The Miraculous Rebirth of Trashpo Legend Mick Boyle (Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, USA)

 Mail art by Mick Boyle (Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, USA)

Mick Boyle was a veteran mail artist of repute even before Diane Keys, Trashpo & DKult swept him into the center of Eternal Network activity in recent years. 

An official "Legend of Trashpo," Mick Boyle has found himself in the position, along with other Trashpo peers, of further developing his art in the altered landscape of Trashpo Nuevo. Not satisfied like some of the Trashpoets with "cashing in" on the faux nostalgia currently associated with Trashpo, Mick Boyle is revisiting Fluxus & conducting thoughtful meditations upon the Trashpo genre, something he is ideally suited to do. GF viewers are likely to gain some new insights into Trashpo.

This wonderful mailing from Mick receives a warm welcome from Glam Faction. The work indicates our dear friend is producing exciting new art & we hope we can help share it in the days & weeks ahead. 

Mail art by Mick Boyle (Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, USA)

Mail art by Mick Boyle (Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, USA)

Mail art by Mick Boyle (Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, USA)

Trashpo Nuevo for Mail Art Martha by Mel Anie (West Yorkshire, UK)

"Trashpo cut, F.A.O. Mail Art Martha" by Mel Anie (West Yorkshire, UK)

This year's DKult Winter Solstice Ritual proved to be an unexpected global outpouring of love for Queen of Trash Diane Keys (her whereabouts is currently unknown & the Trashpo world is teeming with DK impersonators so beware). 

2020 marks the 10-year anniversary of Trashpo in the Eternal Network. Jim Leftwich originally introduced Trashpo in 2007, but it was the art & hard work of Rain Rien Nevermind, Diane Keys, Richard Canard & then dozens of brilliant artists that made Trashpo into a global "Movement" beginning in 2010.

The ether location of this year's Winter Solstice Ritual was at IUOMA-Ning in the Trashpo group. Most of the great "Legends of Trashpo" - many retired or taking a hiatus from mail art after 10 remarkable years of intense activity - made surprise visits & left messages for their fans & DK.

Participants included Legends of Trashpo Richard Canard (USA), Eduardo Cardoso (Portugal), Thom Courcelle (USA), Rebecca Guyver (UK), Mail Art Martha (UK), Not Hi Ng (USA) & Lucky Pierre (USA). Lisa "Lisa" Iversen (USA) left a message on Facebook as did the great Picasso Gaglione (USA). Veteran mail artist Bradford expressed support for Trashpo & DKult. Uninvited guests who attempted to disrupt the event were William Paley & someone calling themselves maab.  At least one DK impersonator left messages. 

At the same time that Glamsters were celebrating a decade of Trashpo, members of an exciting new generation were sharing their vision of dumpster divinity known as "Trashpo Nuevo." Thus we finally reach our warm welcome to Mel Anie in the UK who is one of the most inspiring creators of Trashpo Nuevo. Here at Glam Faction we believe Mel Anie is a mail artist to watch!

Mel Anie shared the piece above, "Trashpo cut, F.A.O. Mail Art Martha" to much acclaim. She kindly granted permission to share the piece here. Deepest thanks to Mel Anie! We look forward to sharing more of her work at GF.   

 

                               

Trashpo Nuevo by Kendall Martin Reid

                     

                                   Mail art by Kendall Martin Reid (St. Petersburg, Florida, USA)

We're absolutely thrilled to welcome Kendall Martin Reid to the Glam Faction. He makes his premier with this wonderful Post-Lettrist image-text that he considers Trashpo. Our team of resident mail art fashion experts praise the piece as yet more evidence of the Trashpo Nuevo phenom taking the Eternal Network by Storm. 

Back in Trashpo's salad days (we confess we don't know what the "Salad days" term means) none other than Queen of Trash Diane Keys would examine a composition that might be described as "aesthetically pleasing" & she would say to us, "Too smart for Trashpo." 

Our panel of experts confess that this work by Kendall Martin Reid is likely, "Too smart for Trashpo." A lively debate preceded this "official" statement. But since we need examples of Trashpo Nuevo & Trashpo Nuevo has not been satisfactorily defined, we embrace & present a wet kiss on the cheek to Kendall Martin Reed, a pioneer of Trashpo Nuevo. 

Deepest thanks to Kendall Martin Reid & welcome to the Glam Faction!

A mail zine for the glam scene: Jayne B. Lyons' "Uproar"

Cover of Uproar zine edited by Jayne Barket Lyons (Lakewood, Minnesota, USA) 

Lately your essential culture workers here at Glam Faction have been diligently tracking  exciting mail art trends such as the add & pass-idemic, collab mania & Trashpo Nuevo. 

We've overlooked another genre that is experiencing an Eternal Network golden age: A new generation of extraordinary zines! To illustrate our point, we're sharing selections from Jayne Barket Lyons' wonderful Uproar zine. Documented here on GF is the April 2020 issue (Volume II, Number 1.)

Jayne Lyons' Uproar is one of the better-known mail art zines circulating today. We'd call its tone retro because Jayne invokes the structure & aesthetics of the great photocopy network zines of the 1980s (but adds color in just the right places as well). Photostatic, MaLLife & Lime Green Bulldozers come immediately to mind but there were dozens of 80s mags/zines worthy of praise here. 

The 80s network zines seem to have arisen mostly from the surge of Punk fanzines & the "underground" zines of the 60s & 70s. Mail art provided an entertaining & inexhaustible source of copy. Thus, many of the of the publications became fanzines about mail art & mail artists. 

Jayne adopts the successful zine formula but adds enough self-awareness of the genre & contemporary tropes to distance us from experiencing Uproar as an exercise in nostalgia. What is astounding in our Digital Age is that paper zines work. 

Network "stars" emerged in the old zines. The editors themselves often joined the cast of colorful characters. Uproar draws upon this very successful model. Many of the 80s zines had circulations in the hundreds & sometimes in the thousands! But many disaffected suburban youths enjoyed sharing their most profound thoughts & crazy mail that amused them with a few dozen correspondents. 

The genre of "fine arts" zines that also circulated via mail art - many assembling zines - had a different goal in terms of competing with mainstream culture & deserve their own discussion elsewhere. A similar strain exists today among those working with artists books.

From Uproar zine edited by Jayne Barket Lyons

The April 2020 issue of Uproar includes a diverse sampling of mail art. In particular, the "Envelope Bits & Pieces" section features an astonishing array of stamps & ephemera from mail artists around the world (look out Brain Cell!). Meanwhile, Jayne B. Lyons provides engaging articles, coherent editing  & structure. 

Zines are an investment in time, effort & expense compared to postcard production (although the art of the cheapo zine has been mastered by many). Knowing mail art history as we do here at the Glam Faction, we can tell you confidently nothing is a better contribution to community & culture building than making a zine. We are amazed at the zines we see online, in rare book collections & in exhibitions - things we thought were lost forever & never considered would survive much beyond a few immediate readings. People love zines. And people love Jayne's Uproar! 

                                               From Uproar zine edited by Jayne Barket Lyons

                                                From Uproar zine edited by Jayne Barket Lyons

Back cover Uproar (April 2020)

Ketchup with Erica Durante (New Jersey USA)

 

Mail art by Erica Durante (Waldwick, New Jersey, USA)

As many Eternal Network participants will testify, Erica Durante is a loyal correspondent & a tremendous mail art friend. Her postcards explore an astonishing number of genres & styles & bring joy to many.

She was a regular & popular contributor to MinXus-Lynxus. Erica has been less of a presence on Glam Faction. We hope to rectify this situation beginning with this post. Thus we are thrilled to share this ketchup (catch up) featuring some cards received over time from Erica. We've reciprocated & thus our correspondence has been going on somewhat behind the scenes. We just have not provided any documentation recently. 

Newer Glamsters might not be aware that Erica Durante, in addition to many other mail art achievements, is an official Legend of Trashpo. Her style still shows evidence of the innovative Trashpo she pioneered. Also, Erica was President of DKULTJER (DKult New Jersey) & practiced healing diplomacy during the famous disputes that ultimately shuttered DKULTNY (DKult New York).

Deepest thanks to mail art friend, Erica Durante!

Mail art by Erica Durante

Richard Canard endorses Trashpo Nuevo (?)

Mail art by Richard Canard (Carbondale, Illinois, USA)

Richard Canard is such a towering figure in all of mail art that some Glamsters might not realize he is an official Legend of Trashpo among his many other affiliations and honors. 

Conversely, some newer members of the Eternal Network might not realize Richard Canard's reputation extends well beyond his affiliation with Diane Keys and the Trashpoets. (He was, for instance, an original member of Ray Johnson's New York Correspondance [sic] School.)

Richard Canard can be trusted to intuit network movements (if he is not igniting them). So we wonder if this recent communication from Richard C reveals a conscious or unconscious awareness of the Trashpo Nuevo we have been theorizing upon these humble pages recently. Time will tell.

We also believe Richard's pearls of wisdom on this piece are especially inspired. 

Thanks as ever to Richard C!

Trashpo Nuevo by Yvonne Kettner (Duisburg, Germany)

 

"Aah Trashpo" by Yvonne Kettner (Duisburg, Germany) (2020)

The original "movement" that made Trashpo a leading force in mail art of the last decade seems to have subsided. The gathering of artistic & poetic geniuses now known as the "Legends of Trashpo" have moved on to evolutionary chakras beyond Trashpo. They have committed themselves to spiritual quests or - as in the cases of Queen of Trash Diane Keys & Lucky Pierre - simply vanished from the public eye. 

Stop the presses! Just when you thought it might be safe to dive back into the dumpster, a new generation of exciting, brilliant mail artists at IUOMA-Ning are exploring Trashpo & re-defining & re-newing it!

Your ever-vigilant culture workers here at the Glam Faction are committed to bringing you the freshest news in terms of Eternal Network doings. So we will keep you abreast of the Trashpo new wave beginning with these breath-taking works by Yvonne Kettner of Germany. 

Yvonne posted these (what we'll call) Trashpo Nuevo pieces at the IUOMA-Ning gallery, where - of course - they are a FAB hit!. Yvonne Kettner kindly provided these elegant scans for us to share with Glamsters! Tney are beautifully united by the eternal Trashpo theme of pizza. Yet Yvonne has added her own aesthetic stamp to the tropes of traditional Trashpo.

Welcome to Yvonne Kettner. We look forward to sharing more of her art in the future as well as Trashpo Nuevo by other emerging networkers.

"Trashpo Michael, stay cheesy"  by Yvonne Kettner (2020)

"Pizza pimp" by Yvonne Kettner

Mail art & the Minneapolis protests: Allison Anne's historic collage

Mail art by Allison Anne (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)

June 4, 2020 - "Historic" is a word often considered antithetical to mail art. But this collage I am so fortunate to have received from artist and designer Allison Anne in Minnesota USA already resides in the intersection where history and culture co-exist. 

She mailed the piece during the pandemic and, perhaps more relevant, when Minneapolis was shocked by tragic & horrific police brutality & racism. The protest movement that has expanded across the globe has touched all of us. The mail art community has responded to the isolation of the pandemic & the Minnesota tragedy in many ways.

Allison Anne has been a correspondence friend for several years & we share an interest in music. Her collage art is known and admired in the Eternal Network & beyond. I feel very fortunate indeed to have work by Allison Anne in my archives.

 

Mail art by Allison Anne (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)

Mail art is often viewed as "ephemeral." Correspondence artists, indeed, aspire to the temporal.  Yet in the case of this collage by Allison Anne, the sturdy cardboard & formal structure have endured (and promise to exist in perpetuity) beyond the physical structure of the Minneapolis post office where Allison Anne collected & dispersed her art. Seldom does the postcard (for instance) survive architecture.

Note Allison Anne mailed the piece on April 24, 2020. When I finally braved pandemic & social unrest to collect my own mail in a nearby town, I messaged Allison Anne to thank her for this Trashpoesque work that I adore. (John M. Bennett (Ohio, USA) has said this kind of corrugated cardboard is ideal material for an artist.)

In response, Allison Anne wrote via Messenger, "It's a bit of history I suppose because the post office where I mailed it, where my po box is located, was one of the two post offices burned down during the protest." Thus we have an unusual case of mail art that has survived beyond the physical space from which it was dispersed. Furthermore, I see the collage as a triumph of anti-art & thus revolutionary art that only Allison Anne could achieve with her unique perspective & style. 

Deepest thanks for this wonderful & memorable work!

Cryptic Trashpo, Post-Pop & more! by Julie VanBortel Matevish

Mail art by Julie VanBortel Matevish (Rochester, New York, USA)

 

 

We are thrilled to introduce you to Julie VanBortel Matevish for this, her Glam Faction debut.

 

Julie VanBortel Matevish has participated in mail art previously and has even done some homework in Trashpo and apparently MinXus as well, although we have only encountered her work very recently and do not recognize her from the "long, dusty trail" that emerges from yesteryears. That's okay.

 

We do know she is an excellent visual artist and graphic designer. The material she sent is not what we expected, but mail art should be a surprise! And let us make the point now lest Glamsters think us "mean" or "grumpy" that we very much admire what the Julie VanBortel so kindly sent.

 

In our memoirs of how we "broke in" to the Eternal Network we have on other occasions and on other venues described how in youth we began receiving bags (not envelopes but bags!) of mail art from New York City. Via Dick Higgins' Something Else Press, our name had been added to some mailing lists connected to classic Fluxus circles.

 

We have also described how in our youthful innocence we were not so much intrigued as shocked and fearful that somehow the inhabitants of a very populous lunatic asylum had obtained our personal address. We began to accept and understand mail art quickly. Yet that initial shock is etched in memory. We have only experienced  that feeling - upon opening thousands of envelopes and packages thereafter - a very few times (mostly during the nascence of Neoism).

 

We take this circuitous trail of explication in order to help inform you, dearest Glamsters, that we cannot offer you much help in understanding what Julie VanBortel Matevish is trying to communicate, although we deeply support her in her artistic pursuits and assure her she mailed this work to exactly the right place. We have found a new Kryptic Kween?

 

Eternal Networkers tell us we are experts at decoding cryptic mail art. Alas, please tell us if you have any idea what JVBM is saying. Perhaps over time all will become clear as an azure sky in summer. Until then, deepest thanks to Julie! 

 

 

 

 

By Julie VanBortel Matevish

 

 

 

 

By Julie VanBortel Matevish

 

 

 

 

 

By Julie VanBortel Matevish

 

 

 

 

 

By Julie VanBortel Matevish

 

 

Personal fave:

 

 

 

By Julie VanBortel Matevish

 

 

 

 

By Julie VanBortel Matevish

 

 

 

 

Precious inspects suspicious packages that arrive at Glam Faction offices

 

 

 

Oh no, not the feet thing again!

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post-MinXus card by Rebecca Guyver (Suffolk, UK)

Mail art by Rebecca Guyver (Suffolk, UK)

 

 

We are thrilled to welcome dear mail art friend Rebecca Guyver to the Glam Faction! She sent us this "aesthetically correct" Post-MinXus card (done right, as they say). And we, fashionably late as ever, share it with you, our faithful Glamsters! Our dear RG shows you how Post-MinXus is done. (She has also gone a tad political.)

 

Rebecca Guyver is a longtime postal friend to us, but many of you in the Eternal Network will recognize her as a mail art legend of consequence. She is a certified Legend of Trashpo, close associate of DK. Rebecca was a defining contributor to MinXus-Lynxus (close associate of Empress Marie & Captain Tom. She participated in dozens of history-making mail art projects of the last decade.

 

As sometimes happens, our dear Miss Becca has transitioned into the "fine art" realm. In recent times, Rebecca's extraordinary paintings can be seen in galleries and we understand she brushes upon occasion with the London art world. She has moved on from vispo, asemics, Trashpo, collaborative books etc. But we are touched she remembers her old friends out here ever on the fringes. We welcome her correspondence!