ADVANCED DRAWING: Mail Art

For the mail art, I will say I got my main inspiration from a piece I saw in class. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I wanted it to be as personalized and random as I possibly could have it. So, I drew a drawing on the front and wrote an off-the-cuff poem on the back. Then, I numbered the addresses and the cards 1-11 and put everything through a number randomizer!
Researching other artists who practiced mail art was interesting as well. Ray Johnson as a person fascinated me. I loved learning about his work in class and learning about how interesting a human being he was and how that was reflected in the work. Another artist that was amazing and inspiring was Ruth Wold-Rehfeldt. She is a German artist that has been practicing since the 70s and 90s. Hor work consists of typewriter art and poetry, which I found really tied into my idea of a little poetic mantra. Ry Nikonova, another poet and artist, who was a powerful activist and a spearhead for the Transfurism movement while also founding the Uktuss School art movement in Russia. She participated in a lot of mail art, not only sending her own but participating in group projects as well. She joined the movement in 1985. Her spouse, Serge Segay, was another prominent feature in both that Transfurism movement and a player in mail art as well. He organized the first mail art exhibition in the USSR in 1989 and, like his wife, participated in many mail art projects.
Mail art was an interesting experience. I was terrified- sending my work out. I was texting friends making sure they got it, panicked that it was lost or damaged. I even only send the photocopies of my work and not the actual original because I was so scared. I'm very sentimental, I keep every piece of art. I have doodles from elementary schools saved in a folder because I refuse to throw them away. This was one of those cases where I was so scared to get rid of these works. I didn't think I was going to get them back, and though I want the class to keep them it still scared me. I had a full meltdown, so stressed about where they were going to go. Would they be thrown away? Forgotten? Kept? I didn't know and that lack of control was an exciting feeling to explore. Dropping them in the mailbox was a heartwrenching day, I put them in one at a time (getting honked at from the guy behind me in the process) but it was like sending my babies off to college, they each got a goodbye. Either that or I am too emotionally attached to my art, but hopefully, this mail art thing helps push me out of my comfort zone.

RAY JOHNSON