August 20, 2010

Traveling Mail Art Journal



Things I love: personal correspondence and art. The incredible synthesis: traveling mail art journal!

Many many months ago, Bianca from Goodnight Little Spoon put out word that she was starting a traveling journal. Each recipient was to create 2-4 pages, with the only creative boundary being that the content had to be postally related.

I signed up immediately and was, I think, eighth on the list of journal recipients. Months passed and I eventually forgot that I was scheduled to receive the journal. But then, one day I got a package in the mail - not recalling any recent online purchases, I opened the package with suspicion. Well, wasn't I surprised to find the journal within!


I spent the next several hours having a great time combing through all the fantastic mail art contained therein. People in the online mail enthusiast community are sooo creative. Many participants included personal messages, or mail to be read by all future recipients. The above picture of a mystery message left in the journal by Tejal at All-My-Hues.


The creative bar was set incredibly high, and I took some time to gather materials to create my pages. After two days of twiddling my thumbs, I decided that I had to just start putting things on the paper. Above are my first two journal pages.

I included on the left page: the front cover of one of my favorite card sets, the priority mail stickers from the package that the journal came to me in, and some imagery from National Postal Museum flyers. On the right page: more National Postal Museum imagery, a hotel stationery envelope from a Washington, DC hotel, DC-ish vintage stamps, a snail mail stamp, and a collection of wax seals that include seals from envelopes sent to me by some of my wonderful pen pals.

I did do a third page, but I wanted to keep it specially for future mail journal recipients.
{"cc_re__cc_re__cc_by_sa_3_0_us": ["ain-cap-bottom cap-bottom'>\n<div class='cap-left'></div>\n<div class='cap-right'></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n<footer>\n<div class='footer-outer'>\n<div class='footer-cap-top cap-top'>\n<div class='cap-left'></div>\n<div class='cap-right'></div>\n</div>\n<div class='fauxborder-left footer-fauxborder-left'>\n<div class='fauxborder-right footer-fauxborder-right'></div>\n<div class='region-inner footer-inner'>\n<div class='foot section' id='footer-1'><div class='widget HTML' id='HTML3'>\n<div class='widget-content'>\n<a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/\" rel=\"license\"><img alt=\"Creative Commons License\" style=\"border-width:0\" src=\"http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/us/80x15.png\"/></a><br/>This <span xmlns:dc=\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\" href=\"http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/StillImage\" rel=\"dc:type\">work</span> by <a property=\"cc:attributionName\" href=\"http://www.EverydayCorrespondence.com\" rel=\"cc:attributionURL\" xmlns:cc=\"http://creativecommons.org/ns#\">James at Everyday Correspondence</a> is licensed under a <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/lice", "g/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/\" rel=\"license\"><img alt=\"Creative Commons License\" style=\"border-width:0\" src=\"http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/us/80x15.png\"/></a><br/>This <span xmlns:dc=\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\" href=\"http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/StillImage\" rel=\"dc:type\">work</span> by <a property=\"cc:attributionName\" href=\"http://www.EverydayCorrespondence.com\" rel=\"cc:attributionURL\" xmlns:cc=\"http://creativecommons.org/ns#\">James at Everyday Correspondence</a> is licensed under a <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License</a>.\n</div>\n<div class='clear'></div>\n<span class='widget-item-control'>\n<span class='item-control blog-admin'>\n<a class='quickedit' href='//www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=3380570726772120698&widgetType=HTML&widgetId=HTML3&action=editWidget&sectionId=footer-1' onclick='return _WidgetManager._PopupConfig(document.getElementById(\"HTML3\"));' target='configHTML3' title='Edit'>\n<img alt='' height='18' src='//img1.blogblog.com/img/ic"]}