Artistamps for a Prince

The great Prince Kipling's passing was announced with this May 25, 2004 issue from Ailurophilia.

The Feline friend himself. 

More New Artist Trading Cards in the Mail

This is a great Tai Ch'i series I received from Mana on the 21st of June. 

New Artist Trading Cards

I received this from Taraegon on Monday. Lovely artist!

Nice quote...

Nice note..,

"Horizon" from a painting.

The King of Swords. 

Artistamps from the Archive

My Summer Solstice mailing from 2003. I made an ATC in ink and watercolors and scanned it for the artistamp and cover illustration.

The back of the Solstice mailing.

This was Greg Byrd's Wright Brothers commemorative issue, 4-7-03.

It featured a decorative cancellation about artistamps!

I am also getting ready to post a bunch of Cascadia Artpost's Architects of Occupation series artistamps and covers. 

Zen Garden 1

I made this ATC last night for the Simple Pleasures August ATC Exchange Swap. I'll see how many different ones I can do between now and the due date. 

Make and Trade at Project InSECT

The first insect ATC I did for the Make and Take ATC board at Project InSECT. The first insect ATC I did for the Make and Take ATC board at Project InSECT. Prismacolor pencil on paper.

I watercolored the background on this one, the rest is Prismacolor pencil.

The scorpion is drawn on rust-colored card stock with Prismacolor pencils. 

Jeweled Frog Beetle ATC

An Artist Trading Card I finished 6-21-04. The original is Prismacolor pencil on laser cardstock. When I scanned it, the colors got lost so I "painted" them back in in PhotoShop. 

From Graywolf of Antar

Graywolf sent a package of recent artistamp issues and ATCs for my Dragon ATC Swap. They arrived 6-16-04.

The back of the envelope. All this was enclosed in a manilla bubble envelope.

The letter was folded inside like an invitation enclosure.

The letter explained the artistamps and had a lovely wax seal of Antar.

Graywolf's AML 5th Anniversary artistamp.

The Frog Knight.

The Frog Knight's Lady.

The Greenman of Antar. 

How I Got Into Mail Art

I do mail art. I've been active in the network for about a year and a half, sending postcards, photographs, artist trading cards, artistamps, and participating in Carving Consortium swaps. I got started about 1998 with a friend who told me about an art show in Oslo, Norway looking for entries with an H2O theme. All entries were accepted and there would be a catalog of the show for all participants. I didn't know what mail art was yet, I just thought it was a mainstream art show with no jury. At the time, I was in my first photography class at Penn Valley Community College and had made a lovely image of the water in Brush Creek on the Plaza. I printed it on nice paper and sent it in.

After a while, I got the catalog from the show. Guttorm Nordo sent out a glossy mini-magazine-style catalog with articles and art from the participants; it was a very well produced piece of work. From it, I learned about mail art, it's precepts and saw examples of DaDa, Fluxus, collage and many other types of mail art as well as photographs like mine. All our addresses were listed in the back for me to use as a starting point to begin networking with other artists. Then, in my third photography class, I got pregnant. Forgetting about the new frontier (to me) of mail art, I concentrated on my photography and my new daughter. Then, one day about the time my son was 4 months old, I was surfing the internet and found the International Union of Mail Artists website. The site told me "Apply to Become a Member, Become a Member by Applying" so I did.
 

Taraegon ATC Swap

Here's what Taraegon sent me for our swap a week or so ago.

The greeting card with her art.

This is a lovely layered and painted collage! 

Mail Art for the Archives

I sent this to John after I found his PBS story.

The back of the package, I also included some of my artistamps.