Snail-Mail

[Ruud Janssen]

Do we need still snail-mail when we have forums like these?

[Carla Cryptic]

As a sign of how much I love (and miss) snail mail art, I am choosing randomly from the members list asking if they would like to do an exchange. I will do a few each week or month (depending on how much I can make in a given time period). If I leave you a message and you have not posted your address here (either in Lisa's discussion on addresses or on your individual page), please send me a message back with your snail mail address. Thanks! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in the group in the mailbox eventually.

Also, even if I haven't sent you a message yet, feel free to send me something and I'll send you something back when I get it whether I've messaged you yet or not. :)

Last but not least, if I know you from mail art shows we've been in together in the past, I'll save you guys for last on my random messaging. Some of you I know but we've never exchanged mail art with each other directly, mailbox to mailbox!

[Ruud Janssen]

Hi Carla, I've been doing the same. If someone has left their mailing address, they might get something in the mailbox soon. Not that exchange is needed. I know that not everybody sends out so much mail-art these days because of the postal rates. But essential is the gift behind a piece of mail-art. The Mailbox is your museum, and new works are supposed to arrive in these museums.......

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

...SO very much still need snail mail...envelopes with stamps from faraway places
with strange sounding names...handwritten or scribbled or typed addresses...
maybe some artwork to brighten the day of the postal clerks...
waterstained cards from the rain or snow...crunched
and tattered corners from much handling by human beings...lost and/or
tossed in some forsaken pile of junk mail at the post office's back room.
Yep, Ruud, we still need snail mail!
(Send your art work, postcard size, by snail mail to Greece! )

[Ruud Janssen]

just uploaded the photos of the mail-art I received last week (-s) from the network.....

[King Shane]

Do we "need" snail mail?

This depends on how you define your needs.
I certainly need to feel connected with others outside of my small community, and while the internet is great for beginning those connections, until I receive something concrete via snail mail, that connection is ethereal at best.

Something I can hold in my hands however, is concrete proof, that both I and they exist.

Not only that, but the fact that someone takes the time to make something to send, goes to their postoffice/mailbox, and pays for postage is proof of effort, and that effort is appreciated.
If they have the option of sending an email, but they're willing to take the time to do something un-necessary, but generous and enjoyable, then you have something special I think.

[Ronald van Bokhoven]

Hey...without Snail-mail I would be out of a regular Job..! Besides being an Artist I`m also a Postman...so...
Let`s hear it for Snail-Mail...Hip-Hip-Hooray! Snail-Mail Forever !!

[Sandra Valdujo]

I think 2 things are and should continue to exist, when I receive via postal mail they are only after my scan and put on the blog on the internet it becomes all and still have the option to do a show with these cards to other people who do not know this art to know it

[Ruud Janssen]

I am glad with the possitive reactions to snail-mail. Things that can be touched are special.

[Carol M. Pett]

Anyone whose mood is not improved when they receive a piece of mail art via snail mail - well, they must be dead. LONG LIVE SNAIL MAIL !!!

[TIZIANA BARACCHI]

www and e-mail are cheap and very quick communication!
Mail Art is communication and art.

And History of Art continues.

[Sean Woodward]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as artists I think we're all inherently attracted to sumptuous, thoughtful design. We're creatures who enjoy full sensory input, not just the visual and audio that digital can provide, but also the tactile feel of real objects in the real world. It's the immediacy of communication and the gathering of like-minded souls that makes these digital communal places so welcome together with the richer experience offered by Web 2.0 applications.

Ruud - is Ning's recent decision to phase-out free accounts going to impact on this excellent community ?

[Ruud Janssen]

haven't heard yet, but signals are that it is going to affect us as well......