Etiquette guidance please

[Petrolpetal]

If you send a piece of mail art out in response to a call - or for an exhibition - should it be one of a kind, or is it acceptable to replicate the idea (not more than a couple of times, say) and sent it to a few other people?

[DKeys]

second the sentiment.....

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Now why, I wonder, won't DvS answer my questions????

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Reply to this  awaited from de Vilo Sloane, but he seems to have deleted his original comment (about Mick Dickau, Moaning Lisa, et al) from here:

At 3:45pm on November 12, 2014, Valentine Mark Herman said…

Hi!

I have a couple of questions about something you wrote:

Definitely, it would be considered mail-art. Many - including established veterans - are doing digital collage. Mike Dickau in CA and RCBz in Minn. come to mind right away. Most of Moan Lisa's vispo is digital.

The questions are, firstly, how long must one be in the Mail Art community before one become a 'veteran', and, secondly, by what process does one become 'established'?

Regards, Val

So, over to you DvS, svp!

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Hi!

I have a couple of questions about something you wrote:

Definitely, it would be considered mail-art. Many - including established veterans - are doing digital collage. Mike Dickau in CA and RCBz in Minn. come to mind right away. Most of Moan Lisa's vispo is digital.

The questions are, firstly, how long must one be in the Mail Art community before one become a 'veteran', and, secondly, by what process does one become 'established'?

Regards, Val

So, over to you DvS, svp!

[stripygoose]

Variety is the spice of life - so, some one-offs, some series, some copies, some approx. copies - why not? And yes, Val- some messages/blogging needs a spoiler-alert! One of the nicest things on iuoma is when unexpected mailart arrives in the post - like a gift.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

PS Also, if you make say a lino print, it's hardly worth just making one copy. Ittakes me about 3-4 hours to make a lino print, get the ink right, etc. And with that amount of work, I make a number of copies, some for IUOMA, others for others.

PPS If you've made a series, and you don't mail all the pieces out at the same time (and even if you do, they won't all get to their destinations at the same time, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that), it rather spoils it for later recipients if one or more of the early recipients blogs it. Which is one, but only one, of the reasons why I don't want my work blogged -- ever, by anyone.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

I often sort of replicate. 'Sort of' because, like the Gnome,  each one is slightly different, and ii) each is numbered, so it's clear that it's part of a series. The series usually numbers between 5 and 12, but if I think that I have a good idea worth sharing, then there may be as many as 20.

Mail Art is special because it has no, or very few,  'rules'. And it certainly doesn't have one saying that each and everfy piece must be unique.

[Petrolpetal]

OK - great. Yes, I would do them each by hand. I only want to do 4 anyway. one for a call and one each for 3 people I know would especially like it  

[Minneapolis Gnome]

I think it's fine to replicate your idea as many times as you want whether it's for a call / exhibition or for mail art to send to other artists.  I've drawn a picture, then used a light box to replicate it, and worked on using different colors for it then sent all of them to different people.  I've also had an idea I loved so much I made a dozen postcards of it - all were hand made (not photocopied), all slightly different but all repeating the same thing. 

[borderlinegrafix]

I would say do what you feel like doing.