The price of overseas art

[liketelevisionsnow]

To my overseas friends, the cost of postage for an overseas postcard has gone up to $1.10! I have to restrict what I'm sending overseas as a budget choice not because I don't want to send overseas mail art. I wish I could send more! Thank you for understanding.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Sponsorship is very interesting (& I must admit that I'd never thought about it in a Mail Art context). Off the top of my head, I can think of 3 main possibilities, all of which in the context of an Exhibition -- a one-off event attracting publcity for the sponsor, not the financing of our daily postage stamps:

1. a local sponsor for a local exhibition

2. a national postal service (or compAny) for a national exhibition, eg  the"La Poste Art Postal Exposition, 2014"

3. an international sponsor for an (inter)national exhibition.

I have managed sponsorship programmes in the past, and also sought -- small-scale -- sponsorship for my things. There can be a lot of work involved in getting small somes of money.

One potential problem.... A corporate sponsor will not want to be embarassed by whatever is in an exhibition bearing it's name. Given the unpredictabl nature of Mail Art and Mail Artists anything could, and probably would, happen;

Has anyone tried to get sponsorship for Mail Art?

[liketelevisionsnow]

It's good to see a conversation taking place about this issue because the future of "mail art" literally depends on how we are able to continue doing what we do and still afford to do it.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Is Mail Art cheaper if we use some sort of '2-stage relay system'?

For example, if I want to mail 10 items to the US, rather than me mailing each seperately, and expesnively, would it be cheaper for me to send all of them to one person in the US, and ask him/her to keep one, buy US stamps for the other 9, and post them on?

If this is cheaper, and would work on a larger scale, then at least 2 things are necessary: i) a 'local' (but it's really national) IUOMA forwarding postperson, and ii) an easy payment mechanism to cover the cost of, say French postage stamps for re-delivery from the US.

Plus goodwill, of course.

It might work, but only in countries with a reasonably large and active mail art community.

Any views -- practical and/or economic?

[liketelevisionsnow]

Today I sent a mail art packet out - it weighed 5.8 oz. (164 grams) ... the price to send it first class to Germany was $12.75US !!!  It's simply become a matter of economics and I'm afraid I will have to limit my future mail art postings overseas to once a month. Too many people are focused on the digital world killing art being sent through the mail system, when in reality the real culprit is the increasing postal rates making this practice more and more economically unfeasible. Sad to say...

[vizma bruns]

Ha ha, no, I won't be taking an alcoholiday, Val. I need some reason to get out of bed in the afternoon.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Vizma..it will get really worrying when you and Al give up booze to support your mailing habbit.

[vizma bruns]

$2.60 to send a postcard overseas from Australia. I wish I could send more too. But I'm giving up food to support my mailing habit.

[Ruud Janssen]

€ 1,05 cost a letter or postcard to Europe or worldwide. It has become expensive here too (only 20 gram!)