Mail Art!    

Hey, what is mail art, anyway???

From the Electronic Museum of Mail Art: "Correspondence art (Mail art) - This term applies to art sent through the post rather than displayed or sold through conventional commercial channels, encompassing a variety of media including postcards, books, images made on photocopying machines or with rubber stamps, postage stamps designed by artists, concrete poetry and other art forms generally considered marginal." ~ John Held Jr., The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, Macmillan Publishers Limited 1996. 

I would describe mail art as decorated envelopes, mail that looks more like ART than a plain envelope, or something unusual and fun sent through the postal system: a beach ball, a rubber duck or something unexpected! If you do a search on the internet for "mail art" you will come up with a wide variety of answers. I enjoyed the article I read published in the Austin Chronicle called: Pushing the Envelope, and I especially liked Diana Garcia's definition of mail art as "any kind of artistic expression that could be sent to someone else through the mail."

Here are some examples of mail art that I have sent and received - Hover your mouse over the image for a description and click on the image for a full-size photo.

~ Thanks to all of you who send mail art!