mail art?

The mail art show in The Netherlands has piqued my curiosity. About mail art in general, I suppose. How does it work? It’s “mail" art so would you send your piece on A4 paper as they specify, folded in a regular envelope? Like a piece of mail? Un-mounted, unmatted, unframed, etc. But when I looked at the photos on their site it seemed that 2-D work was matted and framed. Maybe that wasn’t mail art (?). I’ve looked at a couple of sites and I know some of you here maintain mail art sites, what’s your take on this?

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Permalink Reply by Ruud Janssen on February 20, 2012 at 12:53pm

Always happy to answer specific questions.

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Permalink Reply by Ruud Janssen on February 20, 2012 at 12:56pm

Yes, those ATC are not really mail-art for me either. I rather like the old faschioned envelope, cards and parcels.....

Michael Harford said:

Ken - Glad you found the answer -

Always good to ask in advance, regardless -

As I said, MA is pretty open, although I tend to stay within the confines of the early people -

Many are now calling ATCs and such mail art and it's far from it ; (

=Cheers! Michael

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Permalink Reply by ken coleman on February 20, 2012 at 1:18pm

I just took a quick look at your site. Seeing the images there is very helpful. I'll take more of a look when I'm not in the middle of preparing dinner.

As I said in the origninal post, the mail art call for the Open Stal in the Netherlands is what prompted this thread. Not that I doubt their show (I contacted them and got some good info) it's more that I'm not sure that what I send would even be thought of as mail art.

Uh-Oh, I think something is burning.

ken coleman said:

Another thanks. I'll take a look.

Ken

Ruud Janssen said:

have a look at http://iuoma.blogspot.com and see what a mail-artists tend to send out and get back in return. An online overview of what came in since 2004.....

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Permalink Reply by ken coleman on February 21, 2012 at 3:09am

Thanks for the reminder of your page, Viviana.

And thanks for putting the Google Translate right there on the page -- makes it very convenient.

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Permalink Reply by ken coleman on February 21, 2012 at 3:13am

Ruud,

The Gauloises video is great. Gives a good idea, too, of some of the possibilities of mail art.
Thanks for posting it.

Ken

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Permalink Reply by Ruud Janssen on February 21, 2012 at 11:52am

Creativity has no limits. (Money and Time do).

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Permalink Reply by ken coleman on March 17, 2012 at 8:22am

Here are the two pieces I sent to the Open Stal in The Netherlands. I'm not convinced that they are actually mail art but I sent them anyway. It would be interesting to hear from the mail art veterans here.

They stipulated the size -- A4.

And the theme -- Sign and Language.

The pieces were done as tri-fold self mailers. They are shown below both closed and open.

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Permalink Reply by Diane Dellicarpini on March 17, 2012 at 3:20pm

I think you came up with a good idea for these, nice.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Harford on March 17, 2012 at 3:42pm

Ken -

This is great !

If you put postal stamps on it - it's mail art = Cheers!

ps: we purchase and look for interesting, unused old stamps to use on ours, when sent in the usa = Cheers!