How to Start a Mail Art Project: Part One

When starting a mail art project, keep in mind that your feeling of fear (of it getting lost or stolen) and hesitation are completely common. This series of articles (you're reading the first of three) will explore everything from how to get started to how to see your project return home safely.

Okay, let's get started:

1. Decide what kind of project you'd like to start: ask yourself some of these questions as a guide

[x] Do you want it to be a collection project, where participants send in pieces of art and receive something in return (like a zine or chunky book)?

[x] Do you want it to be a journal or altered book that travels from one participant to the next?

[x] Do you want it to be a postcard or ATC exchange?

2. Decide if you'd like a theme or not: some mail artists prefer having a theme, where others prefer to work with open venues. Either way, it's your choice and ultimately what you feel comfortable hosting. You could also host one project with an open theme and one project with a specific theme so it'll appeal to more participants. Again, it's completely your choice.

3. Decide how many people you'd like to participate: I've been working on mail art collaborations since 2003 and, in my experience, smaller groups work best. Smaller groups of people you know is even better, but not always possible. A suggestion: send your project out to three people at a time and, when it returns home, send it out to three more and so on.

4. Decide if you'd like it to be an International project or not: I've worked within the borders and outside of them with positive results. However, I've been burned in both cases also. To be honest, there haven't been more problems with projects involving International participants than those that do not. The only factors that remained the constant in this situation were lag times in shipping (distance will do that) and the extra cost.

5. How do you want to keep track of your project? There are several sites available where you can track the progress of your project and where people can post information (pictures, comments, etc.) about your project. Such sites include wetcanvas.com, nervousness.org and 1001journals.com. There are also numerous groups on Yahoo.com, communites on livejournal.com and groups on myspace.com, where swaps and other projects occur frequently.

We'll dive deeper into this topic in the following articles. Starting with these five tips, though, will get you on the right track. Remember that organization and persistance are both very important pieces to this puzzle you're constructing, as well. Without both of these pieces, you're project risks incompletion.