International Mail Art Journal Collage

Journal collage page using mostly recycled pieces
from mail-art packages and ephemera.

Sometimes I lament the fact that I don't have the time or space to do big, "important" art work. With full time job and a small apartment, my work has to stay small and flat, and be completed fairly quickly. So, being part of mail art exchanges of small items like ATC, tags, and postcards with other artists, and working in my journal are pretty much all I do, other than the commercial art that I do at work.

There are quite a few positive aspects of exchanging artwork: first, you receive some gorgeous small pieces in the mail. Additionally, you learn new techniques, "meet" new cyber friends, and accumulate a lot of interesting tidbits and ephemera. Those tidbits are papers or fibers that are tucked into a package or wrapped around the artwork that comes in the mail, as well as international stamps and gorgeous mail art envelopes.

Today's collage uses mostly items that came in the mail from people in the yahoo group Paper Traders. (Here's a link to their blog.) The top right corner was part of a hand-decorated envelope from an artist in Northern Ireland, the clock and French butterfly napkin were tucked in with ATCs. The checkerboard tape was recycled from an envelope. On the bottom right is a corner of an envelope, with the cancelled stamps from Australia.

The ticket in the center was from a recent event at work--everyone who came received a ticket, which was entered into a raffle to win exciting prizes...well, maybe not so exciting...they were tee shirts and umbrellas, but at least the prizes were useful.

Following the Kelly Kilmer collage technique, I added a stencil, using one of my favorites from Artistcellar. I added the little dots in the center with a marker. The last step was my addition of washi tape and hand written words that popped into my head as I was working on the collage.

Here's a few other journal collages made from mail art and ephemera that was tucked into envelopes form other small art traders.

Mail-art envelope on bottom of collage, including
Maya Angelou stamp; vintage ephemera mainspring
envelope; doodles, stamping and vintage royalty free images.

Paris-inspired napkin section, stencils, stamping,
stamp from Australian envelope indicating
photographs inside.