“What is a good mail day?” A good mail day is a day when, instead of just bills, catalogs, and advertisements, your postal carrier delivers artful, beautiful, personal mail from friends and acquaintances all over the world. Mail art is a collaborative art form with a long and fascinating history populated by famous artists as well as everyday practitioners. The term “mail art” refers to pieces of art sent through the mail rather than displayed or sold in traditional venues. Mail artists often use inexpensive and recycled materials including postcards, collage, rubber stamps, and photocopied images. Mail art is a truly international activity and a fun way to connect with people in every corner of the globe. Readers will learn to create decorated and illustrated envelopes, faux postage and artistamps, find penpals, make a mail art kit, and much more!
Jennie Hinchcliff has been an active part of international mail art circles and communities for over a decade, has curated San Francisco mail art shows, and produces the quarterly mail art zine Red Letter Day. She teaches book arts and bookbinding at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Carolee Gilligan Wheeler is a bookseller, book and paper technician, philatelicist, and library ghost. She has taught at the San Francisco Center for the Book, worked at Stanford Libraries as a conservation technician, and is a current library fellow at the Prelinger Library. In addition to co-authoring Good Mail Day, she currently publishes numerous one-shot zines under her own name, and works for the underground philatelic organization the Elsewhere Philatelic Society.