Doo The Doodle w DK and The Doodlebugs

 

Doodle Therapy has managed to become a intricate and essential element in the fabric of the DKultiverse. Perhaps it has proven its value as an antidote to InToxisation! My most recent incoming from the Elgin Mansion is in the form of a fabulous bookie constructed, apparently, by DK herself with substantial assistance from mostly anonymous mansion staff and visitors.

 There are literally hundreds of stories occurring simultaneously in the covers and pages of this little literary and graphic-arts gem. Feeling quite inadequate as a critic of this rapidly emerging genre, I will leave it to you, fair readers to thoroughly enjoy this work without any interventions from me. So, here I present Shurup & Doo The Doodle.

Almost as though to prove this is an authentic DK mailart masterwork, there were also wondrous tidbits of ephemera and found objects included in the envelope, as well as an original annotated copy of the current DKULT Emergency Plan:

A Fat Pack of Wow from Linda French!

Lordy but Linda is a productive artist, and with every new mailing from her it seems her skills get more and more sophisticated. Here's the latest envelope:

In the practice of mail art there is always a bit of an attempt to see how boldly we can flout the rules, regulations and conventions of the world's postal services. In this innocent-looking example, Linda has stamped both sides of the envelope with perfectly legal US postage. On the front side, with the addresses, there are some very nice uncancelled vintage stamps--I could steam them off and use them on y next mailing! The stamps that went through the cancellation machine are actually on the reverse side. So what? So it means some mail clerk had to do what mail clerks often hate to do: look at the letter and make a decision. Hopefully, said mail clerk also got a smile from doing it.

First out of that fat envelope was a little package wrapped in some fine onion-skin type of paper which, upon unwrapping, proved to be a sheet from a sewing pattern for what looks like a toddler's onesie outfit.

What was wrapped inside? Why, this was:

Message Board

The image above is the obverse and reverse sides of a ca. 4x5 card made on corrugated cardboard. The backside is painted or monoprinted, signed and dated. The front is a wonderful web of black string or floss caging in little "messages, cut bits of folded text and patterned paper. Several rectangular bits of colorful painted paper are mosaic'd with colored notebook binder reinforcement rings and all is pasted down over yet another beautifully brightly painted surface. Clever, intricate, tactile and beautiful.

But wait! There's more!

Linda knows I am a member of Karen Champlin's ATC Rebels group on the IUOMA Ning platform, and has sent me a number of wonderful artist's trading cards, both originals and some giclee prints. There are a couple really cool Zentangle-type cards, a fun and funny "paint by numbers" and a pretty sweet pen and watercolor drawing of some sort of grass or grain. The bottom card is embellished with parts from a golden pin of some sort--a lapel pin or tie tack perhaps?

And finally there is this:

 

This is an ATC-size "magazine," or, rather, the cover and two of the dozen or more two-page "spreads" from this tiny magazine. I have only included a sampling, because, after all, I don't have to share everything, do I? 

Linda, you have really stuffed a lot of wonder in that envelope! Thanks so much for sharing your bounteous creativity with me.

A Treasured Radiogram from Empress Marie

Marie W, aka Marie Winzer, aka Marie Wakōshi Chūo, aka Empress Marie has somehow randomly chosen me to receive one of her highly valued Radiograms from Japan. I believe it might be #12 or 13. I've been following Marie's travel and mail-art blog for a while, and I am thrilled to have this treasure.

Marie, my distant correspondent, I am feeding the monkey woman, but it is to no avail. She insists she is strictly following the No-Calorie Diet craze currently sweeping the land. Thanks, nonetheless, for the reminder,

Cows, race cars, donkeys and doodles: Love my mail from Carina Granlund

There is never much doubt where a mail-art parcel is coming from when it comes from Carina Granlund. No two are ever the same, but they all look like Carina's!

I mean, really...who else would be sending an envelope with a litho of some old farm scene on one side and an auto racing form on the other?

And just stick with one of those themes, inside there is a vintage photo of a Finnish racing car champ from 1906?

 

 And just since consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and there is nothing small about Carina's mind, there are pages of doodling-art supreme, complete with a mea culpa about a missed banana-art opportunity:

But Carina's art really shines in these two pieces:

 Yes, Dear Friend, I am back on my feet and moving...a bit slowly at first, but...

That said, I'm still not smokin'. Haven't done so in 18 years.

 I haven't the foggiest idea about what the  Karin Kessel affair might be, but the pen and water color drawing is simply wonderful.  Thank you sooooo much,  Carina. Your mail-art friends really do wish you would come on over to IUOMA (and TrashPo) on Facebook.  We're all reading and following on Ning, but you are missing some good times!  Thanks for the art and the love: xxxooo!

Strange Animals: Great card from Keith Chambers

Last month Keith Chambers was mailing out some wonderful cards with some big beautiful animals doing weird things. So glad I got one of them.  Love this series, Keith!

Thanks. Return favor coming soon!

Doodle Therapy Results:TFP from Rebecca and Figgy Guyver, Diane (and Tony?) Keys, Lucky Pierre and Gone Postal!

No identity is obvious on this fantabulous envelope, but it is fat with promise of fine stuff inside:

But there is a hint of the sender in doodly sketch of a recumbent dreamer across the envelope's flap. And my guess was correct, for inside was a copy of the exquisite new little bookie hot off the presses from Nayland Farm Boekje Press: producer/publisher of grand, tiny, exquisite volumes of mail art madness. In this case it is another fab exercise in Internationally Collaborative Doodle Therapy.

Note the understated and elegant cover typography!  Since the contents of this precious work have been eloquently blogged by my correspondent,  DKult Scribe Mink Rancher, I will refer my readers wanting to fully peruse the pleasures of TLP#3 to that review here:
<http://iuoma-network.ning.com/profiles/blogs/part-ii-tlp-3-doodle-therapy-by-rebecca-guyver-uk-diane-keys-usa?xg_source=activity>

With each completion comes the possibility of new beginnings, and Rebecca and Figgy have seeded the field with a couple pages to get us started:

Being in some serious need of doodle therapy myself, I will begin immediately. Anyone care to join us?

Rebecca: XXXOOO!!!