Brick & Mortar since 1991. Blogging since 2006. From Jason Thompson, Rag & Bone founder & creative director. We write about the things we love: bookbinding, book arts, paper arts, the bindery, personal stuff, our kids, our travels, sometimes food and sometimes art.
Mail Me Art is a collaborative mail-art project run by Darren Di Lieto, founder and co-editor of the illustration news portal the Little Chimp Society. Darren requests submissions and collects ‘art’ through the mail such as illustrated envelopes, packages and postcards. He published a book this past March featuring many of the submissions, “Mail Me Art: Going Postal with the World’s Best Illustrators and Designers”.
The next phase of the project, “Mail Me Art 2″ is now underway and he’s requesting new submissions for the project. You can read the guidelines at www.mailmeart.com
Here’s the latest issue of stamps from the Royal Mail. I wish the US had such beautiful postage. I know, I know, we have our beauties too, but these are so simple and lovely. I admit I’m a bit of an anglophile, especially when it comes to BBC TV & radio. This nostalgic set of first class stamps commemorates ten icons of British design from the 30’s & 60’s. There are even nice first day covers too. Gotta love that mini…
The World’s Smallest Postal Service is a teeny tiny transcription service and roaming post office based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Postmistress Lea Redmond will transcribe your message into a very, teeny, tiny letter complete with wax seal and magnifying glass - maybe even a little glitter too. How cool is that? If you’re unable to meet Lea in person, you can order online - I think it would make a great tooth-fairy letter!
See the Worlds Smallest Post Office in person
March 14 2-6pm at The Curiosity Shoppe
855 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA
Devo’s very own Mark Mothersbough, who I was only familiar with through the fantastic Wes Anderson movies Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, is also a postcard and mail artist, creating unique post cards in limited editions which are available to view at Marks website www.mutatovisual.com.
During his downtime on early worldwide tours with DEVO, Mark Mothersbaugh began illustrating on postcards to send to his friends and family, which he still creates, and has been creating every day for over 30 years. It’s an obsessive habit/hobby which still yields anywhere from one to a couple dozen new postcard-sized images per day.
Sketchtravel is another “travelling” journal, similar to the 1,000 journals project, www.lookatbook.com and others. This time, the recipients are known artists and illustrators and each one hands off of the journal, even photographed doing so. Images of the pages are online in a flash based book with turnable pages. The actual book is housed inside a wooden box and looks to be well traveled and taken good care of.
I think the internet has helped artists and book lovers to create “shared books” with online communities. With websites we can virtually follow the progress of the books and get to know their destinations and recipients. Maybe we can start a travelling book from the Rag & Bone Blog? Maybe something to do in the fall?…
Postcrossing is a project which allows anyone to receive postcards from random places in the world. Like Dale Hubert’s Flat Stanley project. I love the idea - trading postcards with random folks from all over the planet. I just joined and received an address to send a postcard to with detailed information about the recipient:
————————- Gender: Female Country: Finland Languages: English, Finnish, Swedish, German Other Info: I like to receive postcards with architectural pictures, stamped with some nice looking stamps. (But don’t worry, I appreciate any postcard you send). I am 33 years old and an architect. My hobbies are herpetology, keeping terrarium animals, genealogy, fly fishing, traveling, painting and playing floorball as well as renovating our house.
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How cool is that? (but what’s “floorball”?). I guess I’ll write a little bit about who we are and maybe take a photograph of a local building, seeing as she’s an architect. I’ll post an image of the card we send and the one we receive in return - which will come from a different user, not the Finnish architect we send our card to. The idea is to send postcards to and from random recipients, not necessarily meet pen pals. Our address can remain anonymous to anyone we send a postcard to if we want.
Looking through the postcrossing gallery, this doesn’t seem to be an art project, just a postcard project, most are typical souvenir postcards. The site states that half a million cards have been sent since July 14th, 2005. (I think I have the date right, but please correct me if that’s wrong). That’s pretty amazing. There is a Flickr group with lots of photos, and a forum on the site to contact users with questions and comments.
Mailart.org describes itself as an art blog showcasing mail art projects from around the world. The site claims to feature mail art and resources for mail artists, I just wish there were more examples of actual mail art. I find myself reading the database of mail art calls wishing I could participate - I just don’t have the time to create mail art anymore.
In addition to housing a large online database of mail art calls, the site also provides general mail art news and is home to the Small Art Project.
I love Mail Art, and I dig this new site. MAILmeART is a collaborative mail art project organized by Darren Di Lieto, the founder and editor of LCSV4, also know as the “Little Chimp Society”. The project asks participants to submit mail art - art which uses the postal system as part of the art, such as illustrated envelopes. Winners will receive prizes from participating artists. A give and take process. Check out the gallery of prizes as well as the submissions.
