to establish/ to divulge/ to spill a secret

'pouring rain... the brook at night roaring under the high moon.'  - kilvert, diaries, 22nd january 1872.

and because of the rain soon  (in 1872) there will be flooding.

yesterday (today as was) a rainy horrific day. 

horsemouth has prepared a mail art envelope now all he needs to do is make some art to go in it and put it in the post with a suitable address on the cover and some postage on it (optional). 

on the back of the envelope he has put a quote about the purpose of mail art by loredana parmesani which he has edited slightly from the following;  

'the purpose of mail art, an activity shared by many artists throughout the world, is to establish an aesthetical communication between artists and common people in every corner of the globe, to divulge their work outside the structures of the art market and outside the traditional venues and institutions: a free communication in which words and signs, texts and colours act like instruments for a direct and immediate interaction.'

horsemouth doesn't know about that 'direct and immediate interaction' bit - one of the advantages of mail art is that you are not there to witness the reception of it, you are not obliged to comment on the comments. (in this way it more resembles email than social media, it resembles writing more than conversation and speech - as one would expect). 

divulge here is a translation from the italian of divulgare (probably) which has more the meaning of to disseminate. 

divulge (in english) has more the sense of to spill a secret. 

he's not so keen on the common people bit either. 

when praising something people tend to favour the direct, immediate and unmediated (over the delayed and considered and mediated). but there is something to be said for both. horsemouth has worked at this point of tension between writing and speech, between recording and performing, between playing and improvising, for a long time. 

he supposes that what he will have to do for his letter is actually write it (rather than type in his thoughts as he is doing now). despite working as a notetaker for many years his handwriting is not the best. 

the today that will be yesterday is a day without coffee 

he's going to wait until the tomorrow that is today when he can pick up a copy of the hereford times as well. he should probably have asked his mother to pick up some when she went in (but hey). 

------------------------------------------

 'official figures suggest that the number of households living in fuel poverty was on track to rise to 2.78m homes in england by 2025...

.. more households – as many as 9.6m across the UK – are estimated to be living in cold, poorly insulated homes...

- by june last year, the amount of energy debt shouldered by households had climbed to a new high of £4.43bn, an increase of ... 71% since 2023...'

it all continues to get worse but there is at least a plan (the warm homes plan) to move things forward. horsemouth hopes that all this aligns with the plans of the communal endeavour and that at the end good things will come out of it. some moving of the goalposts has taken place (in particular the scrapping of the ECO schemes) but hopefully not fatally. 

having pursued this for four years horsemouth would like to see it get to a satisfactory conclusion - the listed houses insulated up to an EPC C standard and the process of moving towards lower carbon heating begun. 

interesting presentation by the greg jackson from octopus.

however, it is also no longer his problem. 

it came in the post (he should reply in kind but he's a lazy sod)

'the purpose of mail art, an activity shared by many artists throughout the world, is to establish an aesthetical communication between artists and common people in every corner of the globe, to divulge their work outside the structures of the art market and outside the traditional venues and institutions: a free communication in which words and signs, texts and colours act like instruments for a direct and immediate interaction.' 

– loredana parmesani in the wikipedia article on mail art. 

to be mail art it must be 

a) a work of art, and 

b) have been posted

thus horsemouth's copies of the triple negative calendar for 2026 and his copy of tripe negative's nothing is possible (and the cassette that came with it) are mail art. on the other hand his copy of god bless the death drive by them is not (because he purchased it at a show of theirs). 

similarly his copy of sean o'connor's the lycan print is not a piece of mail art because he was given it at a comics convention.  similarly also matt boyce's radioactive future mutant horsemouth purchased at a comics show is not also (is that right? that's how he remembers it). 

the letters he received through the mail from howard are mail art but the annotated copies of books horsemouth lent him are not (because they did not come through the mail). 

conversely the various poetry chap books and CDs he has 

received from rob lawson in far off riogordo are mail art because they came in the post. similarly the books mandy keifetz sent him (even if ordered online) constitute mail art (perhaps his 'reviews' online constitute some kind of repayment/ engagement).

he should reply in kind but he's a lazy sod

he supposes that at one point he was posting out copies of the musicians of bremen CDs and that this could be considered his mail art. (if he just physically gave you a copy of the CD when you met that doesn't count but if he dropped it off round your house while you were out that may count). 

if you downloaded it or streamed it (but didn't ask horsemouth for a physical copy) that doesn't count as mail art. 

he would like to post out more mail art (but he doesn't have any new 'art' to hand). he would have to make it. (in some ways this would be a good thing for him to engage in). 

it's the sunday morning and rainy and grey

horsemouth is off to the bell-ringers lunch soon. in a bit he'll have a shower and start sorting out soe clothes for it. at the end of it he'll go off to lock up the abbey (and then that's him and his mum's stint on the abbey rota done until the end of march). 

yesterday afternoon zoom beers with howard (two beers) and a discussion of mary wollstonecraft and her prose style. 

'the diary I let people read' (mail art)

'... my written diaries are private; they form a closed document of my world and allow me the distance to analyze it. 

my visual diary is public...'

- nan goldin, the ballad of sexual dependency, new introduction, march 1996.

well it's a rainy grey morning in the wild (when horsemouth writes this) and it will almost certainly be a rainy grey morning in the wild when you are reading this. 

yesterday a brief email exchange with colin (just to check how things are going). 

horsemouth's mail art collections (a preliminary survey)

following on from a recent suggestion on a comedy show, that instead of reading through old texts and emails on the bus you should bring a shoebox full of old letters, horsemouth plans to make an itemised list of his mail art. 

there was also a post on substack suggesting that the whole internet, mobile phone, email thing had been a dreadful mistake and that we should bring back landlines, letters, postcards and cassette tapes.

horsemouth thanks howard, rob lawson, TG. there may be some actual post that he's forgotten (if so please remind him). 

in addition to the three letters shown here horsemouth also has two books annotated by howard - millstone grit by glyn hughes and practicalities by marguerite duras. 

horsemouth has many more CDs, covering letters and poetry chap books from rob lawson. 

here's a selection. 

horsemouth also has a (small) collection of his friends other artworks/ comic books but as these were not posted to him they cannot be included here. (those are the rules as far as horsemouth understands them). 

here, out in the wilds, a frosty morning. horsemouth is off to the abbey in a bit.