#efcmailboxchallenge

 

One of our Etegami Fun Club members, Kasia from Poland, suggested mailboxes (for sending letters) and letter boxes (for receiving letters) as our group theme for April. What immediately came to my mind was a collage series I did years years and years ago when I was still active in the international mailart community. I had combined vintage Japanese stamps with photos of the kind of mailbox that was common in Japan when I was a child. 

I thought of submitting one of the original series, but when I looked through my digital records, they felt much too cluttered for my current tastes. So I did a similar one using fewer postage stamps, hand-written words, and a properly "wiggly" hand-painted mailbox. I couldn't motivate myself to paint the postage stamps, as I have plenty of real used stamps that I'm always looking for a way to use in my art. 

Speaking of postage stamp art, I am a big fan of Jackie Long's "Stamp People" series and hope to do something like that with Japanese stamps one of these days.  I am the lucky recipient of several of Jacki's collage cards.

By the way, I did today's etegami collage in my "Life Between Cultures" etegami journal so that I could also post it on the Artist's Journal Workshop group page on Facebook.

class reunion (1)

I was asked to paint a series of etegami to add some pizazz to a website that a friend had set up to be a communication crossroads for those of us who attended the American School in Japan (Tokyo) during the 1970s. The connecting theme was to be along the lines of "nostalgia" and "reunion." The first etegami I posted was excessively metaphorical, and resulted in being misinterpreted by all who saw it-- which was kind of embarrassing. The one posted here is more straightforward, representing one of those old-style Japanese mail boxes, which had so much more character than the modern ones you see in Japan today. My www of choice is still the postal service, and one of the most important reasons I do etegami at all.

illustration friday (mail)

This is not really an etegami, but it *is* an image accompanied by words, and it certainly fits the new Illustration Friday theme. I did a series of Japanese Mail Collection Box collages to send to Postcrossers a couple years ago, and this is one of them.

It shows the kind of mail box that was used when I was growing up, and the shape of it is very dear to my heart. The modern ones are just a rectangular box on a pedestal (blah).

One of the memories from my childhood that I treasure, is of my father teaching me how to collect stamps. Now that I have trouble walking, and rarely leave the house, exchanging mailart is one way for me to travel the world. Stamps are little windows into new landscapes, rare creatures, and unfamiliar history. The canceled stamps I used for this piece are ones I collected over forty years ago. They depict national parks and nature reserves from all over Japan.