Remember these guys from Easter? No? Well that's probably because I've been too busy
to keep up and catch up with this, as usual!
Back in May a valiant effort was made, not only to post about what I was up to in a way timely enough that it still made sense, but also to catch up with 2017, and finish a few of the stragglers from 2016 (did Hiroshima and the Setouchi Triennale even happen if I haven't written about them or backed up the photos more than twice why am I like this plz help).
I powered through Easter, our third and last cherry blossom season in Tokyo, and the big giant stressful German visit to Japan the spring before that - phew, nice! - and then..
Well, I never did make it to Golden Week 2017, which involved photographing the weddings of about half a dozen strange couples just because they kept happening where I was already standing, walking around Meiji Jingu and Harajuku, the obligatory stupidly cute cafes, and going to Nikko and Mashiko.
After that, in pretty rapid succession, were Seoul and Taiwan again, a bunch of shows, moving out / leaving Tokyo and our goodbye party, and then two massively stressful months spent far apart working our asses off before we finally moved into our apartment here in Hamburg last December 1st. Hard to believe that was already over a year ago. But hey, I managed to share the posts and photos about last fall in Arizona, so I've got that going for me I guess.
This year has been similar: things started coming together and getting a lot better for us once we were married and my residency/visa status was no longer up in the air and I knew that I finally had health insurance and work permission, but things also sped up and have never slowed down. When you have a massive group of friends and acquaintances there's always an event, holiday, weekend trip, international vacation, birthday, marriage, pregnancy, baby, little kid stuff going on, old dog, new dog, etc. etc. etc.
It's awesome, but I spent most of my childhood in quiet solitude, so it's also a pace to get used to for sure. So here I am now, deciding to post the rest of the year's art mail minus the Christmas stuff - which is next - just before New Year's Eve.
The lack of surprise is audible, tangible, and even thick.
Anyway: What other art mail has there been post-Ostara? Well, you wouldn't be here if you didn't plan on finding out. It's definitely been less elaborate than what I was doing when I wasn't getting anywhere near enough hours in Japan and was also trying to use up as much squirreled-away paper stuff as possible, that's for sure. No elaborate colourful collages this year, no time. It's more straight-up gifted, received, and purchased objets d'art, and a continual exchanging of postcards.
Let's rewind back to my mom's birthday / Mother's Day, which I talked about in Dancing Into May, which became '*Dancing Into July' and then '**Dancing Into Christmas' and then '***Please help'. We bought this tiny painting for her from a friendly street vendor while on our mini-honeymoon in Heidelberg. It's decidedly Parisian post-impressionist but depicts recogniseable parts of this historic city instead, so I knew the combo was perfect for her.
Pleasant packaging design, that is all
And of course, the sheet music angel and seaside ornaments, which were not handmade by me, so.. Moving right along!
While searching for jobs and gradually losing my mind I got together my "stamp collection" and organised it like the OCD micromanaging anxiety dumpster fire I am.
Mostly these have come from my mom. I was never serious about this as a hobby (just like literally everything else I've ever done) and simply enjoy pretty stamps when I see them, so she would put interesting or special commemorative ones she saw aside for me when I was a kid. I've kept several from Japan, too. The Pathfinder one above I remember pretty vividly, as it's just massive for a single image, and it came on a box from my mom's artist friend in Oregon, in 1997. We have a space-themed wall in our living room now so eventually I'll find a little frame that fits it and hang it up.
I think this Alice's Adventures in Wonderland one is pretty amazing.
And will I ever use these for art mail?
Fuck no. What a stupid question.
These postcards I got while out boating with the in-laws and another couple
they do that and also go skiing with.
The Müritz is the largest lake in Germany, and it's not far from Rostock. It's quite a lot of complex, connected bodies of water with small thoroughfares built in, and you can even take the tributaries, or whatever you call the small winding extensions of it and the small lakes they form here and there, all the way down to Berlin. If anyone else has ever read a particularly sad, short little non-chronological novel called Visitation, these are the waterways the author is describing when she introduces the house at the center of the story and its idyllic plot of land a good ways outside the city.
Anyway, the boating thing was impromptu, and I only ended up being invited because I had to go to Rostock for an appointment that my mom-in-law needed to help me out with in case I couldn't communicate adequately enough (spoiler alert, it was fine), and well, the boating was already planned for the entire day before, which was when I needed to take the train into town, so..
At first I felt like kind of a fifth wheel who couldn't communicate and had nothing in common with these two almost retirement-aged couples, but it ended up being one of the single nicest day outings I've ever been on. It was a picture-perfect day, sunny and clear with a bright blue sky. We had fresh and similarly perfect strawberries with us because it was that season and they grow so well here that the best-known strawberry farm outside Rostock is something of an entertainment destination, and franchise. These northern German strawberries are easily the best ones I've ever eaten, and seriously, everyone should try them.
We stopped in Waren or Waren-Müritz, as you can see on the postcards there, which is a beautiful town complete with an impressive brick gothic church just like the many other minor resort towns in this region, though this just happens to be the main one situated on the lake. We swam too, and it was hilarious.
This is just one of the many other things I'll get around to posting about eventually, and hopefully pretty soon.
In the meantime, Nico and Andrea took their daughter on a massive ridiculous road trip through Germany, France, Disneyland, Italy, and Monaco for her birthday, and she loved the unicorn Pillow Pet I gave her :D
Speaking of 'cute packaging design, that is all': it took fucking forever to get my Yetee order, but that's almost certainly because the German post is shit, and their mailers and the 3D glasses they come with are heckin' cute.
This illustration, called "Off Duty", is by Chris Gerringer.
Next up, something I went way overboard with even though I had almost literally no money: a surprise birthday box for Sara's second daughter's 1st birthday, since she was born right after I arrived home to sell my stuff last year and I didn't have anything to give at the time. Sara was nice enough to try to plan to meet me the day before they induced labour, but naturally that didn't happen, and I met squishy sleepy baby Romy before leaving for Germany instead.
I decided on a unicorn theme and got pretty fixated on making it cute and nice considering how limited my resources were at the time lol. For the record, I also didn't make this ._.;
... Or this adorable crocheted keepsake rattle.
But hey, someone in Germany did!
A perfect match, and all very light and inexpensive!
This colouring and sticker book was for the older daughter, because I mean like, it's more about her than the baby, who doesn't really know what's going on.
Look at that fucking whale rug right there. Massively girly and glittery and way too cute to resist.
But not everything was girly! I made sure of that. I'd totally recommend this cool book for children of all ages, and for adults too. I flipped through a few of the pages with Hannes and we both enjoyed it. It's such a neat concept. No reading or more than a look necessary, big for keeping the attention of and/or showing to a group of little ones; but if you want, the small amount of info accompanying each illustration can also get fairly detailed. (Oh - and some Christmas sweets for mom and dad.)
That's right, this was a multi-purpose box, and as a result, it was one of only three? total anythings that actually arrived on time for Christmas. -slow exasperated face palm-
But at any rate - check this book out! It's even better than Actual Size.
It's the true story of Mary Anning, told in simple language and in a graphic novel format, with beautiful illustrations. Do you know how long I spent trying to find an interesting and attractive science book with a female protagonist and/or historical figure appropriate for a 4 - 5 year-old?
Way too, that's how.
Take advantage of my researching and browsing, and take my word for it: you also want to get this for the wee lass in your life to offset all that adorable pink glittery shit to which society relegates us as females (but that you also just kind of have to admit that you still like and make high-pitched sounds over even as a grown-ass adult).
Bam, motherfuckin' educational and awesome
This older sister Julie's birthday is in January, so at the time I was like, well, if I'm sending something for the little one's birthday.. And a couple of Christmas sweets.. Might as well get all three of these ducks in a row and sink them in a glass house. Or fucking whatever. I found this box and painted her name on it.
I also found matching hair bow clippies, chocolates that are probably too rich for a five year-old in a festive box, and mini books from Flying Tiger that contain no words at all, so the baby can look at them too, and you can make up your own dialogue. Good enough!
#aesthetic, right? hrrnnggg
Oh right, there were also vegetarian unicorn gummi candies, Austrian wafer biscuits, hair accessories, Japanese flake stickers, and Kinder Chocolate. I'm pretty sure everything was a big hit.
Their mom, my friend Sara, sent some lovely belated congratulations and birthday art mail more or less in reply, because of the timing. One for each of us, for the marriage and the birthdays, so that's why there are four.
These colourful colouring pages and letters that she and Julie make together are always super charming.
Who didn't grow up in the 90's being obsessed with Lisa Frank, right?
And actually, this is the only art mail I've gotten this year! There have been quite a lot of wedding cards of course, and a few other creative paper-based ways to present us with money for that (which will be included in yet another post still to come), as well as several postcards from several different people in the U.S. and Japan, and a few really wonderful gift/goodie/care boxes. Maybe 2019 will have more actual art mail. We'll see!
There are various free postcard stands in places like bars and cafes throughout Germany called Edgar Free Cards, and I always scope them out in case something artsy or otherwise worthwhile comes up. Then, one day, at the gym, this happened. I basically grabbed a chunk of them. All are mine, none have been sent yet. Yas.
Here's another purchase of mine, a gift for a friend: stickers of a few of the illustrations of Apollonia Saintclair.
Yet another art-related purchase I'm super happy about: friends of ours and members of kaala started their own line of T-shirts and the occasional sweatpants called Jubokko Productions. Mostly it's grindcore, demons, cult horror, and wrestling-related.
And I hate that I look like such a gross frumpy mess in this pic after a long train ride and I should have really tried harder to pose but look! One of Meika's illustrations on a Self Deconstruction shirt! Eee! I had to own it.
The main reason the mail has been less artsy is this task, which has basically eaten my life and that I'm still working on now (Jesus take the wheel): the wedding and reception thank you cards.
Actually, the ones such as those above all went to the States, as money had been trickling in to my mom all spring and summer once she sent out announcements on that end, and I finished them quickly. This here is what's been killing me: the German ones.
I decorated the envelopes with paint splatters turned into lanterns like we had at the garden party, stamped, and eventually addressed them all.
The thing is, though, that I wanted to include more than the group photo with a little personalised thank you memo written on the back for everyone, since they've already waited quite a long time and haven't seen the photos from the party yet.
But I have literally thousands of photos from this year.
Literally. Thousands.
Just the idea of trying to get through them all, choose, and lightly edit the best few of each person or couple to print, left me completely overwhelmed, especially once I started working about a month later.
There just weren't any hours left in the day by November. And then the end of the year predictably crept right up on me and us now about to pass. Urrrggghhh.
Our living room table has looked like this for months. The good news is, though, that I've finally been through everyone's photos, including the 900 or so from the amateur photographer that we had waited on for quite a long time. They're going out soon, Happy New Year \(;___;\)
The final artsy purchase of the year (because actually I don't know if the signed photo print I bought ever made it to my mom's address safely or what), which I had sent to Phoenix because it arrived just in time to be brought back to Germany by my in-laws who were visiting in October. A painting inspired by the Stephen King novel Sleeping Beauties, which Hannes is now reading because he loves those story bricks but missed one, by an L.A. artist called Jessen.
Pretty sure my mom chose to send our small birthday packet this way just because it's cute.
And obviously I've saved the stamps :3
The pop-up cards she chose were really cool! I'm tempted to add the X-wing one to that aforementioned space wall but.. that'd be taking it a little too far. She also sent me her Betsey Johnson sunglasses, because the matching pair she'd gotten me several years ago finally, irreparably broke, while she was here in fact. This was very touching.
She also sent maple sugar candy, because I said it was pretty much the only edible thing from North America that I might be interested in for the holiday season.
And finally, the amazing autumnal goodie package from Angelique!
I asked her to please send some pumpkin spice, but also got: two adorable cans of herbal winter tea for when you're sick, local honey sticks in various different flavours, an obscene gluten-free chocolate cookie from a local bakery, chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (I had forgotten that I used to snack on these pretty often and missed them!), a handmade pot holder, and a seasoning salt blend that's apparently a signature Montana thing. She remembered that Hannes has a romantic concept of that wide open country and really wants to go! ;○; (And yes, it's also very tasty.)
Plus the maple candy for #aesthetic, of course. I got these at the same time because postal service is so bad and unreliable in Hamburg that we're asking people to just send things to Hannes' parents.
More adorable packaging design.. These will of course come in very handy when we inevitably get sick at some point during the long, dark 4-month winter.
And finally, these are 800-ish year-old Anasazi pottery shards from one of my mom's friends. He gave a small package of them as a gift to Hannes' parents when they were in Arizona, and once they were back, they saw how much I liked them and gave me half. He also sent with them, as a belated wedding gift, one of the signature brass wind bells from Arcosanti. These, too, will show up again in another post when I photo dump and brag about all the cool fancy shit people gave us when we tied the knot.
Most of this stuff doesn't count as art mail, but well, most of it is handmade and/or art and it was all transported by mail except for the mini birthday card, the pottery shards, and those stamps and Jeff Goldblum postcards I'll probably hoard forever, so..¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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