Happy Mail

Nothing makes me happier than to receive a hand-written letter, art or a postcard in the mail. Lately it's been a steady stream of bills, impersonal advertizing and very hideous looking fliers. I've had a couple of mail art packages arrive in my mailboxes over the last couple of weeks and I'd thought I'd share our correspondence.

First, my mail art pioneer and the originator of my new love for mail art, Jessica Gowling. I wrote about our first exchange here and this is round two.

Jessica sent me a fantastic package including her awesome first zine, Mountains of Fur. She also sent me stickers, a bear print and a lovely little note.

In thinking about my response to her I felt a need to tell her a little bit more about myself. About my background, interesting quirks, etc.

So I put together a set of bio cards. Each card was illustrated on one side and there was a description on the back. There was humour mixed in the bios of interesting Jeannine facts, like the fact that I used to drink large, ice-cold slurpees on the coldest days of the year and my amazing ability to suddenly become fluently bilingual after a... um... few drinks.

I also included something I've been experimenting with lately. I hate wasting art materials and paper and have been known to keep bits of paper I think I can use for 5-10 years. I had some leftover sections of a watercolour painting from a different project so I reused them. I trimmed them into strips, drew a section of houses from Holland and cut out the background. I scored the back in two places so it would fit nicely in my envelope.

She just posted about my little package here. 

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I've been looking for other artists who would like to exchange art me and I remembered reading that Jessica Mack, who runs Brown Paper Bunny, was interested in exchanges as well.

I put together a small assortment of items based on themes I've been exploring lately. With a last name like Saylor, how can I not be attracted to nautical themed imagery? I've been illustrating ships and waves and created a little 2-sided piece for her, a row of houses from pictures I took on my trip to Bruges many years ago, an illustration of a tree with deep roots and a thick letter J which is the first letter in both of our names. I decorated the envelope with trees and rain cloud illustrations, which were inspired by my new surroundings. When Jessica received the package, she wrote about it on her blog.

 Jessica's very prompt reply included a watercolour dancer, a hilarious bunny suicides postcard, an adorable bunny linocut, an origami rabbit and some pirate stickers. A letter (with beautiful penmanship) was tucked in as well.


If you're interested in a mail art exchange, send me a note on Twitter or an email: saylormade [at] gmail [dot] com. I'd love to put together a package for you and fill your mailbox with little art bits and bots.


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