DID Development Notes

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Art of Postage (related History of Network Communications)

Postal History

Postal History Definition
Study of the mails; generally, including postal rates, routes, postal markings (known as marcophily). "Postal history: study of any mail piece that went through the mail stream with the purpose of conveying a message." - Collector's Club of Chicago

Postal History Resources

Postal History Publications
Cartographic Resources
  • Perry-Casteneda Library of University of Texas
History Resources
International Postal History
U.S. Postal History
Postal History Activities
Study a mailpiece. Where was it sent from? Where was it sent to? Is the post office identifiable? What type of markings does it have? What rate is paid fro which service?
Find a verbose listing for a postal history item in an auction catalog. What does it say about the item?
View a state-related postal history exhibit. What does it say about the displyed items?

Philately

Philately (Definition)
Generally, philately is the study and hobby of collecting postage stamps. Traditional philately involves the acquisition and direct observation and study of stamps of the world. The study of stamps is enhanced using philatelic literature. Philately is greatly informed by postal history, the study of the mails. Country collecting is a popular form whereby a hobbyist limits a study to one or several countries of interest. Topical philately is themed collecting along topics of interest (e.g. Space, Transportation or Butterflies) using stamps and postal ephemera of the world.
synonym: Stamp Collecting

other topics: essays, First Days of Issue, philatelic exhibiting, technical philately, tools of philately

The History of Postage Stamps

  • see also Postal History
  • before stamps
  • adhesive pre-paid postage
  • the Penny Black
  • the birth of philately
  • History of United States postage stamps
  • modern postage stamps
  • http://www.zazzle.com

Philatelic Resources on the web

Philatelic Clubs and Societies

http://www.chicagopex.com

  • Ukrainian Philatleic and Numismatic Society
  • Ukrainian Philatelci Society
  • United States Stamp Society
  • American Topical Association
  • American Association of Philatelic Exhibitors
  • Austin Philatelic Club
  • Baden-Powell Philatelic Association of Illinois
  • Evanston-New Trier Philatelic Society
  • Germany Philatelic Society, Chapter 5
  • Israel-Palestine Philatelic Society of America
  • Jack Knight Airm Mail Society
  • North Shore Philatelic Society
  • Noerthwest Satmp Club
  • Scandanavian Collectors Club, Chapter 4
  • Uited Nations Collectors of Chicagoland
Postal Agencies
Philatelic Auction websites

http://www.philatino.com http://www.fuscoauctions.com

Stamp Dealers
Philatelic Literature

Women on Stamps USPS Publication 512

Linns Stamp News

American Philatleist Illlinsoi Postal Historian

Philatelic Libraries

Articles Bralove, Olga J., Japanese Prints on Stamps American Philatelist, July 2006

Philatelic Stamp Shows
Philatelic Activities
Find a high-quality image of an unused international postage stamp. What image is represented? What other text informs the stamp? What does the information represent?
Obtain and examine and compare several different sheets of stamps. What can you say about the relative size and production of the stamps? What other printing is on the sheet?
View a stamp exhibit that is either topical or technical. What does it say about the stamps?

Mail Art

Mail Art Definition

Art of the letter, artistically inpired letters, objects, parcels, postacrds sent through the mail, decorated envelopes, artists mail, art postal artifacts (also mailart)

Mail Art Resources

Fan Mail

Based in County Mayo, Ireland, Fan Mail has both a long list of previous projects, dating back to 1995, and a call for submissions. They also do other fine arts work and have a press.

http://www.redfoxpress.com/mailart2.html

Animals in Mail Art

A mail art show, exhibited at the zoo in Hamburg, Germany in 1998. Many countries submissions listed.

http://www.crosses.net/merlin/ani98/index.html

Alyonka Mail Art Project

Creative people from around the world are invited to make artworks with the image of Alyonka, a well-known Russian chocolate brand. Works are collected by Ivan Zemtsov and posted to him. The first "Alyonka" show was presented to public in Yoshkar-Ola Museum of Fine Arts in October 2006. But the project is still ongoing!

http://alyonkamailartproject.blogspot.com/

Confess Your Sins

This mail art project is looking for audio taped confessions (regular cassette size tape or CD)...also wanted mail art and/or written confessions - work submitted will be posted online and possibly used for additional art projects. Audio will be used for exhibition. All participants will receive documentation of exhibition and/or notice of absolution in the form of mail art. If you want your confession to remain anonymous please do not include your contact information or indicate. Work is posted weekly.

http://confessyoursins.blogspot.com/

Field Study International

Field Study members have been involved in a variety of projects, including group shows, performances, installations, bookworks, sound art, solo activities and community work. Each year members send 100 A5 pages as their contribution to the Field Report; in turn they receive a copy of the report. This publication - 'The Journal of Field Study International' - is assembled and distributed by David Dellafiora who also places it within archives (such as Artpool), libraries and collections. The current list of members runs to over 200.

http://www.chameleonlectra.co.uk/sketchBook_p3.html

and their links to mail art projects:

http://www.mailart.lu/index.htm

The More I Change

This is a mail art exhibition based on the idea that the more dynamic you think you are, the more likely the opposite is true. Calls for entries have been posted at various web sites and mail art groups. Direct mailings soliciting admissions have also been sent.

http://themoreichange.blogspot.com/

Red Ant/Your Deepest Fear

What are you afraid of? What terrifies you? What keeps you awake or makes your skin crawl? What do you dread? Send a postcard of the one thing that most frightens you. No deadline.

http://www.postmarkarts.com/index.html

Individual Mail Art Artists and Mail Arts Groups

The Spare Room/Fluxzone

The Spare Room’s site dealing with mail art. This one is fascinating. There is a long exegesis/rumination on the nature of mail art as a subversive art movement within the underground, descriptions of Matt Ferranto’s quest to create a mail art archive and a project site as well, called the dead white letter project:

http://spareroom.org/mailart/mailart.html

Dodo/Dada Arte Postale Network

An Italian network of mail artists and artistamps producers, many with their own pages, membership is required to post projects.

http://dododada.ning.com/

Chuck Welch/The Crackerjack Kid

An introduction to Chuck Welch aka The Crackerjack Kid, from the EMMA website.

http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/emma/Intro/intro4.html

Shimamoto Shozo

A Japanese mail artist.

http://perso.orange.fr/articide.com/gutai//fr/ss.htm

John Held Jr.

American mail artist featured on Mailartist.com with links to mail art archives and essays.

http://www.mailartist.com/johnheldjr/

Dragonfly Dream

Detailed we site from mail artist Alice Kitselman from New Mexico. Also contains information on artistamps

http://www.dragonflydream.com/MailArt.html

Envelope Collective

The Envelope Collective is an ongoing collaborative experiment in art that uses the transportation of mail as a medium. The website serves as an online gallery for those pieces that we receive. It was started by two fellows named Garrett & Adam who think that art is one of the best things in the whole wide world ever.

http://www.envelopecollective.com/

Mailart Archives on the Web

http://alyonkamailartproject.blogspot.com/ http://confessyoursins.blogspot.com/

Mail Art Shows

Reeperbahn 1997

For this mail art installation „Reeperbahn 1997", which was specially conceived for the ElbArt 97 inside the old tunnel under the river Elbe, they have asked their colleagues worldwide to work over a view of the Reeperbahn that is more than 100 years old, contributing in this way to the subject „Reeperbahn" and everything related to it.

http://www.crosses.net/elbmail/gallerye.html

Multiplicity/Multiplicidad

Interactive Arts and Media blog post about “Multiplicity/Multiplicidad” an Argentinian-curated show of mail art and artistamp archives at SOMArts in San Francisco, held in July 2007, and featuring Interactive Media’s own Andy Oleksiuk. This show was a major retrospective of mail art and artistamps. It included hundreds of international artists and performers such as Jas Felter, Anna Banana and John Held Jr

http://imamp.colum.edu/blogs/?p=1977

And a Youtube video of the same show with artists discussing their work and the show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpwZRTZShvY

Axis of Evil

Axis of Evil was an international exhibition in 2005 featuring 47 stamp artists from eleven countries, thematically peeking into the depths of sin in search of the evils in our world and culture. Curated by Chicago-based artist Michael Hernandez de Luna, the exhibition includes work by artists from Russia, Mexico, England, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, France, Canada, the former Yugoslavia, Uruguay and the U.S.A. “Axis of Evil” made international headlines In 2004 when the U.S. Secret Service investigated a Chicago artist at Columbia College Chicago’s Glass Curtain Gallery. http://web3.colum.edu/press_releases/archives/005311.php An article from the Columbia Chronicle discussing the controversy surrounding the Axis of Evil exhibition. http://web3.colum.edu/press_releases/archives/005311.php

MOMA/Dada Exhibit

In 2006 there was an artistamp and mail art show and art event at MOMA as part of a large Dada exhibition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/arts/design/16dada.html?ex=1308110400&en=c53fd4cefbfab0f8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Art Through the Mail: The External Network

Description of a show at University of California, Santa Barbara Special Collections Library.

http://www.library.ucsb.edu/speccoll/mailart.html

Mail Art Literature
  • Correspondance Art
Mailart Web Resources

Plymouth Fine Arts Links Page

A site created by individual artist Paul Ramsay that has a fantastic links section on Mail Art. Follow this down the rabbit hole.

http://www.plymouthfineart.co.uk/WhatIsMailArt.html

The Open Directory Project on Mail Art Links Page

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Visual_Arts/Mail_Art_and_Artistamps/

Electronic Museum of Mail Art (EMMA) Links Page

EMMA is mail art's first electronic mailbox museum where the address is the art, the web is your key, and admission is free.

http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/emma/Links/links1.html

Mailart Related
  • Rubber Stamps, Stamping, embossing, applique, fabric accessories, scrapbooking, postcards, printing, stickers, paper ephemera, digital printing, address databases, commercial printing,

Mailart Wiki (Interactive)

Create a mail art piece. Affix correct postage. Mail to this address:

Mailart Wiki (Interactive)
Columbia College Chicago
Interactive Arts and Media
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605

Make several more mail art pieces,; make each one slightly different. Mail to several friends. Don't forget to mail one to yourself.

Look for mail art shows on the web. Find a show with a theme or no theme at all. Create an appropriate maila rt piece nad mail it by the deadline.

Artistamps

Artistamps Definition

“Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.” - William Butler Yeats

You can tell a lot about a country by the stamps it produces, and as philatelists can tell you, study of these little government-sponsored art works can be revealing and fascinating business. But, since government issued postage stamps represent the height of government controlled art (after all, the powers that be commission, produce and distribute this art for almost compulsory consumption by the masses) how are artists that prefer to work and think outside of government controls going to respond to this state sponsored art? Oftentimes they respond with artist stamps (artistamps).

Government issued stamps place every subject within the context of the issuing country’s political and organization systems. In response to the formalism sometimes inherent in that context, artistamps sometimes contain activist slogans and parodies of "official" subjects.

Artistamps have an inherently political nature due to the play of formalism in the genre. However there is a flip side to that view which is whimsical and often deals with virtual worlds or fantasy lands. Artists may name their fantasy domains, "Republic of Bookgirl,” or the "Island of Mraur," for example. Sometimes they even create imaginary postal administrations and whole governments for these countries.

Artists who make these stamps sometimes have a complex relationship with the real mail systems of their own countries. Some place their work alongside real postage on mailed envelopes, often in attempts to get their stamps canceled by the official postal administration. On occasion this can be an overtly political act, but more often the artistamp is being included alongside the correct legitimate postage and there is not chance that the created stamp will be mistaken for the real thing. It can even become part of a larger piece of mail art.

Artistamp creators may make their works in limited editions or in multiples of single design sheets. They may play with the sheet concept altogether and decorate borders, make miniature sheets or use several designs on one sheet that comment on or influence each other. The stamp form becomes more free form in the hands of the artist. Artistamps are often made to resemble genuine postage stamps, complete with perforations, gum on the back of the paper or even self-adhesive backing (though this may not be truly archival). They may be created through rubber-stamping, offset-printing, lithography, etching, engraving or photocopying, or using computers and printers. Artists often created cancellations for their stamps and create first day of issue covers. Cyberstamps have begun to flourish in the age of the internet, often these are online only creation, not intended to become tangible, printed stamps; many include animation.

The first artistamp may have been created by dadaist Raould Hausmann in 1919, when he put a self-portrait stamp on a post card. But Jas Felter, curator of the first exhibition on the artistamp, claims that the first real set of artistamps were made in 1941 by German political prisoner Karl Schwesig. He created a series of images depicting life in a concentration camp, drawn with ink on the perforated margins of postage stamp sheets.

The first set of artistamps made for a fine art context was created by Fluxist Robert Watts when he made a block of 15 perforated stamps in 1961. The above mentioned 1974 artistamp exhibition, curated by Jas Felter gave rise to a more general public awareness of artistamps as well as a growth in the number of artists producing them. But artistamps weren’t even called by that name until 1982, when T Michael Bidner coined the term.

Artistamps are now impressively documented in literature, on the internet and within the walls of galleries. Catalogues, reference guides and websites can introduce the medium by artist or genre. These include works in progress such as the International Directory of Artistamp Creators, updated by James Warren Felter and the Standard Artist Stamp Cataloged which is being compiled by Bugpost.

And as the medium grows, so do collections and exhibitions. As Jas W. Felter puts it: “There have been exhibitions in national museums (Hungary, Switzerland, France), and recently Guy Bleus has issued a CD-ROM of his artistamp collection. Other major archives are found at Artpool in Budapest, the Anna Banana Archives in Sechelt, British Columbia, Chuck Welch's International Register of Artistamps, and my own Modern Realism Archives, which contains over 3,000 stamp sheets by 600 artists. Perhaps the largest public collection is at Oberlin College in Ohio, which obtained the artistamp archive of Harley. But almost every artistamp producer maintains his own collection, and there are impressive holdings in many areas of the world.”

∑ Some terms to use in researching artistamps: faux postage, fantasy stamps, labels, cinderellas, virtual worlds

Artistamps Resources

Mailartist.com

Mail artist’s page dealing with artistamps.

http://www.mailartist.com/kiyotei/artistamp.html

Artistamp Mailing List

The Artistamp Mailing List is is a resource for people interested in discussing, trading, teaching and learning about the art of creating Artistamps. Generally one-of-a-kind, and / or limited editions, artistamps are not intended to fool your local postal carrier, but are instead a miniature art form with specific guidelines / formats pertaining to the ability to create art in the form / size / shape of a postage stamp. If you are interested in the art of Donald Evans, Anna Banana, Steve Smith, etc, (and by association mail artists such as Chuck Welch, John Held, Ray Johnson and the New York Correspondence School) then this list is probably for you.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artistamp/

Open Directory Project Links Page for Artistamps

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.

http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Visual_Arts/Mail_Art_and_Artistamps/Artistamps/

International Directory of Artistamp Creators (IDAC)

Jas W Felter took a different approach to the subject in 1991. Focusing on the Artist rather than the Artistamp, he produced a directory of 72 artists who were creating Artistamps. Not satisfied, he continued to search the world for Artistamp creators, located a number of important Artistamp collections, gathered as many catalogues of Artistamp exhibitions as possible and surveyed more Artistamp creators. With this data he edited the first edition of the International Directory of Artistamp Creators in 1993. The burst of Artistamp activity since then and the location of older catalogues of Artistamp exhibitions created the need for a second edition. This directory, like the publications described above, is an indispensable locus for understanding the medium and locating its practitioners.

http://jas.faximum.com/library/jas_idac.htm

Notes Towards a History of Artistamps

John Held jr’s article on artistamp history.

http://www.terra.es/personal3/tartarug/library/ref006.htm

Artistamps

An article on the history of artistamps by Jas W. Felter, who curated the first artistamp show in 1974.

http://www.terra.es/personal3/tartarug/library/ref007.htm

You Know the Way to Mail Art – Philately

Humorous list linking a history of mail art moments and anecdotes to philately.

http://www.mailart.be/Philately.html

Moscow Artistamp Collective

http://artistamp.artinfo.ru/default.htm

Artistamp Artists

International Directory of Artistamp Creators

This is the directory’s artist page with an a-z list of international producers and links to pages decribing the work of each artist, these pages also have links to the artist’s individual websites on occaision as well as links to further pages in the directory showing examples of the artist’s work. The directory’s main home page also has a “producers” page.

A few links to individual artistamp makers:

Michael Hernandez de Luna

http://www.badpressbooks.com/mhdl.html

Michael Thompson

http://www.badpressbooks.com/mt.html

Jas Felter

http://jas.faximum.com/library/idac/idac_art.html

Anna Banana

http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~sn0958/

http://www.bigpacific.com/anna_banana/

John Held

http://www.mailartist.com/johnheldjr/

Ray Johnson

See links listed in Mail Art section

T. Micheal Bidner

http://www.artpool.hu/Artistamp/Artistampex/Bidner_e.html

buZ blurr

http://res.npcc.edu/bbutler/buz.htm

Dana Atchley

http://www.nextexit.com/attic/trunkframeset.html

Alyce Cornyn-Selby

http://www.justalyce.com/stamp.htm

Bugpost (aka Dominique Johns)

http://home.comcast.net/~bugpost/bugstuff/stamps/stampframe.html

Donald Evans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Evans_(artist)

http://www.artnet.com/artist/5918/donald-evans.html

Jas W. Felter

http://jas.faximum.com/

William “Picasso” Gaglione

http://www.deluxxe.com/stampland/

Michel Hosszu

http://www.mheditions.com/index.php?newlang=english

Sandy Jackson

http://jas.faximum.com/library/idac/idac_1842.html

Denis P. Jordan

http://www.telisphere.com/~djordan/

Clemente Padin

http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/padin/lcp3x0.htm

Steve Smith/Art Gone Postal

http://www.artgonepostal.com/

Carolyn Substitute

http://www.carolynsstampstore.com/

Dragonfly Dream

http://www.dragonflydream.com/Artistamps.html

Carl T. Chew

http://ctchew.com/ctchew.html

Red Ant

http://www.postmarkarts.com/artistamps.html

Natalie Lamanova

http://sewers.artinfo.ru/cv/cv.htm

Artistsamp Shows

"Motherland/Fatherland" Artistamp Exhibition

The Moscow International Forum of Art Initiatives, Moscow State Exhibition Hall "Novy Manege" July 11-21, 2002 co-curators of artistamp exhibition: Natalie Lamanova, Russia, Alexander Kholopov, Russia, James Felter, Canada http://sewers.artinfo.ru/cv/mafa.htm

Consciousness Unfolded: Mail Art for the 21st Century

This dynamic exhibition invites artist to submit work via the postal service creating a network of communication that provides an insightful dialogue that investigates the direction the book/codex/scroll/card is taking form and purpose in the 21st millennium.

http://www.centerforbookarts.org/exhibits/archive/showdetail.asp?showID=167

Artpool’s List of Events 1979-1991

Artpool’s list of multiple shows and events from that era, with some links

http://www.artpool.hu/events79-91.html

Post Modern Post

A show of artistamps from 2003 at the Sonoma County Museum in California

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/03.13.03/stamps-0311.html

ParaStamp: From Fluxus to the Internet

A show of four decades of artistamps, held in Budapest from March 23-June2, 2007.

http://www.artpool.hu/Artistamp/Para/Stamp00.html

Multiplitiy/Multiplicidad

Large retrospective of artistamp archives. SOMArts San Francisco, July 2007.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddjQAfr5fr0

Artistamp Literature

Herbert, Martin. "Post War", Artforum International, May 2007: Article on Steve McQueen's Queen and Country comminssioned by London's Imperial War Museum. Example of: Political Art

Crane, Michael and Soffle, Mary ed., Correspondence Art: Source Book for the Network of International Postal Art Activity, Contemporary Arts Press, San Francisco, 1984.

Artistamp Production Techniques

How to make Artistamps

So you want to make artistamps?

A helpful page of links to many artmaking tutorials

http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~benm/stamps/artistamps.html

Mail Art and Artistamps

The articles at this website were previously at Aisling.net. They include how-to tips and instructions, as well as free downloads, samples of mail art, and links.

http://www.mailartists.com/artistamps.htm

Knoph

A very good introduction to Artistamps. A must read for those who are new to the list and just starting out in the field.

http://www.knoph.com/AMLnewB


Create an essay stamp design appropriate for a specific country. Use correct text based on your knowledge of the country's language and postal conventions.

Create a sheet format of whimsical artistamps from a fantasy country or no country at all. Create several designs for a multiple design sheet.

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