Bob Dylan Mailart

Feature | vanbertozzi, August 2nd, 2005

Mailart postcard from Joel Cohen (The Sticker Dude) [Dylan's Garden /flickr]

One of the most fantastic flickr sets we’ve found yet, Dylan’s Garden is a collection of mailart devoted to Bob Dylan and his music. Mailart often arrives in your mailbox as decorated postcards or envelopes. [see Wikipedia's Mail art entry]

Ed Giecek of Washington State started the Dylan’s Garden project in honor of Bob Dylan’s 64th birthday (for those of you not in-the-know, that was May 24th, 2005).

Submissions came in from all over the world: Russia, Belgium, Canada…The example we’ve posted at left came from New York, from an artist named Joel Cohen, also known as “The Sticker Dude.”

Definition of “mailart” [mail-artist Kiyotei's website]

Mailart is highly personalized. The artists often use collage to express what the lyrics conjured in their own imaginations. Images of Dylan sometimes show up as drawings, photos from record covers, or magazines.

[Bart Deweer from Belgium, a Dylan fan/flickr]

Sometimes he doesn’t show up at all; the art simply riffs of his lyrics. It’s a snail-mail social network for artists and Ed’s flickr stream is a great example of the interesting hybrids of digital and analogue creativity happening these days. It’s also a vivid example of visual art converging with music. You can also check out the Dylan’s Garden blog.

We heard from Dylan fan, Bart Deweer, from Belgium. He says Greil Marcus’ book gave him that last push to start playing music.

When I prompted Bart to tell me what “Like a Rolling Stone” means for him, he talked about the song’s ability to cut through sadness, to something bolder.

Although it isn’t the most pleasant of all lyrics, it does have the ability
of changing memories. What I mean is this; Sometimes memories aren’t like they really happened, sometimes it’s more fun, or just necessary to alter them a bit and make them better than they really were…

Like a rolling stone has that effect on me, While listening to ‘like a rolling stone’ I can think of my mom who suffered and died from cancer a few years ago, and still keep on smiling and be happy about the fact I knew her so good and had so much fun with her while she was around for me…

Bart Deweer, Belgium

“Expecting Rain,” a website devoted to Bob Dylan has a Dylan-centric atlas. You can add information about places that are mentioned in Dylan songs. For example, I clicked on San Francisco. The post I find reads:

Maybe Someday
you say were going to Frisco, stay a couple of months
I used to love San Francisco, I was there for a party once

It’s true, I just can’t recall, San Francisco at all, I can’t even remember El Paso honey!!!

… down in the sewer with some little lover when I peeked out from a manhole cover wonderin’ who turned the lights on …

Talkin World War III Blues, Bob Dylan 1963

showing my age again but what a great song and just what 30000 bees must think when they were doing their bee things and I suddenly take all the supers off!

Max Westby,flickr

It’s funny that I opened this entry with a Dylan quote, because he was one of those opposed to glam rock, about as far away from it as you can get. I’m not a huge fan of most glam rock acts, I tend to side with the true rock ‘n rollers in that battle (and it was basically a battle at one point in time), but now I think it’s interesting how the boundaries have continuously been blurred.

Claire, “How Does it Feel,” My So-Called Life

I’d never seen Dylan live before, and he put on an incredible show. A lot of the songs I didn’t recognize because I’m semi-new to the Dylan scene (sacrilegious I know) but everything was great. And he ended with “Like a Rolling Stone” so that was awesome.

Lialu, “Dylan’s the Man,” Life of Lialu