Sketchbook Circle : My Second Additions

These pages show additions I made to two pages from Partner A, Gwen, in my own sketchbook. The next are original pages by me, before I sent the book back to Gwen.

I was a bit pushed for time towards the end of the month, so the four of these were made from cut up and reassembled Mail Art envelopes that I've posted here before. I'm still happy with them, despite that.

Mail Art Envelopes

I'm about to send out my Sketchbook Circle sketchbook to my Circle Partner A, so that she can begin her second round of additions to it. As soon as she's received it, I'll show you what I did in it over the last month.

In the course of unearthing suitable material for the sketchbook, I came across a cache of Mail Art envelopes. I've written here about my short involvement with the world of Mail Art and while these envelopes are far from being works of art in any way, they do demonstrate the sense of fun, anarchy, serendipity and plain silliness the movement embraced. Circulating these through the post was our way of bringing art into everyday life.

Look for collage, rubber stamps, photocopies, magazine cuttings, drawings, marker pens and fake postage stamps.

Sketchbook Revealed

Now that Becca, my second Partner in the Sketchbook Circle, has received her sketchbook back from me, I can show you the additions I made to her book.

The first four show Becca's original pages with my additions. On her introductory page she spoke of new beginnings but chose to include a number of skull drawings which we tend to associate with death. Working with those apparently opposing ideas, I started thinking about sprouting bulbs and new growth and went on from there in the first three. For the fourth, I had a blank page opposite a skull, so introduced the uniformed figure of "Major Death", complete with military medals.

For the five pages of my own I began by looking at scraps of collage material I had on and heads. Two anatomical diagrams of parts of the head, intended for students of life drawing, came together with a fragment of red stained etching paper on a background of  a map to give me "Skinned". More simply, I found an old photocopy of a cross-section of a head with what appears to be a foetus for a brain and laid it on another fragment of blue stained etching paper.

The girl from Whistler's Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl was a torn fragment Becca had left in the back of her book for future consideration. I used it with some other ideas of "white" and made a new image.

"Onion Head" happened by accident. While looking for images of sprouting bulbs to use with the skull drawings, I had printed off from the internet an image of a sprouting onion but found it was too big for the any of the skull pages. Laying it down on a blank page, I suddenly saw it as a head; with the addition of a pair of eyes from the front page of an Observer Colour Supplement and some gouache, the mysterious character came to life.

Finally, the "Owl Queen" is a fragment of a photocopied image I put together in my days of Mail Art exchanges. Coming together with another curiously shaped fragment of old cut up brochure and a bright flame-like piece of etching paper, I think I made something mysterious.

Now comes the exciting bit: what will Becca make of all of this? Will she add to my images? Will she find something in them to strike some sparks? Time will tell.

And what do you make of all of this? I'm always interested to hear from you.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting on tenterhooks for my original sketchbook to come back from Ang with her additions.

Parcel Post

When I was very young I used to be fascinated watching assistants in shops tie up parcels with string. In those days before parcel tape, everything seemed to be tied up with string. Rolls of wallpaper seemed to me to be the most difficult, but the shop assistant could tie up three or four rolls of wallpaper in the blink of an eye and provide a handle to carry it with. Miraculous! All gone now, of course, except in the luxury goods market, where there's always someone who can tie a bit of ribbon into a fancy bow.

I was reminded of this when I came to tie up my Disintegration Parcel.

Through a late reading of Annie's Ink Haven, I found out about Seth's Disintegration project. I should have been aware of it already, but since the failure of my RSS Feeds system, I've been missing out on those bloggers who don't have the Followers facility (a Boon and a Godsend).

Anyway, I thought this was a triffic idea, so decided today to make up my own parcel. It's not a particularly inspired choice of materials, but in my defence I claim my current state of coughing and sniffing (my first cold of the winter). Inside my parcel is

• a printout of my scary self-portrait
• a leopard skin print paper bag
• a sheet of orange tissue paper
• a leaf from my grapefruit tree
• a coffee filter with contents
• some rusty screws
• some pieces of onion skin
• some wool
• part of a charcoal drawing
• a sample of watercolour paper
• a piece of a coloured drawing
• all wrapped in a large piece of sturdy cartridge paper with part of a painting on it
  

And here it is tied up as best I could with finest string from Austin, Tx, and stamped with my old Mail Art Reuse Me stamp.



Finally, here it is hanging in the old pink cherry tree (now just as likely to have to be recycled itself, unfortunately). The jackdaws and magpies may have a go at it, because it's hanging near the bird feeders, but I think it might survive. Just after I hung it, it started to hail. I take this as a Good Omen.

On May 1st, the parcel will be opened.

Altered Images

Sometime in the early Nineties I had a short flirtation with Mail Art. In fact, that's where I first used the pseudonym, Mr Zip. I sent ludicrous stuff through the post, altered envelopes with collage and stamping, and made spurious postage stamps. Other mail artists sent me very peculiar things with no explanation. One day an envelope arrived containing a dessert spoon. Some time later, I received a packet of custard powder. Not from the same person, however.

In the current welcome lull between bouts of painting, I've been poking about in rarely visited corners of the studio, and today I came across one of the last projects I began in my mail art moments. It's a hand-made book, glued together from magazine pages, advertising flyers and other stuff. The idea was that I would send it off into the mail art world, others would alter and add to the images I'd begun and pass it on to other mail artists. Eventually, I'd hope that it would find it's way back to me in all it's multi-imaged glory.

I'd tried the idea before, but I have to say that it didn't work. None of the originals came home to roost. Eventually, I got bored with it all and began painting in earnest. And so the one remaining book stayed home.

Looking at it now, I remember that I made the images without any real conscious effort, so there's an instinctive connection between the various page elements. Some of them still hold up in an interesting way, I think, so I've posted them here:


Cover















They remind me a bit of the altered books and imagery I now find on the Interweb (and in their origins, just a little of the sketchbook exchanges). I've recently been reading Seth Apter's blog, The Altered Page, and become very interested in that corner of the art world. I have, in fact, contributed some thoughts to his forthcoming art world survey.