Mail Art anyone?

[Ficus strangulensis]

I mentioned to Mouser that one of my hobbies is mail art and he said:

"I wonder if you would consider making a post on the forum telling
people about mail art?  Sometimes this world can be a dreary place
-- it's important to open people's eyes to how folks are trying to
make it more interesting."

Sure! It's not only interesting, but Fun!


"What is mail art?"

Mail art is like pen pals with the added facet of trading art but also news, gabble, humor, photos and curiosities with friends all over the world.

How do people do mail art?

First, mail art is pretty much free of rules and commercialism

there are those who eschew modern/electronic/computer and do mail art the 'old-fashioned' way with scissors, paste, rubber stamps, pencil, ink, oils, aquarelle, etc. and some of these are accomplished graphic and/or textual artists. Some of these make faux postage stamps and have their own manual perforators.

Then there are those 'artists' such as myself who can't draw**.

**except organic chemical structures

and we are more into the abstract, aleatory and steal-and-alter school. That's why I found Screenshot Captor as a way to amass snapshots of  Electric Sheep the screensaver.

And links:

What is mail art?: http://www.dragonflydream.com/whatismailart.html

IUOMA [The International Union Of Mail Artists]: http://iuoma-network.ning.com/

Ray Johnson [a famous practitioner]: http://www.rayjohnsonestate.com/

"Blaster" Al Ackerman [Loki reincarnated?] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_Al_Ackerman ;

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22blaster+al+ackerman%22&lr=&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAWoVChMIsIj2mrD3xwIVEkGSCh0SIQvt&biw=1208&bih=547

Musicmaster [he doodles, he declaims poetry, he's a mail artist]: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22musicmaster%22+mail+art%22&as_qdr=all&biw=1208&bih=547&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB0QsARqFQoTCIvzsIm698cCFRUVkgodBgUC8Q#as_qdr=all&tbm=isch&q=%22musicmaster%22+mail+art

[KynloStephen66515]

Is this like, via e-mail, or snail mail? I'd be quite interested in doing this!

[tomos]

very interesting
would be nice to see some of your work (if you were willing)

Is this like, via e-mail, or snail mail? I'd be quite interested in doing this!

I'm also curious how it get's going: is it through people you know, or are there groups one can join (I'm sure there's many possibilities).

We could start a new version:
thread art -

Something for Stephen

[Ficus strangulensis]

Hi, All.

as I said, there are no rules so email would be ok but people usually stick to snailmail.

here's an example of what I'm doing using Screenshot Captor to get the 'seed' image from Electric Sheep

http://iuoma-network.ning.com/photo/dream-18be453def?context=album&albumId=2496677%3AAlbum%3A1839837

Please let me know if you are not able to see the image due to lack of privilege. I'm not sure if you must be a member of IUOMA. IUOMA is the place online where I've put a lot of images.

Here it is as a thumbnail.



Y'r ol' Bud,

Fike

[Ficus strangulensis]

Is this like, via e-mail, or snail mail? I'd be quite interested in doing this!

Hi, Stephen66515.

Mostly people snail stuff to each other but there are no rules.

Y'r [new] ol' Bud,

Fike

[Ficus strangulensis]

very interesting
would be nice to see some of your work (if you were willing)

Is this like, via e-mail, or snail mail? I'd be quite interested in doing this!

I'm also curious how it get's going: is it through people you know, or are there groups one can join (I'm sure there's many possibilities).

We could start a new version:
thread art -

Something for Stephen

[attach=1,msg389165]

Hi, Tomos.

For someone interested in beginning, I'd recommend joining IUOMA there are thousands of members, you can see what I and they post and communicate with them online and by snail.

Y'r [new] ol' Bud,

Fike

[mouser]

Thanks for posting Ficus. I love mail art -- and anything that makes the world a stranger more interesting place.

This isn't quite the real thing, but it's as close as we get here at DonationCoder: http://www.donationcoder.com/Scripts/MemberKit/