the cable car in Hong Kong

 

As a little bonus, here’s some footage of me and Elena and our group on the road in Hong Kong. Elena is the one in the silver butterfly costume at the front and I am controlling the big black rastaman puppet. Enjoy!

January 10, 2013

my REAL wall and Stripygoose present 5 postcards 2013 (Introduction lecture wall)

Stripygoose and Andytgeezer present 5 Postcards 2013

2013-01-09 12.14.23

Over the years, I’ve been getting involved with mailart shows and projects with my REAL wall and it’s been such a hoot. Some shows and projects are now going into their second year, which I think is very flattering and this is one of those projects. 5 postcards was a project dreamt up by me and a lecturer at my university, Sue. I have always liked mixing business and pleasure and believe deeply in the educational benefit of tangible objects being exchanged between people, which is why I set up Schoolswaps.

We wanted to use postcards to get students thinking about school experiences. The idea was to get students to think of 5 incidents that happened to them in school, either as students or as teachers, that stuck with them. They then have to create 5 postcards illustrating these experiences.

Last year, the postcards blew us away. We were taken on quite a journey and found that the exercise really opened students up and got them expressing themselves. In the end we even collated all the postcards into a book, which we distributed to the students and done all sorts of extra work as it was such a thrill.

As a result of all this excitement, Sue signed up for Mailart 365 and has been steadily creating all year.

Oh yeah and on the subject of MA365…

I MADE IT! I just completed today!

365

Aaaaaanyway…Todays REAL walls come from the introductory lesson to this years project. It’s a new class with new students but we wanted to build on last years success and do it again. So in todays lesson, Sue and I brought out some mailart from our collections. On the wall you can see some of the mailart that I’ve received since the last time I posted mingled among some of Sue’s own collection. I’ve never actually rifled through Sue’s collection and I have sent her one or two pieces. It was quite strange to see my works again that I had sent off but always a pleasure to see artists that I know in her collection, like Cornpone and Mim and she recognised works from Suus in Mokum and Rebecca in my collection.

Artists that Sue had never seen from my collection include Hope. There’s lots of post from Hope, who’s artwork I always adore. She’s an artist I will tell you time and again that you should subscribe to, because her letterpress is AWESOME!

Students picked out favourites from Angie and Snooky and Boo Cartledge as well as saying they loved Sue’s style.

So now the students have to go away and think about their experiences and start their creative process. I can’t wait to see what they create!

December 13, 2012

Your REAL wall on tour with Rejin Leys in New York

Whoop whoop! Always love it when mailart goes out on tour. Recently, in response to a tweet from regular REAL wall contributor Rejin Leys I decided to send a photo from an earlier REAL wall. Little did I know, that my little piece of mailart would go and have it’s only little REAL adventure. So, hang tight folks and lets go around New York with Rejin Leys!

The first tweeted pic was on November 21st, reporting our first field trip “together”

 

May I say, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and I’m very glad that Rejin kept me wrapped up warm

Then, on the 26th November we went out again, around NY

What a thrill – I’d never been to NY before and now I was going and seeing all the sites!

The last place we visited in November was the Unisphere, which I think was in Men in Black

Now, my little pic is probably up somewhere in the house on a REAL wall where it belongs. What a lovely trip. Thanks Rejin!

June 24, 2012

REAL to Real


Earlier this week I heard about a new social network that really tickled me. Called Real, the physical network, this new social network can be found at www.welcometoreal.com.

So what makes it different from other social networks, you may be wondering. Well Real is a project sponsored by Royal Mail which gives a select few people some wall space in a premium location in London. All that the people have to do in return fill that space by sending in Real post.

It’s a real wall to be filled with real post. Sound familiar?

Anyway, i’m not bitter, even about the bit where they say they’re the first real social network as I applaud any effort to connect people, especially using post, and i’m throwing my full support behind the project.

I’ve been given a plot to fill, plot 45, and the lovely folk at Real have sent me a welcome pack, complete with lots of awesome pre-paid envelopes. I have some ideas and will probably ask for your help to fill my plot, so watch this space!

I’ll get started on my first pieces for the plot tonight. In the meantime, I decided to take all the post out into the real world, so here is the contents of my inbox on the tube between Hammersmith and Goldhawk Road. I think it all looks very happy there.

if you want to help new full my plot and show London what postal social networking is really all about, drop me a line!

May 27, 2012

my REAL wall in Kent part 3


The last in the series of REAL walls taken in a park in Kent, this one features work by Jen Staggs, Stripygoose, Limner, Mary England and an unknown artist.

Me and Elena took a little time out at the end of our walk to send replies to everyone who we posted up here, so hopefully by now you’ll all have received a piece in the post

May 26, 2012

my REAL wall in Kent part 2


I really liked this little park we went walking in. They had these cool little wooden insects and animals everywhere and lovely scenery. It all made for a very appropriate backdrop for displaying some of the work from awesome mailartists that I’ve got for you. What a treat!

On the wall today we welcome back Dumpsterdiversanonymous, who is not only one of my all time favourite collage artists but also carves a MEAN rubber stamp. She sent me this New Years card at the start of the Chinese New Year of the Dragon. Next to her you can see a lovely collage from Ruckus, who I would dearly love to see more of in my postbox.

Heleen de Vaan from Holland is the next one along the leg and the green one is the 1001st piece (of 365) from Katerina Nikoltsou, who is possibly the most prolific mailartist around at the moment. Now that #1001 is in, she’s going to stop numbering, but I have no doubt that she’ll keep creating en masse.

Possibly the only person I know who can keep up with this rate of art production is Mim4art, who is possibly mine and Elena’s best friend on the mailart scene. We’ve met twice, once on our wedding, when her and Chuck came to visit, then again in Paris when we went to visit them. She’s lovely and we can’t wait to pop over to Richmond, Virginia to see her.

Finally on the wall we have a piece by Kiera Pannell, who seems to have endless talents. Not only is she an awesome collage and drawing artist she was also a maths teacher too. Dewi told me when we met (he came over to stay in our house) she’s possibly the coolest person he’s ever met. I don’t doubt that.

Thanks to everyone for all the awesome post as ever. :-) Our postbox is always happy over here

May 13, 2012

my REAL wall in Kent part 1


I haven’t posted up a REAL wall for months and the pile of incoming mail is about 3 inches high so this weekend, when Elena took me out, we made sure to pack all the carryable post into the bag and our travelling blu-tac and kept our eyes open for nice public wall space.

As we were walking in the countryside, there weren’t that many buildings, so we found some wooden sculptures to stick your postcards to.

All of these postcards are from members of the Mailart 365 group.