I regret to report that April happy mail is late 😔 Which you may have deduced, given that it's already May. My apologies for the delay. I estimate that early next week your postal box will receive a pleasant surprise. (International, add another ~week to that, idk.) Either the proper May edition will follow shortly after, or I'll bundle it with June, not sure yet. Gearing up for a zine print order soonish, so I'll play things by ear depending on how that comes together.
It makes me sad, but for the sake of velocity I need to stop hand-making OOAK dispatches. However I recall saying that before and apparently the lesson wore off. Why do I ever think this time it'll be different? No it won't!
I appreciate your patience with the vagaries of my one-woman show. Something I thoroughly didn't expect about the whole patronage deal was how blasé people would be regarding what exactly I deliver and when exactly it arrives, as long as something does. The trust has been liberating, and I'm very grateful.
Sneak peak:
It speeds up my process considerably to not track provenance for each public domain artwork that I save in a massive folder and then serendipitously choose to use as collage fodder. This stress-free flexibility is exactly why the public domain designation exists!
I'm currently workshopping the sequel to "Meanderland," which was itself workshopped in previous months' happy mail. There's a tentative rhythm developing here and frankly I love it. The adage "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" applies. Not fast enough that I'm actually on time... but I digress.
Every wood has a witch in it. This one hides.
At the appropriate hour she spun an enchantment about her cottage like the layers of gossamer cobweb that conceal a spider's prey. Her charm was cleverly fashioned to repel any foreign gaze.
The witch's caution is because her home is nestled among the trees not far from the clearing where the sacred labyrinth was carved so long ago. That meadow draws many visitors — some willing, some tripping dazed and blind along unseen ley lines.
"Oh Devouring Mother," the witch cries out, "let us be alone together!" But she knows that her entreaty is made in vain, having become grudgingly accustomed to her patron's primordial indifference. The Queen of Clay is always otherwise occupied. And Aster — the witch — realizes, though it rankles her: rites by a single supplicant with no extraordinary power are insufficient to sustain the Mother, our lady of such cavernous appetite.
Talk soon 🦢