How to Start a Mail Art Journal

Mail art has been the rage for many years. Research through thesis writing and other articles show that mail art has been actively worked on by artists as far back as the days of Cleopatra. It's certainly worth doing a search on and learning about. If you're new to mail art and would like to start some journal projects, this is the article for you.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Internet connection
• pens/pencils
• small art journal
• email
• wall calendar

1. Art journal pages. Pick an unruled journal that's small in size (5x9 inches or smaller) and has good quality paper. If this journal is meant for mixed media and collage work, choose one with a spiral binding or a loose binding to allow for the book to expand.
2. Art journal pages. Register with an online group like 1001journals.com, a yahoo.com group, a flickr.com group, nervousness.org or sites like that. Doing a search for mail art groups will produce the results you need, in addition to the requirements set by the group.
3. Art journal pages. Choose a theme for this art journal. Decide how many participants will be working on this art journal, how many pages they can work and how long they have to work their pages.
4. Art journal pages. Add a decorative sign-in section to the front of the book for each participant to write their information on and affix their postal mark from the envelope the art journal arrived to them in.
5. Art journal pages. When sending the art journal out to the first person, be sure to enclose directions for your journal. Use a delivery confirmation number when sending it out (ask each participant to do so, as well) and track on the wall calendar when it arrives and how long they have to work on their pages.
6. Glue-to book that can be used as an art journal. When the deadline for each participant is up, send a friendly email reminding them of the deadline and asking out their progress. Be prepared for extensions because artists forget about projects, life gets in the way and other matters come up. Patience is very important.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep the theme of your art journal simple.
• Keep the list of participants short. If the book isn't full when it returns home, start another list and send it out again.
• Choose a book that isn't too thick so the turn around time will be quicker and mailing costs will be lower.
• Don't put in too many rules or artists won't want to participate.
• Be prepared to deal with flakes who don't want to pay for shipping and who may want to keep your book.