I think everyone secretly wishes for amazing things sent by snail mail. Ever since I was a child I’ve loved receiving post, though recently it seems to be more junk or bills than anything else, unless I pay for it. In the past few months I had just been involved in collaborations that involved sending work by mail, until @jessicagowling followed me on twitter. I was soon addicted to checking her blog and was delighted when we finally got around to swapping mail art, she sent me the most wonderful envelope back in June and above is my reply. I think one of the most inspiring things about Jessica’s work is the nature theme, if you are interested in that or printmaking as I am, you should definitely find her in social network land and follow her everywhere.
About a month back @Dig_A_Pony sent me some Victorian sugar mice, too amazing to eat really, and also enclosed some of her prints which you can see here. I admired her work so much when I first saw it and the more I look the more I want to live right in the middle of it. Shown on the right is the reply I sent to her.
Back in July it was my friend @Rooofz 18th birthday and of course the perfect excuse to send some surprise mail as we live quite a way away from each other. I included various bits and bobs of painting, collage etc and also one of the t shirts I produced for @adamficek of RKC (Roses Kings Castles) as I still had the screen from that.
Last May/June/ @PeterDohertyoff ended up in Pentonville yet again, for a while I had been considering a project sending mail art to prisoners so put a couple of mini pieces together for him. There are restrictions on what you can send to prisons so if, in the future, I do follow this project up I shall probably have to read up on those. I’m pretty sure that nothing dangerous was enclosed…
Above is a parcel I packaged up for my friend Steph of Sparrow Squad, you can read about them in my last post: https://thesecondmagpie.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/sparrow-squad-helping-sparrows-live-where-you-live/
Steph had requested two discs of the artwork I did for her so I put those together and added a few other things including stencils for Sparrow Squad, one of my playing card collages and a Peter Doherty-QPR shirt from the old days – I used to hand paint t shirts for friends and enemies. I posted this about a month ago and it should have arrived within a few days at the most but only arrived at it’s destination today, much to my relief. I had been preparing a riot for An Post.
A few weeks back I posted one of my tea zines to Twinings Tea. I used their mixed berries teabags to create the pink version of the zine/mini-book and I decided to send one to them so they could enjoy it too. Last week I received a lovely letter and a complimentary box of mixed tea.
And finally, I also posted one of the traditional tea zines to Tetley Tea as I created the one seen above with their circular teabags. Two days ago I also received a letter from them which included a voucher for any of their products.
Here ends the first episode. If you’re interested in swapping mail with me just drop me a message here, on twitter, facebook or email. I will soon be swapping a second lot of playing cards for anything and everything.
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