London based mail art aficionado Andy Hoang decided to corral a group of fellow mail artists and create Mailart365. All told 20 artists around the world agreed to commit to making (and mailing) a piece of art every day for a year starting on December 1st!
Why did you decide to do this project? 2 years ago I decided to close my facebook account and send and receive letters instead and the idea of my REAL wall was born. REAL posts on a REAL wall. It didn't take long before I started to receive mailart and discovered a whole artform and community of talented and positive individuals, who inspired me to find my inner artist. Mailart365 is a homage to the worlds mailartists and to that community of people who keep the postal system not just alive but positively vibrant. It is my way of saying thanks to the people who strive to send a smile through the post.
How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? The excitement of the participants building up to the launch date of December 1st, 2010 has been incredible and initial signs are that everyone is really thrilled to be involved. It's been such a buzz and the whole challenge has really galvanised many people into creating. The creative spirit that everyone has shown has made the project seem like it's going to be a breeze, but I suspect that it won't be. Already, I've found that I've been really busy keeping the site looking good and making sure that all participants are happy, but I think that this will die down and I will soon get back to the creation of artworks, which I can't wait for. If it's had an effect on my life, so far I can say it's given me a huge feeling of pride to have created and seen through the idea and to collaborate with so many people I admire.
I have personally started thinking in terms of collage and picking up every scrap of paper I see "because it might come in useful somewhere" and both me and my fiance have now got a legitimate excuse to spend Saturday mornings on eBay buying rubber stamps again!
Follow the progress of all of the participating mail artists on their site HERE.
Why did you decide to do this project? 2 years ago I decided to close my facebook account and send and receive letters instead and the idea of my REAL wall was born. REAL posts on a REAL wall. It didn't take long before I started to receive mailart and discovered a whole artform and community of talented and positive individuals, who inspired me to find my inner artist. Mailart365 is a homage to the worlds mailartists and to that community of people who keep the postal system not just alive but positively vibrant. It is my way of saying thanks to the people who strive to send a smile through the post.
How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? The excitement of the participants building up to the launch date of December 1st, 2010 has been incredible and initial signs are that everyone is really thrilled to be involved. It's been such a buzz and the whole challenge has really galvanised many people into creating. The creative spirit that everyone has shown has made the project seem like it's going to be a breeze, but I suspect that it won't be. Already, I've found that I've been really busy keeping the site looking good and making sure that all participants are happy, but I think that this will die down and I will soon get back to the creation of artworks, which I can't wait for. If it's had an effect on my life, so far I can say it's given me a huge feeling of pride to have created and seen through the idea and to collaborate with so many people I admire.
I have personally started thinking in terms of collage and picking up every scrap of paper I see "because it might come in useful somewhere" and both me and my fiance have now got a legitimate excuse to spend Saturday mornings on eBay buying rubber stamps again!
Follow the progress of all of the participating mail artists on their site HERE.
8 comments:
Love it! My husband is a letter carrier, so I appreciate the contribution to his job security.
Who wouldn't rather get an actual, physical thing in the mail than an email? I wrote a blog entry about this a couple of months ago, when I received a wonderful card from Love Manor in the mail:
http://dragonmamma-dragoncave.blogspot.com/2010/10/its-not-dead-yet.html
I've spent every day for nearly two years connecting people worldwide via "orphaned postcards" but now I'm part of MailArt365 and finding even more ways to connect.
I have never considered myself a mail artist, but after 19 days of creating something from bits of bits, and smiling at the result, I'm beginning to think MailArt365 is just what I need to get beyond the ordinary and change my creative process ... maybe even draw me into a new, more positive, direction for life.
Thank you for featuring the project!
I'm so glad you've gotten so much from the project already PostMuse! I love hearing about the positive effects of daily creativity!
Thanks for the feature Noah. I love the fact that others are getting their daily fix of creativity through the project too, it's such a rush and a rather unexpected bonus too I can tell you!
When I came up with the idea and put it out to the world, I had no idea that so many would actually take it up. It seemed too large a commitment to ask of people, but as more people signed up, I realised that there was a hunger for this creative outlet.
It's so cool to be working alongside my some of my favourite postal people, like Mim and Postmuse and mailart 365 still seems to be attracting more people every week.
Who would have thought it
I found myself "who would have thought it" about my own project as well! That's definitely one of the best parts of doing something like this, you never know where it will go!
I thought "who would have thought," too, when starting my Orphaned Postcard Project! And now I have "adoption" requests most every day. I guess it is the "if you build it, they will come" thing :-)
Definitely!
I did a daily mailart piece for six months or so and then continued rather erratically. Being back in a regular routine of making art, when everything you touch is a possibility, is such fun. We're all very grateful to Andy for what he's brought into being. Boo Cartledge
Post a Comment