PEACE BEACH BIRD

Also a work I mailed to Elizabeth O' Donnell, together with this letter:

Brussels, 25 July 2010


Hi Liz,
Dear Yarnpunk,

I found your sea project by accident, by browsing through mail art blogs. What attracted me was the theme (the sea) and the fact you live on an isle, part of Alaska.

Alaska?! Oh my god, Palin country, that b*** !!!

I think that one of the reasons why so many voted for Obama was to keep that loony out of office (what would happen if that old Vietnam veteran would die and she got hands of power, oh what a global nightmare we've escaped, Palin I've to say this in her support, made me feel closer to lemmings! If you don't understand this: it's a beautiful species that make the choice of collective suicide to avoid chaos and disorder, oops!!!

Okay, I like exaggerating! It's like seeing on a map where Alaska is and then realizing it's part of the USA. That's as plausible as thinking of the Falkland Isles that are part of the United Kingdom. Reminds me of a couple of English aristocrats who were so worried about the cold war and a possible nuclear holocaust they moved to the Falklands because they thought it would be the most likely place to be crushed by war till a certain Iron Lady decided on a game of gang or hand wrestling with a bunch of Argentine dictators. Oh boy, oh sister, oh dear lady of the drunken lakes, anyway, I can understand (and even be jalous of the fact) you live in Alaska, so don't think about this as a bad European joke, please!!!
My best friend in mail art was a woman who lived in the U.P. of Michigan, close to the Canadian border and I understood from her the why's about moving to an area of recluse.
She died of cancer some years ago and I'm still in mourning! I lost a friend who can't be replaced, who'll never be replaced and that's how it is…

Okay, I write poetry and that's a bad sign for many people!
In 2007 I published THE SCIENCE OF FISH (de wetenschap der vissen, in Dutch). So most of these poems are fish or sea or ocean related. Because in Dutch I'm not sure you would like a copy of this publication? The book contains a few collages, sea or fish related. I printed one of them: LA MER ME VEUT PLUS QUE LA MER (the sea claims more of me than the sea).
These words (in French this time, I live in Belgium, a country with 3 languages: Dutch-French and German, so English is "only" our 4th tongue) are words I wrote in the wet sand of the beach at the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco in 1997. In an instant they were washed away by the waves. This kind of action I've repeated at many beaches, sometimes words, sometimes drawings or images like you'll see in the other print I made. I also adapted an old text to complete the occasion.
The bird drawing was made on the beach of Knokke in Belgium. Knokke is a terrible place at the seaside in fact, a beach for the rich people of the country. Apartments there are sold for a million dollars and the mayor of this North Sea town fulminates against fridge box tourists (he means by that poor people who come to the sea with a fridge box containing their own food and drinks, so they don't support the "local economy"). I think he would be an excellent f*** buddy for Lady Plain Palin and all her wealthy snotty friends against health insurance for all these poor sea horses. Okay, maybe you've another vision, maybe…

Yours truly,

Guido