Mail Art and Faux Postage
Term applies to art sent through the post rather than displayed or sold through conventional commercial channels, encompassing a variety of media including postcards, books, images made on photocopying machines or with rubber stamps, postage stamps designed by artists, concrete poetry and other art forms generally considered marginal.
-The Dictionary of Art
Mail Art and Faux Postage
- Mail art is also called correspondence art. Faux postage is also referred to as a Postoid or Cinderella.
- Basically, mail art is art that is or has been sent through the postal system. It’s a global movement.
- Postcards and envelopes are decorated with rubberstamps, pen drawings, watercolors, paint, glitter, inks, and other art materials and then mailed.
- Some mail art has the “correspondence” on the envelope or outside rather than having a letter or message on the inside of the envelope. Faux postage is often used as mail art.
- Mail art can be a single stamped image or an intricate scene. Most mail art has a bit of humor interwoven into the scene.
- Calligraphy is a beautiful and eye-catching way to enhance any correspondence art. Calligraphy tipped markers are one of the easiest ways to add this technique to your work.
- Faux postage can be done with rubberstamps, drawings, photocopying, and computer software. It looks like a postage stamp, but has no value and can’t be used to mail your correspondence art!
- To create realistic faux postage, blank sheets are available that are perforated just like real postage stamps. You can also use a spiked seaming tool or a sewing machine with no thread in the needle.
- Rubberstamps are available that stamp a blank postage stamp image and you can use art materials to create faux postage within the blank. Rubber stamps are also available with elements like numbers.
- For examples of mail art or faux postage, just use these terms as key words in any search engine.
- Almost anything can be mailed from soda bottles to shaped boxes, but always check with the post office before mailing a unique item. Be aware that extra postage is often charged for oversized or odd sized items. The extra postage is because the item will have to be hand cancelled rather than run through the machines.
