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)

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)

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!

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!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Encore: Richard C does Fluxus

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

 

 

Being in a Richard Canard groove ourselves, we noticed that at IUOMA-Ning several bloggers and/or Litter Richard enthusiasts recently posted mail art with classic Fluxus images they had been so lucky to receive from the Land of Carbon Illusion.

 

And then we spied in the mass of material in our opened Richard Canard File an envelope with a similar Fluxus logo (didn't George Maciunas create this one?) that we had neglected to document. So here it is along with the envelope's contents.

 

We do this because references to Fluxus are - to our knowledge - rare in the King Richard canon. Many mail artists - especially some of the veterans - like to celebrate and live in the spirit of Fluxus, which is, after all, intimately connected to mail art.

 

Let us present a theory about Richard's consistent, minimal references to Fluxus. Richard C is a "true believer" and longtime member of the New York Correspondance School and, thus, the Ray Johnson circle. These days in the growing exposition on mail art history you will often find the (badly mistaken) assumption that Ray Johnson was a member of Fluxus. He never was, although - according to accounts I have read - Maciunas warmly endorsed RayJo's efforts.

The venerable Mark Bloch told me - via digital communication - that Johnson was, in fact, somewhat skeptical of the Fluxers and was "too much of an independent thinker to join that group" (a reasonable reconstruction of Bloch's comment).

For whatever reason, Fluxus items by Richard Canard (Fluxus Illusion?) are rare and a curiosity.

 

A Precious peep into the Richard Canard file

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

What would a mail art blog be without the FAB Richard Canard? So we are celebrating Richard C's first appearance on Glam Faction with a peek into his archival file that we have inherited from MinXus-Lynxus.

You see, the prolific Richard Canard generously sends us far more art than we are able to document. So, today, we share with you, our dedicated Glam Nation, a trove of hitherto unseen & unknown pieces by Litter Richard. These works span a considerable period of time.

We had hoped to apply our somewhat rational process of documentation to the Richard Canard File but soon realized we were overwhelmed with material flash & stash. So we did our best to give you this peep into our bulging file.

And remember, only at Glam Faction will you find all the prince that is fit to noose!

Mail art by Richard Canard

 

By Richard Canard

 

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

 

 

 

 

By Richard Canard

 

 

 

 

 

By Richard Canard

 

 

 

 

By Richard Canard

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

By Richard Canard

 

 

 

By Richard Canard

 

 

 

 

By Richard Canard

 

 

  

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her name is Tara. She calls herself Sinclair. Everyone knows her as Tanya

Mail art by Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa) (Ludlow, Vermont, USA)

 

 

 

We are thrilled to present the debut of the great Sinclair Scripa (Tara Verheide) on Glam Faction with this spectacular mail art package she sent us. We felt naked without her!

 

You can call her Sinclair or Tara, but to us our fave femail artist will always be just plain Tanya. Was Tanya Rain Rien's prom date? Did she mash potatoes with Ray and Richard C? That was before our time, and you know we don't gossip or carry tales.

 

But we do know she was the invaluable confidante of Diane Keys. Tanya was a winner of the Who Has the Best Hair Contest and a faithful contributor to MinXus-Lynxus. Tanya is one of the all-time great ranters and mail art conspiracy theorists. We are so happy she is now a Glamster!

 

Welcome Tanya!

 

Note: A theme in this mail art package is DaDa Pig. We believe this is a reference to the great but sadly deceased mail artist Pig DaDa (Belgium). Unfortunately, a "famous" mail artist (with whom we no longer communicate (there's a bunch of those) chastised us because she believed our praise of Pig DaDa was actually sarcastic criticism and mockery. Let us clarify again, now here at Glam Faction, that we adore and revere Pig DaDa as one of the all- time great correspondence artists. We also believe dear friend Tanya has nothing but esteem for Pig DaDa.

 

 

 

 

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)

 

 

 

 

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)
 

  

 

 

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)
 

 

 

 

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)

 

 By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)

 

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)

 

 

 

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa) (Ludlow, Vermont, USA)
 

 

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)

 By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)

 

 

 

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa)

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa) (Ludlow, Vermont, USA)

By Tara Verheide (aka Sinclair Scripa) (Ludlow, Vermont, USA)