Artistamps

(Fig. 5) stands in the middle. The Rocker's 26 stems rise directly from the inner side of the cube and run in two parallel, symmetrical rows of 13. A light, translucent collection of pink plastic balls fills the ground between the Rocker's legs. The viewer must lie down without rubbing against the dense line of the Rocker's legs and in a horizontal position rock himself in a continual shower of signs. By concentrating powerfully on the colored elements, the viewer transforms them from a shapeless, chaotic domain of perception into the ordered world of consciousness. Editor's Note The artist describes her installation the Semiotic Cellin language that reflects the ideas, imagery and materials that comprise the work. ARTISTAMPS Patricia Tavenner, P.O. Box 11032, Oakland , CA 94611, U.S.A. Since 1970, I have created 70 sheets of "Artistamps." There is great variety among them. Each sheet has its own aura and reality. Artistamps are single stamps or sheets of stamps made by artists for artistic and expressive purposes that are used on envelopes and packages. Artistamps came to prominence with the advent of Mail Art in the late 1960's. Briefly, Mail Art is anything that artists and other creative souls send though the mail or, at times, by fax, email or "pony express" (someone actually brings it). Some people specialize in envelopes; others, audio- or videotapes , or 'zines or stamps. It is hard to do it all today as mail artists did when it all began. There are just too many people doing it now. Artistamps are included along with regular postage on all of the wonderful things that travel the mail routes. There are lots of exhibitions of artistamps. We trade them as though they were baseball cards; we nurture our friendships through the mail andc occasionally.Tn person. Mail Art is one of the precursors to e-mail art. A philatelic I am not; a single stamp is not very meaningful to me or interesting by itself. I think in terms of an entire 8Y2-x-ll sheet of stamps and of how one stamp is part of the whole. There is great power in something small that is repeated. I work in series of more than one image or page or drawing or print. The Sea Shells series is an example: so far seven pages comprise the series. I wanted to do something that made people feel good because I feel we are bombarded with negative media. So I set about to heal this in some waywith my art. I wanted a fairly universal symbol-an archetype -so I chose a shell, a recurring image in my artwork. I believe that most of us have positive memories about shells. I had done a series of lush color pastel drawings of shells; lush color is an important consideration in my choice of imagery for Artistamps. The original works are color pastel drawings on rag paper. First, I had color photo prints made from slides of the drawings. I arranged these photos on a sheet of paper and took them to a special copy center where the operators are sympathetic to artists. I prefer to use a Canon Color laser copier for Artistamps. I like to make special arrangements of the images on paper so that some are slightly askew as a reminder that these stamps have a nonmachine hand in their creation. Back in the studio, I rubber-stamped my name and post office-like symbols on the edges of the stamps to make them look official. The rubber-stamp images I used included a circle stamp Fig. 6. Patricia Tavenner, detail from illusions #2, Artistamps, 1995. Artistamps are single stamps or sheets of stamps made by artists. The illusions #2 series was inspired by ballroom dancing. of my name in japanese, a small line drawing of a shell, a stamp that says "canceled" with the official lines of a cancellation stamp and another with the words "Oakland" and "Eternal City." Finally, these sheets of stamps were perforated-making them look like official postage stamps. Many of my stamps are black and white as these are cheaper to produce. I am currently...