How many mail-artists do you estimate there are?

[Ruud Janssen]

Since the start of mail-art the number of mail-artists has grown and maybe declined over the years. I once did some research about how many mail-artists there are (an estimation) in a specific year. Any ideas how many mail-artists there are for instance now? (in 2009). On which statistics do you base your answer. How many mail-artists where there in another specific year? I am looking foreward to reactions

[Junanne Peck]

I have no idea but am interested to know as I can use this information in my art class....

[Gik Juri]

I think, at any exact time this number has to be stable and magic - 6666 8-)

[Rod Summers / VEC]

between 10 and 20 thousand, ! talked about this with Anna Banana yesterday (18.04.09) when we met in Gent Belgium

[Ruud Janssen]

In the TAM Rubberstamp Archive there are over 2800 particpants in the last 25 years.... So that is the lowest number of mail-artists I would give. I estimate also somehow about 10.000 to 20.000 over the years....

[Rod Summers / VEC]

It is quite difficult to accertain this number, Currently I mail works to about 250 addresses but a large proportion of the recipients are artists and poets and not practicing mail-artists. By making rough comparisons with the contact lists of friends like Vittore Baroni and Ever Arts I am aware that there are a great many mail artists active with whom I have no contact.

[stan askew]

this would simply be a guess ... probably in the thousands.

[Guido Vermeulen]

Mmmm, this is a Russian puppet question (you know the puppets: a bigger contains a smaller one and so on till you arrive to a tiny one of present active mail artists).
Ashley Parker Owens made an extrapolation of this question and came out on 20 000 people who had been involved in mail art activities since its origins. She thought in the nineties that 8000 networkers were still more or less active. APO saw the network always bigger as pure mail art, so she made connections during Global Mail with the whole underground press and co-organized several UPC's (underground press conferences). It depends how limited or how big your view on the mail art network is. Today with all the email exchanges and social networks (that I also see as similar to mail art) who is going to tell what the exact number is. If you maintain in communication on a regular base with a few hundred people, that's already an achievement. Thousands that's sheer madness but aren't we all a little mad (in a good way I mean)?