Snail (Mail) Art
I used to be a prolific letter writer when I lived in the boondocks, in college, and before the advent of email. I still have drawers full of cards and stationery paper and, and once I discovered desktop publishing, I started to make my own stationery. If you got a letter from me, it was likely to be several pages long, handwritten in a fun color with a fountain pen (then later typed, because my handwriting is so bad and I can type faster than I can write), on funky stationery or in a cool card, and the envelope would be stamped and stickered and glittered up. Like most kids, I'd been fascinated by postage stamps too, and kept odd ones that I liked. I've always loved getting mail, and I wanted to make that a special experience for my pen pals, too. My former college roommate, who now lives in South Carolina, still sends me handmade, collaged cards with lovely line drawings and pictures on the envelopes.
I drifted a little closer to it when I bought the first three Griffin and Sabine books, by Nick Bantock. Those books opened a double door for me: one into book arts, and one into mail art. Although I'd been decorating my own envelopes and making my own stationery, I'd never thought of actually making my own cards or postage stamps. At the time, it wasn't even possible to make your own stamps, unless you did it by hand, and then they weren't valid postage. Now, of course, the Post Office allows you to design your own, and there are a couple of different services to help you, including one for Canadian postage. Little did I know decorated envelopes and cards were part of an entire art form.
Nor did I have any idea it had gone on so long. After all, mail service as we know it is only a few hundred years old., though people have been sending each other written messages for as long as there has been writing, and ways of traveling. Wikipedia (that all-wise, all knowing source; just kidding) says, "Mail artists claim that mail art began when Cleopatra had herself delivered to Julius Caesar in a rolled-up carpet," although I would classify that more as "parcel post art" myself. Wired Magazine, in its Rants and Raves section, actually has a monthly mail art contest called "Return to Sender" of who can send the wackiest crap with the weirdest packaging. The latest is a shredded issue of Wired in a clear plastic bag. Those geeks—what kidders!
Mail art mostly consists of postcards and letters, everything from decorated envelopes to handmade cards, and postcards, or whatever you can send through the mail. They're a bit like artist's trading cards (ATCs), but with stamps, and bigger. As with ATCs, there are mail art groups and associations (I found a bazillion googling "mail art"), national and international.
If you like this sort of thing, the Center for Book Arts is hosting a new exhibit that I checked out on opening day:
Also on View: Featured Artist Project: Karen Baldner and 2007 Artists In Residence Workspace.
The exhibit's got some great stuff in it, as always, including a chance to make your own art on a postcard with stamps, a book of thorns, a couple of great piano hinge books, and loads of fabulous postcards and other kinds of "letters."
Through June 28th
Center for Book Arts
28 W. 27th Street, 3rd Floor
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