I've been particularly enjoying the debates that have sprung up about mailart on the site and on surrounding sites lately., such as this short post by Crisispanty.
As I have stated before, I believe that art is when someone uses their skill to actively add value to something, so I thought I'd put up a little mail mischief.
The idea of this piece was to show that value had already been added to a piece before it was sent.
In summer, I brought this postcard with me along on a paragliding trip, and stuck it up on a barbed wire fence, with the intention of sending the piece out with 2 holes in it, showing it had been loved.
I sent one similar piece off and it delighted the postcrosser who received it, so I was going to put this card up just as it was. That would have started debate, and I would have held the position that not adding anything to the piece other than 2 holes from a barbed wire fence was art enough.
As it turned out, I couldn't bring myself to do it. The card still needed something else. So half an hour later, here's the completed piece, something that I feel is worthy of mailart 365.
Does that invalidate my idea of art as added value? Does art really have to constitute something hugely visually appealing?
This piece is going to a mailartist called Cross Ryu, who is a breathtakingly good artist. We have 2 artworks up of this Korean gem and both me and Elena count Cross as one of our favourite artists. Sadly Cross hasn't been heard from for nearly a year. I hope to wake Cross out of his/her mail-artistic slumber, as the mailart world is missing a great talent if Cross isn't buying stamps
