Mail Art and Odds and Ends

I just joined a web site for people who like to send and receive mail art, ATCs and other odds and ends in the mail. (sendsomething.net)  I also joined  an international postcard club that looked interesting.(postcrossing.com)  I don't plan on sending out too many of those. The cost of the post card to The Netherlands that I sent out last week cost $1.05. That was for a post card!

The last time I went to the post office to send out my decorated envelopes with a family and friend news letter, the postal clerk looked at the envelopes with a "curious eye." "I am trying to save the post office," I said. "There are many of us around who still like to write letters, and send them out by post. We just add a little decoration to the envelope and send them out as postal art."
"Well," he mused, "that sounds pretty good. Keep it up."

So here are some front and back views of three of the letters I sent out today. The light red is a low tech contact print with ink outlines. The links between the "bubbles" are a little hard to discern in these phone-camera photos. I sent these out to a few people whose addresses I found on the sendsomething web site. I looked at the profiles of over a hundred members before I chose these addresses.

All of these dots together are a bit over the top. The individual envelopes one side at a time are less intimidating to the eye.



Alisa Golden, book artist

 This evening I have a five minute oral presentation in the Artists' Books class on Alisa Golden and her Never Mind the Press. I chose her because twelve years ago I purchased her book Creating Handmade Books. It was the first "how-to book" on book making that I purchased to use with students at school. I had taken a few educator workshops on book arts at the University of Utah, so I was familiar with a lot of origami book folds and simple sewn book forms. Her book shows a variety of book forms that students and adults can manipulate to create interesting books. She has had an extensive career as a book artist. On her web site she says, “In addition to making books, I have taught book structures and printing in the San Francisco Bay area, the San Francisco Art Institute, the San Francisco Center for the Book, and Ocean View elementary school. Currently, I am Adjunct Professor at California College of the Arts and call it my home, again. I'm on the schedule to teach "Writing and the Creative Process" in the Arts & Consciousness program at JFK University in May 2012.