Akiko Shinmura

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

It's about Mail Art again. This time it's about using someone else's work in a return message. Some Mail Art artists allow themselves to take the work they receive in the mail, cover it with paint, glue something on, and return it to the author in this form. There is another way of working together, a pure exchange of gestures, a subtle dance of meanings. Akiko Shinmura, a Japanese Mail Art artist who lives in Aioi, Hyogo prefecture, gives an example.

Last year, I sent Akiko a collage of mine done on a white postcard (for the sake of convenience, I put it among my published photos - see the very last photo 4). Akiko did not add anything to my collage, but scanned it and printed a colour reproduction.

I received a miniature envelope from Japan, hand-painted by Akiko; inside the envelope there was a tiny transparent capsule with a hieroglyph attached to a cardboard backing (see photo 1). There was also another paper envelope inside, depicting a front door with "dream" written on it (see photo 2). The perforation showed me a line where I had to tear the paper to "open" the tiny paper "door". When I ripped the paper and opened the door, behind the "door" was... a colour reproduction of my collage that I had sent Akiko earlier! Over the reproduction Akiko stamped a wish to be happy (see photo 3).

Thank you, Akiko, for the wonderful lesson in wisdom and kindness.

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

Dear friends, thank you for the reflections you have shared. Notice how cleverly Akiko responded to the addressee, with what tactfulness. That wonderful door to be opened.

[Thom Courcelle]

This is an interesting topic and I think has been addressed several times before. I have had people alter my own artwork and send it back or pass it on to others in "deconstructed" form. I suppose one can't help but be a little shocked— I think it's a little like contemplating death; we endow our art with so much of our creative consciousness sometimes, that it's hard to see it's "passing."

But *personally* I look at making art as a zen process... one makes it; and [especially with mail art] we release it to the universe. The postal service has mangled and destroyed some of my pieces enroute before also. That's part of the risks one takes with releasing things. It helps to keep in mind that the person who might've destroyed your artwork was so inspired by your work that they wanted to extend it or keep the creative artistic flow moving forward by creating something entirely new with it. When I say it's like death, I mean how we are made up of atoms that disperse back into the environment and the cosmos and are absorbed by other coalescing lifeforms...we will eventually become something (or many other things) anew. So we must think about our creative artwork sometimes. If we make things too precious, they stagnate, become idolized, and we wallow in front of the sameness forever. The status quo may feel comfortable because it is familiar; but we will never know the exhilaration of the new or benefit from the development of growth unless we can release our grip on the old (thanking it for its service to the process).

I can't say—outside of specific Add&Pass projects or art "games" that provide specific instructions—that I have ever destroyed or deconstructed any mail art that I've ever received. BUT... I do let received mail art inspire me. I have often used photos or pictures that have been sent to me and used them as subjects for my own sketches that I sometimes playfully return to the original sender. I have also used abstract pieces sent to me and used my fiber art skills to "re-create" the original piece in knit-form.  Below is an example. The original piece sent to me is on the bottom. My knit mail art re-creation is on the top:

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Mark, I on the other hand am not mortified when other artists use, reuse, alter, color copy, etc. the mail art I send them, in fact, I feel honored. When we send out mail art, we send it in the spirit of a "gift", once received the receiver becomes the "owner" and is free to do whatever they wish with it.

The only rule for mail art is : there are no rules :-) 

Of course to be polite and respectful to our fellow artists, it is always nice to credit them, or inform them. And  as long as we do not use other's art for some commercial profit, there is no "copyright" problem.

[Ilya Semenenko-Basin]

Hi Mark!! Thank you for your response.

I've always had a good attitude towards A&Ps, but have participated in this art practice in my own way. I would take a sheet I received in the mail and complete it completely, working long, slowly, giving that sheet my time and my love. Then I return the fully completed piece to the initiator.