'Mail art' comes to Westlake

Professor Reid Wood explains the concept of mail art while displaying some creative samples.
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Reid Wood, Professor Emeritus at Lorain County Community College, introduced the Westlake-Westshore Arts Council Quarterly Event audience to an art that can be cerebral, thought-provoking, and serious – yet can also leave room for humor. This art, called Mail Art, is an international movement, whose forms, imagery, and messages come with a myriad of possibilities for creativity, interpretation and expression. 

The work can be in the form of an envelope that is created with any media – paint, ink, printmaking, collage. Some mail artists are influenced by what is the norm for the postal system, such as the cancellation stamp. It has inspired mail artists to create their own stamps which they use to print upon their envelopes, etc., or its contents. 

Artists also design their own sheets of “artistamps,” which take on the perforated look and form of official postal stamps.  A piece of mail art upon receipt can be altered and returned to the sender, creating a network back and forth. Some mail art is one-on-one and some is group collaboration, which led to the movement being termed "the Eternal Network."

Wood showed a very impressive example of collaborative mail art with a striking “box” containing the artwork of 73 different artists. The project was organized by Vittore Baroni of Viareggio, Italy. Each of the 73 artists submitted 150 identical 8.5-by-11-inch pages of their art for inclusion in the box project.  In some instances artists added 3-D work to the 2-D pages.

One hundred-fifty identical boxes were then assembled – each to contain the artists’ work (73 pages of mail art). Each contributing artist received one of the boxes with the remaining boxes to be sold to collectors, museums, etc. Following the program, "oohs" and "ahhs" could be heard from members of the audience as Reid opened the box he had received on this collaboration, and pointed out particular works/pages of art.

Many of the works of mail art that Reid Wood shared were addressed to "State of Being." Wood explained that that was his pseudonym, which many mail artists use. Other examples he shared were "ex posto facto", "Anna Banana" and "Cracker Jack Kid" (because the excitement of opening a piece of mail to discover the art inside is similar to finding a prize in a Cracker Jack box).

Some pseudonyms have become "public," meaning that any mail artist can use them to send anonymously. Wood explained that if a letter comes from a Karen Eliot or Luther Blisset, it could be from anyone.

Wood stated that the beginning of mail art is generally credited to Ray Johnson who organized one of the first exhibitions held in 1970 at the Whitney Museum in New York City. Since then, mail art has expanded to include sound, music, performance art and video. And, yes, the internet has added another dimension for mail art and its networking.