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the difference is in the Intention

Many persons who create what I'm calling Postal Art, are not at all involved in what I call Mail Art. What's the difference, and is it really important to make such distinctions? While none of us who have been involved in mail-art networking in the past 20-30 years is wildly enthusiastic about the term mail art, it has come to mean a form of networking in which certain values and intentions are understood, certain "rules" generally observed.

The International Mail-Art Network (IMAN) is comprised of an informally structured group of individuals who exchange their ideas and experimental artworks and publications via the international postal systems. It's a network that anyone can join; there are no membership fees or cards. A primary principle of mail-art is that everyone's work and ideas have value; that the network is a place for making connections and experimenting with different forms of expression. Many long-term practitioners have met in various congresses and visits, and have come to consider the IMAN as a community.

In the early years, the 60's and 70's, mail artists parodied big business, corporate structures and "high art" academia, using such names as the N.E. Thing Co., Image Bank, Ace Space Co., Northwest Mounted Valise, Western Dakota Junk Co., Fat City School of Finds Art, to name a few. Mailings exchanged contained a tongue-in-cheek air of critique of corporate culture and the status quo. This networking process was a precursor to the internet, where persons formerly unknown to one another exchanged their works and ideas in a non-judgmental arena which is not exclusive, expensive, or for sale, and where the value of the art is in the process of creation and exchange. This is not to say that practitioners don't treasure the communications and artworks received, but that these are documentation of the process and of our connections, rather than precious objects d'arte in themselves. The network is an egalitarian scene without hierarchy or order into which anyone can send their work, invitations to projects, publications, etc.

During the 80's and 90's, as the popularity of rubber stamping grew (due to an explosion of rubber-stamp companies, magazines, "how to" articles and workshops), much of the creative end of mail-art activity evolved into a more craft-oriented pursuit. I call it the 'gentrification; of mail art. With the popularity of this activity spreading to wider and wider circles of participants, the new focus is on style and technique in the production of pretty, decorative and gentile artworks, rather than the earlier values of critique and poking fun at the powers that be. Magazines such as Rubberstampmadness, Summerset Studio, Vamp Stamp News and Scrapbooking, to name a few, have led the charge in this direction of nice clean, family fun.

Out of these shifts in emphasis, have emerged new forms of networking; specifically, "exchanges." These are comprised of individuals who join a specific, limited group, and agree to participate in exchanges that are structured by a group leader. Participants put up the money for the final product, to be copied and mailed back to them. The main thing these exchanges have to do with mail, is that they use the postal system to send their artworks back and forth. Many have been, to a great extent, inspired by the Griffin & Sabine series of books by Nick Bantok; books that take the form of letters, postcards, stamps and cancellations. The organizer of the Brain Waves Exchange, Jill . . . . . . says she prefers to call the results of their work, 'Art Mail,' or 'Mailed Art.' This is an example of what I am calling Postal Art.

Before these exchanges came on the scene, the main body of Postal Art came from individuals working with various postal forms, regulations and systems. While parodies of postal stamps are created by both Mail Artists and Postal Artists, the latter is not involved in any form of networking, and often send their products only to themselves, or conversely, sells them outright as artworks and art editions.

For example, Michael Thompson and Michael De Luna Hernandez have created many editions of their own artistamps, which they put on envelopes and mail to themselves, without the addition of actual postage. When the envelopes are delivered, they are matted, along with the sheet from which the stamp was removed, framed and exhibited in commercial galleries with prices ranging from $1200 to $1800 each. They were unaware of the IMAN when creating these works, and chose not to exchange works with mail artists once they were contacted by networkers. However I note in the past two years, they have shown up at network events in Oaxaca, Mexico, and Peace Island, Korea. Mail artists, on the other hand, put their stamps on envelopes, usually with regular postage, and send them off to other mail artists who, in turn, send their own stamps back in an ongoing exchange. When mail artists showed their artistamps at the Davidson Galleries in Seattle in '89, '91 and '93, prices ranged from $10 to $150/sheet, but they still exchanged their editions one for one with other mail artists.

Steve Smith in Florida and Cati LaPorte in NYC have both created fabulous parodies of actual US Postage stamps, producing and selling their editions; LaPorte through a bookstore in NYC, Smith through his web site. Neither was aware of the IMAN when they began their work. Smith now exchanges with other mail artists, while laPorte has no interest in networking whatsoever. She creates her stamps from large paintings, and her main thrust is the painting and showing of that work. Smith on the other hand, creates his stamp images in computer, so stamp editions have been his main product. His parody of the US Post Office's summer Olympic Games stamps in Los Angeles (?96?), the "Nude Olympics," was a popular and amusing edition, and his "Endangered Feces" is a funny, scatological parody of the US Post Office's Endangered Species series.

Donald Evans is the most well-known and documented (see The World of Donald Evans ©1980 by Willy Eisenhart) of Postal Artists, having created hundreds of tiny paintings of stamps for fictional countries. As a child, Evans collected stamps and created his own for imaginary countries, and in his adult years, continued this practice with increased skill. He carried a complete exhibit around in a small portfolio, gaining recognition first in Holland where he had moved to live. Unfortunately, his story is short lived, as he died in a fire in Amsterdam, in 1977 at the age of 31.

Yves Klein's "blue" stamp edition gained him notoriety in 1957. The story goes, he bought sufficient postage to mail invitations to an exhibition, painted the stamps all "Klein Blue," put them on the invitations and had them mailed out by the same postal clerk from whom he purchased the stamps. In 1987 Michael Hosszu in Paris created an Homage to Andy Warhol stamp edition, and mailed to himself, 900 envelopes from thirty countries from China to Tahiti, without benefit of legitimate postage. He followed up this edition with a 1989 Homage au Marquis de Sade, which was used on an invitation to 200 journalists to a press conference announcing a marquis de Sade Premium Champagne. Hosszu's comment's ". . . mail art is primitive. It's made with whatever is available. It's not professional, but I am trying to make it professional." Here, Hosszu has hit the nail on the head, but he seems to have entirely missed the point! Mail art is NOT professional, and that is what makes it special. If it ever becomes professional, it will no longer be mail art!

For three years, Italian architects Maurizio De Fazio, Lello Padiglione and Pierluca Sabatino created a series of stamps on the office photo copier, and used them on envelopes which they mailed to themselves. They were never caught, and eventually, fearing serious recriminations from the post office, turned themselves in. They received small fines, then sold the envelopes with their cancelled stamps to collectors, and published a little book, Granchi Rosa; 160 francobolli che sconvolsero l'Italia.

Fluxus artist Robert Watts produced his first edition of artistamps in 1961 using images of W.C. fields and two nude, female torsos; his way of utilizing a public medium to convey private commentary. These he distributed internationally from a stamp dispenser in various Fluxus exhibitions.

Many artists have created stamps for imaginary countries, either to be sold as art editions, or to illustrate their books. The earliest artistamp work of which I have record, is by Michael V. Hitrovo, a Russian artist who began with imaginary countries as a child, and whose 1914-18 ink drawings of stamps of MIKA were reported in the Cinderella Philatelist.

The other type of Postal Artist I have identified is one who mails to himself, packages and envelopes that do not conform to postal regulations, or which otherwise tests the limits of postal authorities. I heard about one such group in Oregon a year or so ago who mailed a series of unwrapped items and packages of non-conforming sizes, and reported that the majority of them were delivered. They got the unwrapped items into the system by having one person distract the attention of a postal worker who was collecting mail from the street box while the other placed the addressed and stamped, but unwrapped item in a sack in his van. A correspondent in Italy told me about some interaction he did with the post office, but I do not have the details. I am asking mail-artists and others to send me details about any such interactions they have done with the post office, so that I can give a more detailed description of this type of Postal Art.

1701 words Anna Banana March 2002

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