Spring 2013

Cascadia Artpost heralds the coming of spring in the Northern Hemisphere with an artistamp illustrating the flowering plant Dianthus chinensis, commonly known as "China Pink." Dianthus chinensis is a flowering herbaceous perennial native to China, Korea, Mongolia, and southeastern Russia. Attractive bicolored white, pink, and red flowers that are 3-4 cm. in diameter bloom primarily from April to June, but blooming can be extended through the summer into the fall by regular pruning of wilted flowers. Favoring dry to medium soil, the plant grows in a clump between 15 and 30 cm. in diameter and attracts hummingbirds.

The Yes Men

 

The Yes Men are jammers of corporate culture. Cultural jamming is a set of tactics used to expose assumptions behind commercial and political culture, and can take the form of refigured logos, fake websites, and image manipulation to make ironic or satirical statements. The object is to disrupt unconscious thought processes and promote alternatives to global corporate capitalism.

Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, working under the aliases of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno respectively,  have created a network of supporters to impersonate entities they dislike, a practice they call "identity correction." By catching these powerful entities off-guard, the Yes Men and their supporters expose corporations and organizations to public scrutiny with the intent of showing how they work and figuring out how to control them. The Yes Men strategize what would cause their target to lose control and act stupidly, capitalize on their target's reaction, and write news releases.

The Yes Men have produced two documentary films about their exploits. The Yes Men (2003) records their invitation to speak at a conference in Austria sponsored by the World Trade Organization. In The Yes Men Save The World (2009), they target neoliberal think tanks, the creators of Captain Euro, climate-threatening corporations, and Dow Chemical for the environmental and human disaster it caused in Bhopal, India. Currently The Yes Men are working on a new film project.

Cascadia Artpost has saluted The Yes Men with a set of five artistamps and a popup brochure. The designs of the artistamps modify scenes from publicity photos. Modifications included scanning the photos through thin tissue paper, colorizing selected portions of the scenes and adding facial details (Cascadia Artpost's own identity correction!), rescanning, and editing in Photoshop Elements.

For the latest activities of The Yes Men, see their website: http://theyesmen.org/

POSTAARPEX

Cascadia Artpost created a sheet of artistamps following the Artistamp Artists Reunion & Philatelic EXposition held on 10 November 2012 as its POSTAARPEX issue. POSTAARPEX features photos taken by AARPEX participants Jennie Hinchcliff, Jack Lattemann, and Kathleen McHugh to record the interactions of artists and the public at AARPEX. Illustrated above are six stamps from the sheet.

E. F. Higgins III Birthday Commemorative

Cascadia Artpost honored the birthday of E.F. Higgins III, long-time creator of artistamps, by releasing a multicolored sheet displaying the silhouette of a "wingnut." Higgins' birthday on 10 November coincided with the all-day event AARPEX (Artistamp Artists Reunion & Philatelic Exposition) held in Seattle, Washington USA. Cascadia Artpost presented Higgins with a framed sheet of the birthday artistamps at a dinner with AARPEX participants that evening.  Higgins has used the wingnut as an icon for his Doo Da Postage Works. Making hundreds of stamps since the 1970's, Higgins lives in New York City with summer stints in Elberta, Michigan. He can be found on the internet at http://efhigginsiii.com/index.html .

AARPEX

The Artistamp Artists Reunion & Philatelic EXposition was held on 10 November 2012 at University House in Seattle, Washington USA. Organized by Seattle artist C. T. Chew, AARPEX featured U.S. and Canadian creators of artistamps and mail art and was open to the public. Participant artists included Chew (Triangle Post), E. F. Higgins III (Doo Da Post), Anna Banana, Ed Varney, Dame Mailarta, Jas Felter, Steve Smith (Art Gone Postal), Harley, Jennie Hinchcliff (Red Letter Day), Robby Rudine (Dogfish of Tui Tui Post), Jack Lattemann (Cascadia Artpost), Dominique Johns (Bugpost), Teesha Moore, Bill Ritchie, Kathleen McHugh (Eagle Island Post), Dixion, Marvin Johnson (bufo), and Jere Smith. Jas Felter created a special "fireworks" artistamp and poster used in AARPEX publicity. On 11 November, AARPEX participants and friends participated in the grand opening of the Museum of Artistamps, hosted by Tui Tui Post.

Cascadia Artpost produced this slightly reformatted version of an AARPEX commemorative created for a composite sheet of stamps produced jointly by AARPEX participants and printed by Triangle Post. Sheets of the Cascadia Artpost AARPEX commemorative were specially delivered to AARPEX participants on the morning of the event.

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce was one of the leading journalists and commentators known in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A contemporary of the more well-known Mark Twain, Bierce today is most popularly associated with The Devil's Dictionary (first published in 1906 as The Cynic's Word Book), a collection of satirical definitions and witty aphorisms that originally appeared in his newspaper columns.

As a young man Bierce served as a Union Army lieutenant in the American Civil War. His wartime experiences greatly affected him as he published a number of short stories and volumes of poetry. Best known among the short stories are "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "Chickamauga." After mustering out of the army, Bierce settled in San Francisco and began writing for a number of publications. After moving to London in 1872 where he wrote magazine articles and his first book, Bierce moved back to San Francisco in 1875 and became a regular columnist in William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner newspaper.

Although some label Bierce a cold cynic and curmudgeon, one can discover a "courageous despair" behind Bierce's biting satire. Bierce detested hypocrisy, stupidity, and villainy in human affairs. We prefer to view Bierce as a disappointed idealist who delighted in, according to H. L. Mencken, "the spectacle of human cowardice and folly." The Ohio University English professor Jack Matthews wrote in 2004, "Behind all the bitterness and the thunderous nay-saying, one can detect a profound interest in, and fascination with, the human adventure."

Bierce spoke out against imperialism and the excesses of corporate capitalism. In 1896 Hearst sent Bierce to Washington DC to expose the attempt by Collis Huntington on behalf of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads to persuade the U.S. Congress without public hearings to excuse the railroads from repaying large loans from the U.S. Treasury totaling $130 million (about $3 billion in today's money). Bierce's coverage and biting commentaries led to the defeat of this legislation.

Bierce was not without shortcomings. He was a misogynist who opposed women's right to vote, and shared the prejudices of his day about people of color. However, Bierce cared not for the hustling nature of American politics and culture. He commented on American politics and character in his "Prattle" column appearing in the satire magazine Wasp on May 27, 1881:

"Certain unannealed idiots whom I have the advantage of knowing have been pleased to be offended by my remarks last week on the essential dishonesty of the American character. Well, I don't say these remarks were not offensive; I only say they were true. It is one of my failings that I do not know any better than to write the truth. Somebody, however, might say this in my favor; that I have never insulted the intelligence of my readers by flattering them. Most journalists think it pays to do so; I think it does not. The moral difference between them and me, in this matter, is not a wide one, clearly, and I regard it as a highly creditable example of humility that I consent to be no better than they are, but only wiser."

After divorce and the death of his ex-wife, Bierce moved back to Washington DC but at age 71 was restless and decided to travel to Mexico to write about the Mexican Revolution. His last letter from the city of Chihuahua to a friend dated 26 December 1913, closed with, "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination."

According to an essay by Glenn Willeford ("Ambrose Bierce, 'The Old Gringo': Fact, Fiction and Fantasy"), one report had claimed Bierce to have been seen in Ojinaga, a village just west of the Mexico-U.S. border and Presidio, Texas, prior to the assault on the federal garrison in Ojinaga on January 10, 1914. However, research on oral histories by the late priest Fr. James Lienert, M.S.F. suggested that Bierce had ventured southeast to the village of Sierra Mojada, where he was arrested by forces loyal to General Huerta, a rival of Pancho Villa, accused of spying for Villa, and executed by firing squad in early 1914. Lienert erected at his own expense a tombstone to Bierce in the cemetery of Sierra Mojada in 2004. Nonetheless, the evidence on Bierce's ultimate fate is inconclusive. The disappearance of Ambrose Bierce remains a mystery.

The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote a 1985 novel, The Old Gringo, speculating about Bierce's crossing the border into Mexico during the Mexican Revolution and subsequent disappearance. A film with the same title starring Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda followed in 1989.

For more information about the life and writings of Ambrose Bierce, we recommend the following two internet websites:
http://www.ambrosebierce.org/     The Ambrose Bierce Project
http://www.donswaim.com/     The Ambrose Bierce Site

Bierces most well-known and most quoted work, The Devil's Dictionary, was first published in 1906 under the title The Cynic's Word Book. Bierce did not like the title chosen by the publisher and republished the collection in 1909 under his preferred title The Devil's Dictionary. The most complete collection of Bierce's definitions drawn from all sources is The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary edited by David E. Schultz and S. J. Joshi (Athens, GA and London: University of Georgia Press, 2000). Bierce's short stories have been collected in The Complete Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce (Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com Publishing, 2008). A modern look at Bierce's commentaries on English usage is Jan Freeman's Ambrose Bierce's Write It Right, The Celebrated Cynic's Language Peeves Deciphered, Appraised, and Annotated for 21st-Century Readers (New York: Walker and Company, 2009).

To recognize Ambrose Bierce, Cascadia Artpost has published an artist book, set of playing cards, and two artistamps in Summer 2012.

Zunino

Cascadia Artpost recognizes Mike Zunino, the #1 baseball amateur draft pick (#3 overall) of the Seattle Mariners professional baseball team. The artistamp features a photo of Zunino at bat taken on July 27, 2012 at a minor league Class A Everett AquaSox game. Zunino currently plays as a catcher for Everett.

Update - August 2012:
The Seattle Mariners promoted Zunino to the Double-A Jackson, TN Generals of the Southern League, where he has been playing as catcher and designated hitter. Though 26 August, Zunino has hit for a .430 average. Scouts predict that he will be playing major league baseball by the second half of the 2013 season.