Until I posted my journal page yesterday I had never had so many people say they liked my drawings. That meant a lot to me. I can't create anything more personal than my drawings.
In junior high school I had a teacher tell me that the eyes I drew made people look like they were stoned....I can still see those drawings-one of Robert E. Lee and one of Ulysses S. Grant....Never mind that my report on them got an A.
For me this is drawing:
From my head, to my hands. Via my heart.
I liked writing in cursive when I was in school. To this day my hand writing still gets compliments. I've always been enchanted with letters, postcards, interesting postage stamps and cancellations. I remember my mother helping me address letters I'd written to my aunt.
The best days are days when there's something interesting or colorful in the mail. When my former French teacher sends me a postcard from Paris, it takes me back immediately to strolling along the Champs d'Elysees with her.
I think it's sad that people have gotten so far away from writing something, popping it into an envelope and sending it on to its destination, wherever that may be. To me a plain envelope is a waste of art space,( except if it's going to pay a bill.) I still get excited when the mail's arrived. "Is there anything for me?"
When my husband says "You hit the jackpot" and color comes spilling out of his hands, I'm thrilled.
Like many artists I've tried a lot of things and like even more. The one constant in my artistic life has been my love of mail art. In the time it took to warm up a slice of pizza I had already drawn on an envelope and was set to color it. So I know that creating a piece doesn't require a lot of time. Everybody can do mail art.
Recently some excellent books have come out on the topic of mail or postal art. I've been involved in a few private exchanges with other artists who love mail art. While exchanging emails (oh, the irony of it) with a friend we realized at the same time that there was a lack of facebook groups about postal art. So voila'--You Got Mail! was created.
We're already swapping out our snail mail addresses. I'm excited and looking forward to being told "YOU GOT MAIL!"