a peek inside the fishbowl

15 Feb, 2006

The really long ramble about mail art

Posted by andrea tomkins in: - Mail art

It’s interesting to note, like many obsessions it began with benign curiosity and grew into something bigger. It’s taken over most of our office space and a great chunk of my time and energy. But that’s good. No, really!

A few years ago I read something in ReadyMade about a website called PostcardX, a concept of which really resonated with me. It’s basically a database of names and mailing addresses. Members of PostcardX share one thing in common: they love to get mail. I mean hey, who doesn’t? And with that simple understanding, participants send random mail to one another.

I was thrilled. There is something amazing about sending a postcard to a total stranger. I liked to imagine the joy and surprise that comes with its receipt.

In addition to name/mailing address info, most people write little bios listing their likes and dislikes, so it’s easy to send things you know the recipient will really like.

Good karma comes around like it always does. I received amazing things via PostcardX: gifts big and small, countless postcards, lovely notes, and also wonderful pieces of art from all over the world! The kindness of strangers never failed to surprise me.

One day I received two small cards from an artist in the UK. I didn’t know what they were, but I liked them. They were the size of baseball cards, a collage of brightly coloured bits of paper and postage stamps. How cool! Art that fit in my hand! I found out that there were Artist Trading Cards (ATCs for short). It was a flashbulb moment. I was hooked.

Apparently the concept of ATCs has been around since the 90s. A Swiss artist set up an exhibit of 1000s of small pieces of art, but somehow decided that he wouldn’t sell any of it. He would, however, trade with anyone who had a piece of their own for exchange.

It is so democratic it kills me.

(Excellent info about ATCs can be found here, if you’re looking for more details. )

I started creating and trading my own. I started with tissue paper collages and eventually graduated to paints and pens. Collage remains a favourite of mine. I like mixed-media pieces that combine paper and paint and maybe other flat little embellishments. I wish I could scan and post my collection to share with you all, but here’s a pic of some (not all my own) and how I store them:

album3v2.jpg

The production of ATCs really tapped into an artistic side of me that has been dormant since I was about five years old. I never thought I was good at art, and I can trace the lack of confidence back to a soul-crunching incident in kindergarten.

It took me many years to get over it, and even today I hesitate calling myself an artist when in fact the things I produce can be called art. I prefer the term “assemblage” – that is, assembly. I am an assembler. That sounds good to me.

I began with PostcardX and later became entranced with a website called Nervousness. This is a clearinghouse for all kinds of mail art projects, and not just ATCs? I worked in quite a few decos and other little collaborative crafty projects as well.

I hosted a lot of swaps at Nervousness, and participated in a lion’s share, but the site went boom about a year ago (or more?) and has never fully recovered. I’m fairly active at a site called Artist Trading Card Forums and a couple of Yahoo groups dedicated to ATCs and other forms of mail art, but my trades aren’t as fast and furious as they once were. The initial joy I felt sending and receiving mail hasn’t subsided. My mailbox regularly features excellent mail, some of which looks like this (click to embiggen):

mail-enviesL.jpg

It feels like Christmas every time I reach inside.

My swapping days have slowed down. I have become a little choosier. Or perhaps it’s just that I’ve decided what I really like. Some people don’t care what they receive, and this is a subject of some debate in the ATC-world (yes, there is such a place), but I do care. I put in so much time and effort into my work that I want it reciprocated.

I once hosted a group ATC exchange with the theme of opposites.

For my own cards I cut paper from an old Yugoslavian star chart, painted it, and drew a sun on one side and a moon on the other. It doesn’t sound complex but it took me hours to design and execute. One of the cards I received in return was made of ordinary white stock. On one side the person taped a yellow post-it note, drew an arrow on it with marker and wrote the word “up,” and on the other side taped a second post-it with another arrow and wrote the word “down.”

That’s a little disappointing to me.

I also dislike sloppy work, especially if it’s obvious the person didn’t put any effort into it. In terms of subject matter, I dislike clowns. And faeries, unless they are extraordinarily cool, and that’s rare. For some reason the ATC world is overrun with woodland creatures. I dislike the use of stickers too. Imagine a piece of cardstock with nothing on it except for a sticker of a cartoon character. Uhhh, yeah. Unless it’s the created by a three year old there’s no excuse for that kind of stuff.

It’s hard to put my finger on what I do like. I like work that is well executed. I like illustration, if it’s really good. I like the use of cool papers. My favourite pieces tend to lean on the more offbeat side. One of the cards I received recently is a painting of a dead fly. And I love it! I like collage, as I said, but it’s actually quite difficult to achieve a balanced and interesting result with it.

I am a big hit with the ladies at the post office, and the mailman. He and I are on a first name basis. His name is Ken, and for awhile my trading partners wrote little notes to him on the backs of envelopes: Hi KEN!!! I wonder what he thought of that.

I adopted the pseudonym of “miss fish” near the beginning of my mail art experiments. I don”t know why exactly, but I noticed everyone else was doing it and it seemed right. It”s spilled over to my regular correspondence (via email and traditional snail mail) with my mail-art friends like Zhenia (not her real name) and her partner Ptichka (not her real name either). We don”t call each other by our real names even though we all know what they are.

Perhaps this duality occurs because my artistic output is drawn from a different side of me, a person that bubbles just below the surface on most days. She is the one who sits happily surrounded by paints and brushes and paper. The one who wanted new scissors for her birthday. The one who isn’t so affected by responsibilities and the schedules that permeate everyday life, and can overlook dirty dishes and the pile of clean laundry that needs to be put away. Miss fish best reflects the creative freedom of the five-year old within me.


1 Response to "The really long ramble about mail art"

1 | Lee

January 11th, 2007 at 5:17 pm

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What a brilliant way to send and receive inspiration! (Well, stickers and Post-It notes aside.)

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My name is Andrea and I live in the Westboro area of Ottawa with my husband Mark and our dog Piper who is kind of a big deal on Instagram. We also have two human offspring: Emma (24) and Sarah (22). During the day I work as a writer at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. I am a longtime Ottawa blogger and I've occupied this little corner of the WWW since 1999. The Fishbowl is my whiteboard, water cooler, and journal, all rolled into one. I'm passionate about healthy living, arts and culture, travel, great gear, good food, and sharing the best of Ottawa. I also love vegetables, photography, gadgets, and great design.

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