Monthly Archives: December 2009

andy
December 14, 2009

My REAL house!

my new house looking all messy

It's been a long hard weekend of moving my REAL wall into my REAL house and finally I can bring you the first picture of the first card received at my new house, which is a handmade moving/christmas pop-up beauty from Stalex, who helped us move.

It was a complicated move, riddled with problems. After getting the keys on Friday we found out that the previous tenant had changed the lock and left the keys inside, so we had to call a locksmith to drill the lock out meaning we got in a day later than expected.

With a day left to clean up and move out we made a call to Stalex and Glen and Alina and bought some pizzas and beer.

The whole of Sunday was spent up to our necks in cleaning fluids and then we spent the evening moving books, clothes, postcards and my REAL wall down the road.

Already coming down with a cold and having already lost my voice this stress didn't help so today I'm holed up in bed surrounded by unpacked bags and boxes.

In case you're wondering about where to send post now, just keep sending them to my old address for the time being. We're looking at getting a PO Box at the new place and as soon as we do we'll change the address, but we can still pick up post from Goldhawk Road.

andy
December 11, 2009

my REAL wall – December 11 2009 – The End is nigh!

You can always tell the nights that Elena isn’t around as I upload more than one REAL wall. Tonight is one of those nights.

The second REAL wall of the night features all new pieces and perhaps the last pieces I get at this address in Goldhawk Road while still living here.

Because today I become a homeowner!

I can hardly believe it myself, the perenially travelling mischief, has finally decided that staying in one place isn’t such a bad thing after all, and has bought a place and decided to chill out for a bit.

This week mail has come in from Greece, where I hear the terrible news from Katerina that the SKETBE offices have burned down. What should have been a happy post about a mailart exhibition were marred this week by the fire which wiped out their offices.

Luckily no-one was hurt and the mailart was all on display in the tower at the time, but it’s a huge blow for all involved. Greek readers can read the events on the SKETBE blog and IUOMA members can see the story on Katerina’s blog.

What has been heartwarming is to see how the IUOMA community have rallied around in support. Why not send some mailart to Katerina for possible auction to raise some funds for the new office. I know I will be sending some when this move is over.

Postmuse never fails to please, and this week I got a lovely thank you card showing her in full mailartist mode. Below Postmuse’s piece is a brilliant REAL mail from Lidia via postcrossing. I love it when mailartists come to my REAL wall unexpectedly through postcrossing, cos it’s not a place you expect to get mailart from.

The really cool drawing was sent by Farrah from Texas. She found the drawing on the floor in Houston, Texas and thought it would look good on my REAL wall and I have to agree it does! I’ve been trying to track down the artist, assuming that it is Kevin Ames as it’s signed. Don’t suppose anyone knows him out there? I’d love to tell him his piece is on my REAL wall in London!

andy
December 10, 2009

my REAL wall features Rejin Leys

I became aware of the work of New York based mixed-media artist Rejin Leys through the July Twitter #mailart project.

Her present series, entitled "Evolution + Connections" was inspired by the food shortages that confronted the US last year and in them we see recurring motifs of chickens, rice, eggs, entrails, bugs and stars.

If you check out her sketchbook at rejinleys.com/, you’ll see that as the year has gone on, she’s really distilled her art to a very distinct style, and the resulting pieces are delightful. You would think that given a small number of symbols and colours that Rejin would be kinda limited in her ability to express herself, but the disciplined approach has really paid off.

Take for example the protest post, featuring 2 chickens. Up until now I had expected the pieces to be purely symbolic representations of shape and form, but when I received this and realised that they could talk I confess I was surprised! I guess that I hadn’t expected that the pieces could go beyond the limits that I had constructed for them and that’s the beauty of this whole series.

I wouldn’t say I’m any artist but looking at Rejin’s series I love the way that she uses symbols and motifs which become familiar over time, leading you to a sense of security and safety. Then suddenly wham! The chickens start talking or she throws a human torso in the mix. It’s kinda freaky.

Do keep an eye out for her on the art scene if you’re lucky enough to be in New York, cos it looks like she’s gonna be doing some talks near you!

andy
December 7, 2009

my REAL wall pays a visit to Hammersmith Town Hall

A windy Sunday in London and I finally had a chance to get your protest post together and take a walk down to the Town Hall in King Street, Hammersmith.

This was the address on the letter from the council, where I was told to “furnish my documents”, following their demand that my REAL wall pay business rates foro rubbish disposal, so I thought I would come down to the town hall and “furnish” it as they asked.

I must confess that I thought that if the conditions had been a little better this could have been a better shot. It was so windy and I went down there on my own and the cards kept blowing off, so I had to keep chasing them down the street in case anyone working weekends in the council offices saw me and accused me of littering.

If anything, I was only sad that this little gem from Lorraine Kwan never arrived, but all of this protest post will be sent to the council in a fancy envelope this week, so watch this space!

andy
December 7, 2009

my REAL wall – The 100


my REAL wall – The 100, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

A while back I was told by Gareth about a project called The 100. Following up this lead, I emailed the organiser, Sean and said I’d be up for it. Obviously I had no idea what it was at the time…

The email back from Sean described the project

"The 100 is basically a photographic project which aims to showcase inquisitive people who are willing to reply to a cryptic ad and join something they know very little about. I send my joinees a card with their individual number on it and ask them to take a photo of themselves doing something that defines their character. Then I’ll have a huge piece with 100 photos on it!"

I love the idea of my REAL wall being part of other art projects, like the recent involvement with the Plains Art Museum in Fargo. It makes sense for my installation/bedroom art gallery to showcase other art projects so here’s my contribution to the 100 project with my number – 44.

my REAL wall today features mainly new stuff from Swap-bot, as I’ve been involved in a few swaps lately.

LATE UPDATE : Having looked at The 100 Deviantart page I see that this REAL wall may not be eligible as it doesn’t have the official card on it. Watch this space…

andy
December 5, 2009

Westside Magazine December 2009

This months press coverage is in a local magazine called Westside

The write-up is on page 10, under a headline about the local library running out of books.

I have to confess I don’t particularly like this write-up. I wrote a full write-up of the incident and they’ve pretty much left out the facts and written up a pretty poor, humourless article. There’s no mention of my REAL wall, the headline screams that the council have actually levied the fine, which they haven’t and the picture is a generic pic not one that I sent. I’m most miffed that your protest mail hasn’t made it into print anywhere too, which is a real shame.

Oh well, any publicity is better than nothing I guess, and I’ve finally got some time to get your protest post to the council this weekend, so watch this space.

andy
December 4, 2009

my REAL wall – Christmas Cards

This is the second of the official run by our guest photographers Stalex, who are my best pals. Guest photographers take a bunch of postcards sent to me and display them in whatever place they see fit.

Looks like the Yuletide season is upon us and where most people think of Christmas as a time of peace, love and turkey, here at my REAL wall towers we know that Christmas means only one thing…more post!

For the past year I’ve lived in a shared house with 4 other people, a common situation for us cramped Londoners and Stalex are in the enviable position of having their own place. Last week we were treated to their REAL wall featuring gecko and here’s their living room with Christmas Tree, featuring postcards from Okami, Funshine Felisha, and Dumpsterdiversanonymous and more.

As Stew says “The tree looks better in the flesh so you’ll see it when you come round for christmas dinner…” Hurray!

andy
December 2, 2009

my REAL wall – Is it postcard oblivion?

I’ve had this idea knocking around in my head for a while – postcard oblivion…or is it…?

It’s been a while since I stopped to really play with my digital SLR and so I thought that tonight I’d take my baby out of her bag and put some postcards in the sink.

For those of you who don’t know how I done this, I’ll try not to give too much away, but don’t worry, no postcards were harmed in the making of this REAL wall. And for those of you who do know how this was done, I’m proud to say it only took me one take! Happy days!

In order of appearance from top left, is a Spiderman first black suit appearance (soon to become Venom and spawn Carnage in case you care) from Mimi in Texas via Swap-bot. I absolutely love Spiderman as I’m a big comics fan, so this is an entirely awesome card and is gonna get a swap-bot star.

Top right corner is a surprise postcard from Munich from Stalex. This came in today and was a huge surprise given that me and Elena were actually on holiday with them in Munich this weekend – Nice one guys!

The one in the bottom is from Anne in Arizona as part of Swap-bot

andy
December 1, 2009

my REAL wall – 1 December 2009 – Postcard cover up!

It’s December and I’m moving out of Goldhawk Road into my new place in 2 weekends time. Contracts for the new house finalise on the 11th of December and I aim to start moving my stuff in that weekend.

I decided to make things easy for my landlady and so over the last week I’ve been advertising this room. Of course, if I got somebody in to replace me I would more easily get my deposit back too…

Last night the first interested person came over and, with half an hour to go before they arrived I looked at my empty REAL wall and realised it was a disaster – the blu-tac I use to stick your postcards to the wall had left stains all over the wall!

So this one, including only 3 new postcards was put up in a hurry to cover the blu-tac marks, which explains why it’s so densely packed.

And for your information, he took the place! Which means I get my deposit back straight away and can move out worry-free! Yay!