Cascadian Landscapes

To honor the beauty of the Cascadian bioregion, Cascadia Artpost has created the first three artistamps in a new series called "Cascadian Landscapes."

The first artistamp shows a view of Mount Rainier, the highest volcanic peak of the Cascade mountain range at 14,410 feet above sea level. This image is an original drawing based on a photograph posted on the current U.S. National Park Service website.

The second artistamp features a view of Budd Inlet and the Port of Olympia, Washington, with an abandoned railroad causeway in the foreground. This view is looking northeastward from Olympia's Fourth Avenue Bridge. The image is a drawing based on an original photo taken in 2013.

Olympia's Capitol Lake provides the image on the third artistamp. The image was created from a posterized photo taken at sunset and looking southward toward the state capitol building and the mouth of the Deschutes River, which flows into Capitol Lake, which in turn flows into Budd Inlet.

 

 

Michael Bidner, Artistamp Creator (1944-1989)

Fifteen years ago, when the notion of a Cascadia Artpost was still an idea germinating in the head of its creator, the face-on black image on an orange postoid simply labeled "Artistamp" with an underlined Greek gamma caught my eye as I discovered what Chuck Welch aka The Crackerjack Kid called The Eternal Network. Creating and exchanging faux postage stamps and mail art soon became an important activity in my life. By that time, a decade had passed since the sad passing of Michael Bidner, the originator of the term "artistamp." But Bidner remained one of those personages, like the late Ray Johnson, that I made note of as I learned more and more about the origins of artistamps and what Michael Crane termed "correspondence art."

This year marks the 70th anniversary of Bidner's birth. Cascadia Artpost honors the memory of Michael Bidner with the issue of fifteen artistamps that reproduce designs from a sheet of sixteen that Bidner titled his "Mail Art Masterpiece." Bidner created the sheet to publicize his 1984 Artistampex, the first international exposition focused on artistamps and curated by Bidner. Artistampex was also significant for the opportunity it presented for mail artists to meet face to face. Long time networkers Harley and The Crackerjack Kid have shared with us some of their memories about this event and their relationships with Bidner.

Bidner had begun to compile a worldwide catalog of artistamps at the time of his death. His collection of 10,000 artistamps was bequeathed to the art research center Artpool in Budapest, Hungary.

Mail art correspondent Reg Côté has kindly sent Cascadia Artpost an original cover sent out by Bidner to publicize Artistampex, also illustrated with the Cascadia Artpost commemoratives.

 

 

Fluxus Identity

 

 

A series of self-photos taken in June 2014 are the basis for a sheet of 28 artistamps simply titled "FluXus Identity," exploring different ways of seeing and being seen.

Artist Self-Portrait

We met our dear mail art friend buZ blurr for the first time in person at the Ex Postal Facto (XPF) exposition held in San Francisco in February 2014. From photographs taken of several of the participants, buZ later produced a set of unique images on artistamps of various artists who were present at XPF, and sent us a copy of the set. We took buZ's image of yours truly, resized and cropped it, and released it as a Cascadia Artpost artistamp. Thank you, buZ, for creating this and the other likenesses, reminding us of the fond memories and fun we all had at XPF.

Peeps

A few years ago while still living in the Ballard neighborhood of the city of Seattle, Washington, we would take five-mile walks in the morning three or four times a week. Our walking path was a big oval, northward through a residential neighborhood called Loyal Heights, westward down several flights of stairs and walkways to a public beachfront park at Shilshole along Elliot Bay, then southward along the urban Burke-Gilman trail, across a railroad spur track and over a railroad bridge back to our residence. While walking the first segment through Loyal Heights, I passed a house where one of the residents staged small action figures in changing scenes along the top of a retaining wall.

I became fascinated in the miniature dramas I saw and decided to order some miniature people of my own, which I called "peeps." These small figures were HO- and O-gauge scales intended for model railroad layouts. I would add several of my peeps to the settings on the retaining wall. Sometimes they would stay in the same place for days, but sometimes I would walk by to find my peeps in different positions, and other times my peeps simply disappeared.

I began to set one or more peeps in different locations along the urban trail portion of my walking route, where I found low retaining walls along the trail. Later I documented the location of my peeps with photos. Quickly I discovered that my peeps would have longer lifespan if I placed them in less obvious locations along the busy trail, otherwise they would be gone after a day or two.

After moving to Olympia, I wondered whether any of my peeps had survived in the urban jungle. One year later, on a trip to Seattle, I decided to make a diversion and drive to the trail to see if any of the peeps were still in place. Of the four locations I checked, I found one peep still sitting on his tiny bench at the spot where I had originally placed him. I decided to bring him back to Olympia with me.

So now the peeps are the subject of a series of artistamps. I selected the best photos and highlighted the settings of the peeps by using a graphic technique called a vignette to crop their photos.

I am considering some new future projects that will feature peeps. Photographing peeps in urban settings is not a new idea - for example, see the various books published by the street artist Slinkatchu. The peeps exert an emotional force on me that is not surprising.  "The feeling of being ignored and overlooked, of feeling small, is a universal one," says Slinkachu. "It is as easy for us to fall through cracks in the pavement in a big city as it is for the little people." Stay tuned for more peep adventures that become reports to the Eternal Network.

Commodity Civilization II

As a followup to the American Values artistamps created last year, we created a second collage out of newspaper advertisements and magazine clippings with the title "Commodity Civilization II." So much of American life is a preoccupation with acquiring material goods, and of course advertising images and messages are omnipresent in all media as constant accompaniment. The American cultural historian Jackson Lears has coined the term "commodity civilization" to described what has been called the American Way of Life. Can we imagine another future where human relationships rather than commodity acquisition might be valued more highly?

Spurned by the Panopticon

The Eternal Network extends even to prison. However, mail restrictions forbid certain items used in mail art correspondence that we outside the world of panopticons take for granted. We discovered that rubber stamps are one of those forbidden categories. When Cascadia Artpost attempted several times to mail several unmounted rubber stamps to correspondent Colin Scholl, the envelope came back to us with a sticker and hand-written message. We decided to create a postcard with a photo of the returned envelope that we titled "Spurned by the Panopticon." On the front of the postcard is a "Fluxus Prison" artistamp designed by Colin that was printed on perforated stock by Cascadia Artpost. Perhaps someday you will find mail franked with one of these artistamps or another inscribed "CS MAIL" delivered direct from the panopticon.

Summer Flowers

In the Cascadia region of North America, the Summer Solstice marks the longest day of the year, when the sun does not set until 9:30 p.m. and twilight lasts until 10:30-11:00 p.m. What better way to mark this milestone than with a set of Summer Flower artistamps. With two exceptions noted below, photographs of flowers grown in personal gardens over several seasons in the Seattle area were used to create fourteen different artistamps. Several artistamps along with a small envelope of wildflower seeds were mailed in a packet to correspondents on 2 June 2014.

 

The following flowers are represented on the stamp sheet (listed from left to right, top row first):

·         Delosperma cooperi: Common name: Ice plant. A low-growing succulent with brilliant, shining purple flowers, striking in a patio pot. Likes full sun. Blooming period: July-August.

·         Beesia Calthifolia: Heart-shaped glossy bronze green leaves with white blooms. Prefers part-shade and moist soil. Blooming period: Spring to fall.

·         Coreopsis auriculata 'Elfin Gold': Golden-yellow daisy-like flowers on compact plant with small green leaves. Drought tolerant in full sun to partial shade. Blooming period: Late spring to summer.

·         Delphinium 'Komestead': Common name: Larkspur. Luminescent bluish flowers and long green stalks. Prune to ground after first bloom to get a second bloom in late summer. Grows in full sun to partial shade. Blooming period: Summer.

·         Geranium 'Jericho': Miniature 6 to 8 inch tall bushy growth with white edged green leaves with irregular green and pink centers, and beautiful salmon-pink flowers. Slow-growing in full sun to partial shade. Blooming period: Summer.

·         Dianthus chinesis 'Floral Lace Mix': Lacy pink and scarlet flowers that are attractive to hummingbirds. Grows in full sun to partial shade. Blooming period: Summer to early fall.

·         Echinacea 'Harvest Moon': Yellow-orange flowering perennial that prefers full sun. Blooming period: Summer.

·         Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost': Heart-shaped frosty leaves with green borders and narrow green veins have a showy appearance year-round and is a vigorous grower. Flower stalks have small blue flowers. Grows in full sun to partial shade. Blooming period: Late spring to August, if dead blooms are pruned.

·         Coreopsis 'Show Stopper': Covered in bright rose-pink flowers, this perennial grows to 20 inches tall in full sun to partial shade. Blooming time: Late spring to first frost.

·         Papaver somiferum: Coimmon name: Poppy. Annual with papery pink blossoms with carmine rays and yellow center. Likes sandy soil and full sun and tends to self-seed for the next season. Blooming time: Late spring to early summer. [Note: This was one of two flowers not from a personal garden; this specimen was photographed next to a fence in an industrial area in south Seattle, Washington state, USA.]

·         Primula candelabra: Common name: Candelabra primrose. Rosette-forming purple-carmine flowers on mealy white stems with lance-toothed green foliage, growing up to 2.5 feet tall. Prefers moist soil. and partial shade. Blooming period: Summer.

·         Linum perenne: Herbaceous perennial with showy sky blue flowers growing 1-2 feet tall. Blooms profusely in full sun to partial shade and is drought-tolerant. Blooming period: May-June. [Note: This is the other flower not from a personal garden; this specimen was photographed along the Burke-Gilman urban trail in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington state, USA.]

·         Potentilla recta: Perennial blooming bush with yellow flowers. Prefers moist soil with fresh compost in spring in full sun. Blooming period: Late spring to early fall.

·         Erigeron glaucus 'Bountiful': Common name: Beach aster. Wide lavender daisies with chartreuse centers grow on gray-green evergreen foliage. Cold hardy and continuously blooming if dead blooms are pruned. Grows in full sun to partial shade. Blooming period: Spring to fall.

By Overnight Post

On 21 June 2013, the night of the Summer Solstice, we observed a stormy sky with a full moon shining through moving clouds. From our apartment balcony, we held our camera and took multiple shots. Later, when we  were reviewing our photographic catalog for potential mail art subjects, the image of the Summer Solstice Moon and brooding clouds seemed perfectly suited for the Cascadia Artpost "By Overnight Post" artistamp.

Unfortunately, due to service reductions by the United States Postal Service, the only overnight mail service available to us here in Olympia, Washington U.S.A. is for mail traveling to the Seattle metropolitan area, 70 miles north, and to correspondents such as Test Tower in Chehalis, about 25 miles to the south.

The Walnut Tree

On the occasion of the Ben Bir Ceviz Ağaciyim Mail Art Exhibition held in Istanbul, Turkey in Spring 2014, Cascadia Artpost created a miniature artistamp sheet on the exhibition theme "Yes, Walnut Tree is watching us," a line taken from a poem by Nazim Hikmet. The image selected for the artistamp is a photo of a moss and lichen-covered wooden railing seen at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, located near Cascadia Artpost's home in Olympia, Washington. Thank you to Meral Ağar for inviting us to participate.

Spring Clouds

Sometimes when you go outside, you look up and the sky catches your attention with some unusual cloud formations. We saw these cloud ridges and took some quick pictures. The time was a sunny January morning, but these clouds seemed to be harbingers of spring with their lively movement across the sky. Therefore, we call the four artistamps our spring cloud set.

These artistamps were reproduced on an inkjet printer rather than our usual laserjet machine. We happened to have a partial box of glossy coated perforated paper stock, but when we tried to print one of the glossy sheets with the laserjet, the paper jammed. The inkjet printer handled the glossy paper just fine. Although the images were less sharp, we found we liked the effect of the ink bubbling on the sheet.