A Bit About the Process

There’s a place in Thomasville with a wonderful selection of tape. Ever since I started making tape collages I never thought about the small differences in tape. I can tell you with strong conviction that Target brand packing tape is the strongest out there. Any time you encounter really cheap tape, it’s cheap for a reason because it will not pull an image off of a late 1960’s magazine for shit. Sometimes, I buy the cheap tape but I have to use it for certain purposes. I cannot put cheap tape down for the place and pull method; I have to use cheap tape to hold everything down after the process is finished. Back to the Thomasville store, so they have a lot of cheap colored tape for a dollar a roll, meaning I’ve purchased tons of the stuff. Here’s the shelf. It’s so beautiful.

The other aspect to my mail art equation are the images. Mostly I buy old magazines from thrift stores and general junk shops. When the library sales start to appear, I stock up with as much stuff as I can possibly find…good stuff that is. I like old images and old books, cheap paper and the ridiculous tome of antiquated medical manuals. Here’s the Thomasville book sale.

Here’s my haul. I meant to take a picture of one of the books. The book was entitled “How to Dress Rich.” The copyright was from the middle 80’s, what a surprise about that. I think I paid four dollars and some change for all of these beauties.

At the dollar store in Thomasville also bought a toilet plunger that works well for a tape holder. In the background is a portrait that Misty made of me a few years ago. I still want someone to paint me sitting on a horse all dignified…maybe before an epic battle. I need to get her on this.

And finally, the product, some actual work. I made a big pile of postcards and then a couple of the larger pieces that I don’t know what I’m going to do with. I’ll probably mail most of them but the rest I think I’m going to keep.