Mail Art Test Run

I did a crime! I did my first mail crime! My texts-as-postcards were in the box and I brought them inside and took their picture and put them back. Now I feel extremely terrible, because I did a crime, in fact I feel sick to my stomach. I think I will not do any more mail crimes.

I found this diagram on wikipedia:

I feel a little bad for making the USPS go through all that to deliver notes to the people I live with for 28 cents each, but that is their job after all.

So I guess the Priority Mail Processing Center is in San Jose.

This week of letter-texts has given me ideas because it was beyond poorly executed. Like: some of the paper I used had charcoal drawings on the back but I simply didn't have enough sturdy paper to do without those pages. I like that because it got on everything and smeared around a lot so it shows the wear of going to San Jose and back and being handled by all those machines and both those people. And I learned that the USPS will send things that are messy because it is their duty to the American people.

I really don't have any kind of inkling where I would like to go with this, so here are some steps that I might do some combination of as practice and exploration:

-join a few swaps of Artist Trading Cards

-keep a travel journal by recording impressions/sketches on postcards and mailing them to my house

-keep a diasporic journal by recording things and then mailing them off to whomever. Maybe start with a wallet of preaddressed stamped postcards and sketch on the backs and send them off with out checking who they'll go to

-mail things to myself at my old addresses (mail is forwarded for a year and after that you're supposed to have told everyone your new address so I think they'd go to the current occupants and then be tossed or bounced back to the post office and then if I was super lucky get returned to sender)

-make a piece of art that's really meditative and detailed and cut it into post cards and send it to people who could easily/could never meet to reassemble it

-get a book that's either an overview of mail art or has highlights that I could look into.

-learn more about the USPS

ETA: I have to get up in a bit but I keep getting ideas! I could make a piece of art and cut it into post cards and then send it to one person, like a puzzle. I am sure it has been done by ten thousand people but I am still excited by the idea.

I could do an advent calendar, because advent calendars are about each day seeing a little prize as you countdown to Jesus so getting one in 10 pieces with 2 or three little flaps would be neat. It would draw out the anticipation even better because you would anticipate the arrival of each piece and completion of the calendar, and then anticipate opening the flaps.

I kind of want to get this done before I go to bed 3 hours ago but I don't know how.