Danielle’s recent foray into PostCrossing and her blog post about it and letter writing sent me off to the Letter Writer’s Alliance website she linked and where I promptly decided to join. I now have my very own membership card and an LWA button and I just sent off today requesting a pen pal about whom everything will be a mystery other than that s/he wants to exchange letters with someone. I am very excited about it. It takes me back to when I was a kid and had several international pen pals. What a pleasure that was.
Poking around the LWA website I found reference to a book called Good Mail Day: A Primer for Making Eye-popping Postal Art. Lucky me my public library has a copy and I wallowed in this lovely book over the weekend.
It turns out I have been doing a sort of postal art for years since I generally decorate letters I send with stickers. But this book takes envelope decoration to a whole other level. Not that stickers aren’t okay, they are, but there is so much more possibility that I never thought of before. The best thing is, the authors stress over and over, that you do not need to be able to draw or consider yourself artistic in any way in order to create postal art. All you need to do is be willing to let your imagination go and experiment.
Collage is big in mail art and suddenly when I look around I see potential sources for collage everywhere – finally something junk mail is useful for! There is also great potential for rubber stamps and drawing and making abstract designs from things like string dipped in ink or drawing around interesting shapes in different colored crayon, ink or pencil. There are also people who make their own “postage stamps” from made up countries. It all sounds like such good fun I had a craving to go raid an art supply store. I have refrained, for now, as I requested a bunch of books from the public library instead. Much cheaper.
The books I requested are on calligraphy and lettering as well as one on making rubber stamps. I don’t know if this will lead me to join a mail art “network” or not, but it’s been so long since I’ve played with arts and crafts that I’m having fun just thinking about making stuff. And if I do decide to dive in, I already have an idea for my own “postage issuing authority,” the land I am so familiar with, Biblio Orbis. You can probably imagine for yourself what sort of theme those stamps would/ will have. But, I get ahead of myself.
If you want to learn more about mail art or glean ideas for sprucing up your envelopes, Good Mail Day is a good place to start. If you want to get an idea about how simple or elaborate mail art can be, check out the blog for The International Union of Mail Artists. Anyone can be a mail artist!
I ADORE this post!! Thanks for the information. I added GOOD MAIL DAY to my shopping cart at Amazon!
Isn’t this way too fun? I’ve sort of thrown myself into it all and have been contemplating joining the LWA–maybe I will now that you have. I even bought Good Mail Day and dragged it with me to work today to peruse, but I haven’t had a chance to really read properly. I used to do mini-collages (ATCs) but then stopped and now I might have to use my few skills from that with mail art. It’s been so fun getting postcards in the mail–I usually get a couple every day now–though mostly from swaps on their forum as the regular postcrossing site is a little slower going until you get established. You’ll have to share your creations here! I didn’t realize how much a missed letter writing until I came across all this. Not that I need another hobby, but…
I just received a card from Danielle this morning! Yay! So I will be finding something nice to send to her today. It IS lovely to receive things in the mail, which is so dominated by junk mail and bills normally. To have something artistic come through must be extra icing on the cake.
If you want to do some mail art, you could always work on the first day covers you didn’t finish. I’m just sayin’… :p
Helen, you will love the book! I wrote this post while gazing at one of your artistic envelopes
Danielle, oh yes, it is a wonderful book and great fun thinking about making my own postcards and envelopes. if you used to do min-collages then you are already up on the game! And what fun that you are getting postcards in the mail almost everyday. It truly is a pleasant thing to come home to. Perhaps I will share my creations here from time to time, and of course, you will see some arriving in your own mailbox now and then I am sure
Litlove, Danielle has got the bug and it is contagious so look out! It is wonderful getting any mail that is not junk or bills even if it has not been specially decorated. I’ll be the postal workers like it too, something different to look at
Cindy my sister, that’s a bit different since I don’t get any mail in return for those! But yes, I know, I have envelopes of yours stashed away yet to do.
Love this post — I also love letter writing and have been following LWA on twitter & their website for a while (but don’t have a membership yet…) I’ll be looking up that book now, it sounds really inspiring!
I am a huge fan of letter writing. As I’ve also posted, a written letter never gets sent to “junk mail” or erased. I don’t know why, but they are usually more thoughtful…probably because they take some time and effort. A more thoughtful process perhaps because one’s brain must keep in rhythm with one’s hand rather than fly off on its own. The stream of thought flowing from the brain, down the arm, into the fingers…from the fingers to the pen, from pen to ink and finally onto the paper. And we’re not even talking about the great pens and inks and papers out there.
So glad you found (and enjoyed) the book! Would you believe that people’s #1 beef about GMD seems to be that it’s not how-to enough? When the objective is, as you quickly grasped, to make it all very much your own!
I hope you have a lot of fun continuing your experiments–inspiration really is everywhere!
Melwyk, maybe it’s time to join the LWA?
The book is really fun and inspiring. Hope you find a copy!
Grad, you are so right. I do not throw out personal letters and they can never be mistaken for junk mail! Letters in the mail are such wonderful gifts and I am always grateful for them and their physicality makes them even more special in this age of email and texting. Not to mention the sensuality of good paper and pen and ink!
Carolee, thanks for your comment! I loved how there was so much variety in the book from the simple postcard decorated with rubber stamps to the more elaborate creations. I didn’t feel intimidated at all but kept thinking, I can do that! It is interesting that so many people wanted more how-to. I thought there was quite enough to get a person started. Maybe it is a matter of people feeling insecure about their creative abilities?
There are still a LOT of people writing letters around the world, and there are many ways to find them. I’ve had good luck through Livejournal pen pal communities, Interpals, Swap-bot pen pal swaps, Yahoo swapping groups, and friendship books. Hope your new pen pal relationship turns into a long friendship!
I just wanted to add that we have an open Call for Correspondents up on the Good Mail Day blog….if you don’t want to post an ad, you can just choose someone to write to! There is a huge variety of interests and age ranges there, and I’m told that many people have found lasting correspondents!
Oops! That’s goodmailday.com and the specific post is here: http://goodmailday.com/2011/12/16/2012-call-for-correspondents/