Mail art: its maker and its recipient

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Still being on the new side, I am curious about how more experienced mail artists approach their work mentally when sitting down to do it.  Do you form a piece specifically for a certain recipient, after you've come to know a few things about that person?  Or do you tend more to go all-out free when you get to work, and send works to different artists without considering or worrying about that person's own style?  I am hoping for replies from anyone who approaches their mail art one of these two ways, or both, or in some way different from the choices above.  Thanks to all for your thoughts.

 

[De Villo Sloan]

Nancy, great idea! From my own experience - mail-art moves fast. So you are compelled to produce a great deal of work and maybe don't worry as much as someone who does a few gallery shows a year. Because you have so much interaction with other artists, the work tends to evolve very quickly, I think. What I like most about mail-art is the individuality. I find I am always making the work for a specific person - like an ongoing conversation.

[Nancy Bell Scott]

DVS, thanks so much for your answer, which is as I suspected though with some uncertainty.  Even this early on, working without an individual in mind would feel a bit strange, and I find I can't really do it.  And don't want to.  When you become active here, you collect friends quickly, and that means, as you say, that you can't fool around and think about one piece for a week or two or more (which I am used to doing).  It's a new way of working for me that will become (already is becoming) stretching.  Yah, the individuality is the main draw -- the ongoing conversation.  I like how you put that.

 

[De Villo Sloan]

Hi Nancy, I do hope other people comment because I'm curious too. I've been involved in mail-art before, but not to this degree. I've really reached a point where it only works for me if I have a particular friend in mind. And then often the work seems to generate a series of pieces that run their course. It does seem strange when posts at IUOMA are "For X," "For Y," but it is highly individualized. An exchange is between you and another person, but with the web, the world now gets to peek in on something that's to some degree private. Of course, you have to be willing. But why not? Interesting, indeed.

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

as someone who likes to veer oft off the path of normalcy,

IMHO, i would recommend not worrying so much about what other people do!

find your own frequency and CRANK IT UP!!!

 

that said,

even when i am busy with my tri-daily basketballpo:

my head spins with countless threads of conversations between folks on here,

thoughts shared between my wife and i, random social problems from all

kinds of past events which i cannot manage to let go, but constantly am

working to untangle, various threads of thought about social orders and

class distinction, zombies, calculus, and anything and everything in between;

 

to me the art is in that headspace where i work out the problems.

the stuff i do and post on here are just a shadow of the mechanics

that go on in the fore of everything i experience in the interim.

 

i think the art is the process itself of creation.

the intangibles.

 

whih is what my whole asemic rampage was trying to portray -

there is nothing special about the external;

it's just a rearrangement of atoms on a plane of universe,

just as a flash of a moment your screen may contain

a representation of this text, momentarily - but it won't last;

save that it will ultimately affect your internal state to some degree.

it is the state of your internal machine, constantly working through

one kind of problem in life after another, where the art really happens.

and some art i personal, and minimally affects others outside of your own skin,

and some art has global repercussions. and neither the micro and the macro

are ultimately more important than the other - as they both can be mapped

onto one another, and help to solve each other's problems.

 

/* end data burst */

[De Villo Sloan]

wow sh, seriously profound  - and i mean that sincerely. you certainly have this internal/external thing going - so we get a look into the brain of the zombie master - no caps - pecking on a laptop in some strange place

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

[Nancy Bell Scott]

You summed up the universe and the ant walking on my desk, macro micro, in one short treatise, SH.  A lot of wisdom there.  And that video!  Can't imagine how you do that.  It kicked up the tinnitus in my head bigtime, but I got into the poetry of it and so didn't care.  There it was.

On my original question, at this point it's less worrying about what other people do than just curiosity about what they do.  How they do it.  And so on.

 

 

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Ok, the mental shot is taking shape!  By the way, SH, your "Find your own frequency and CRANK IT UP!!!" is going up somewhere on my wall.  It's a beaut, and great advice, and although I already tend to get pretty cranked up the reminder can be a good thing on weirded-out days -- especially when you drive it home perfectly in so few words!  It also makes me laugh.  It has a lot going for it, so gracias.

 

 

[Alicia Starr]

Also on the new side of IUOMA, and for me all of the above. WROTE THIS BEFORE READING THE DISCUSSION BELOW.

After joining I went nuts creating 25-30 cards thinking this would be an opportunity to voice an ecological concern since these cards would pass through the hands of many. Then i looked at the personal pages of the members on the list my mentor (Valentine) sent me, and chose a card for each person. Really guessing which card each might prefer, and finishing up the back side with a personal (somewhat personal)  hello.

Going forward, I can see this may change to creating something specific for each person. Something magical happens when i make a card and send it to a complete stranger. Creating and letting go. 

This has been a good experience (IUOMA) for me. Starring down my ego from time to time is, well, it just is. 

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Alicia, seeing opportunities like that seems natural, and we probably all have agendas that make their way into our art.  But I like your "something magical happens when I make a card and send it to a complete stranger.  Creating and letting go."  Patricio in Brazil educated me in a very kind way about that somewhere around my second day here.  The letting go part.  And then the first reply here, by DVS, where he mentions "ongoing conversation" -- that probably develops into the best part of all.  I sent you something eight days ago, and hope it gets there.  And I guess your week is being taken up by other things.  I miss your presence around here -- or maybe you're here and I'm just missing it . . . that could happen when it's 99 degrees out.

 

 

[1cgqtuoblpeqc]

i think she's been busy drooling over the wonderful lobster piece i sent her.

she'll be back when my magic spell wears off of her. ;-D

[Alicia Starr]

SH, the zone of balance!