Monthly Archives: February 2013

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

andy
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.

andy
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

andy
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!