I had the opportunity to participate in The Postcard Collective's postcard exchange again this season. This go around, the theme was "Same, But Different." It is truly crazy to see how different artists interpret the same thing. Mail art has been a part of my art practice for years. Creating something unique and original and therefore valuable, then releasing it for free to the wiles of chance, is an exercise in faith. I used to be a mail carrier, and I'll just say that it's a miracle that any mail gets anywhere remotely close to where it's meant to go. Letting your art go knowing that it may be damaged, intercepted, misdelivered, or lost feels liberating. There is a sort of bizarre dichotomy that mail art employs- it is both extremely personal to receive a hand-addressed hand-crafted artpiece sent directly to you, and extremely impersonal to have it passed from hand to hand through the mail to reach you.
I love The Postcard Collective not only for its hand in keeping mail art alive, but because it is a genuine, organized effort to exchange ideas. I feel that many of the postcards I receive from The Collective have a wonderful experimental quality, as if the pressures, failures, and stresses of the artists' daily lives are suspended temporarily. I'm grateful to have participated in the Fall Exchange this year!
Here are just a couple of the lovely cards I received:
