Fresh on the Scene - My Introduction to Mail Art

[Bumblebee Cee]

I just mailed off my first pieces or art mail today and I am excited. Perhaps the best way to start off my creative journey with IUOMA would be to tell you all how I landed here.

Some years ago, I was walking past the Post Office when an art display in the window caught my eye, stopping me dead in my tracks. It was an array of art hung on wires that looked like colourful and captivating variations/alterations of mail.  I was awestruck; I’d never seen anything like it, nor had I heard of mail art and I was fascinated.  I stopped in front of that window to gaze at all the creative delight behind the glass time and time again until it was gone.

Sometime after that, I encountered a small flyer while out and about that was a call for a mail art show;  I wanted to participate but somewhere along the way other projects were my focus, it slipped my mind,  and the deadline passed.  That was a couple years ago now and I’ve found myself wishing I’d participated so I recently perused some mail artist blogs online with a desire to get involved.  Like a wish being granted, I received an email from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria informing me of the upcoming mail art workshops with Anna Banana and I attended the first session this past weekend.  

After an intro and instruction participants were encouraged to select a piece of mail art from the vast array of postal eye candy handing on the walls of the room; in hindsight I wish I’d snapped a pic of the overall scene.  So after a wander of the room I found a piece that spoke to me and then found myself negotiating between two –

One had flappers, bugs and a snazzy Amy Winehouse Mona Lisa artistamp that caught my eye (hey check that out, I’m using the lingo) while the other had some Bogey/Bergman Casablanca action going on.  I inevitably chose the bugs and flappers, as I have a strong affinity for both, but was delighted to have enough time to do two and so I got to choose the other in the end. The task at hand was to open the mail, respond, have both received and response pieces scanned, and to commit to mailing it out on our own.  I loved the whole experience and really enjoyed the challenge of getting the responses done with limited time and materials – 2 hours and a small selection of source materials; I’m pretty pleased at my first attempts and will post the pieces from this first mail art experience to my albums shortly.

I left the gallery full of excitement and wearing a huge smile on my face; I feel as though I began the new journey of a love affair with mail art on Saturday and I can’t wait to dive in. 

On that note, I’d love to make some connections for exchange – might you be up for it?

~Cee the Bee

 

On a side note… I’m having crap luck trying to upload a profile pic; I’ve tried numerous times, all shapes and sizes well under the size limit to no avail and keep getting the same error msg: ‘There was an error uploading your photo: Please try again. If you keep seeing this error, try another photo” – any tips on how I can get around this?   

Sneak peek of the pieces I chose and my responses:

  

 

[0nihil]

Olá Cee! Welcome to iuoma and mail art! I'm glad you enjoy my work!
See you in the mail. We'll always have mail art ;)

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

It's a great ride, as Angie and SnookyDoggie know!

Just make and send, Cee the Bee, and you should start to receive

mail art in your mail box soon!