The Academy of Art in San Francisco, CA, states the statistic: "100 million trees are expired for junk mail in the United States every year." The Academy is paying homage to the environment and trying to raise awareness about the amount of paper invested in mail that just ends up in the garbage again as a resource for making beautiful things. BFA and MFA students in sculpture at The Academy held Junk Mail: From Debris to Design featuring structures --including fashion pieces --utilizing junk mail with the hopes of exhibiting how mail can be re-utilized for a positive purpose.
The Academy has been a ring leader in San Francisco’s commitment to the environment and sustainability, actively incorporating green concepts into their curriculum. The show is being displayed at 79 Gallery (79 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA)

For tips on how to reduce junk mail, please click here.

Since 1998, Taiwanese-born installation artist, Lee Mingwei has been showcasing his Letter Writing Project in spaces from the Whitney Museum of American Art to galleries in Australia, Korea, and Japan.

The project invites participants to write the letters they have always meant to, but never taken time for. The artist creates 3-sided rooms out of wood and translucent glass, which contains a desk and writing materials. Visitors enter one of three booths, designed for participants to position themselves mimicking meditative postures, and write a letter to a deceased or otherwise absent loved one, offering previously unexpressed gratitude, forgiveness or apology. They may then seal and address their letters (for posting by the museum or gallery), or leave them unsealed in one of many slots on the wall of the booth, where later visitors may read them.

Fingers crossed that this project will be resuscitated, so we can go participate. In the meantime, check out Lee Mingwei's other intriguing projects here.

You may have seen these stamps bouncing around the web, but we wanted to bring attention to them here as well. A new project by artist and designer, Gavin Potenza, pays homage in the form of these pretty darn gorgeous stamps to Otl Aicher, one of the 20th Centuries great German designers. Aicher, a founding member of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, is famous for his graphic work for the 1972 Munich Olympics, for creating the fonts Traffic and Rotis, for his book, The World As Design (Die Welt as Entwerf), and much much more.

See more of Gavin's projects here and read more about Otl Aicher here.

We here at MLP have always considered the sending of a letter--or postcard--a form of art. What is the role, the impact, the aesthetic, of correspondence? How do you choose your stationery, the image on the postcard to send to a loved one--and what will those choices represent? We were thrilled to discover UK photographer Paul Greenleaf's project, Correspondence, which uses both found photography (in postcards) and new art to depict the changing cultural and physical landscape. Greenleaf writes,

"The postcard as a method of communication is being replaced by email, text and picture messaging whilst the language people use to communicate with each other is also evolving.

The written notes from the cards, with all their inherent idiosyncrasies form part of the work, providing a narrative to the photograph and a unique insight into people's lives. I am interested in extending the moment when people visited the location, using their words to bridge the gap between then and now."

See more of Greenleaf's Correspondence project HERE and more of his work HERE.

We've discovered that mail and postal art offers many opportunities in galleries around the country. Here is information on a great one below at Niagara Community College Art Gallery, along with details on how you can submit your own mail art and the format of the show.

Where: Niagara Community College Art Gallery
3111 Saunders Settlement Road, Sanborn, New York 14132-9460
Deadline: postmarked by February 14, 2008

Description: The making of mail as art, "mail art" has a history stretching back at least to the 1950s. Mail art has in the past rooted in a rejection of the commerce and exclusivity of the gallery show. The making of mail art, "mail-art" continues to be a common practice in an age dominated by electronic communication. This exhibition will continue to break down the division between the mailbox and the gallery. To that end, Niagara County Community College Art Gallery is seeking submissions for an upcoming exhibition, aiming to display the myriad manifestations of mail art. Artists working in all media are encouraged to participate. The topic and content of each piece is solely the choice of the artist. Artists are asked to produce one piece of mail art and send it to guest curator Becky Moda. Your work will be displayed in a cataloged group exhibition in the Spring. After the exhibition closes, each participating artist will receive via mail the work of another artist. "Senders receive," as mail artists say. The mail art movement is uniquely populist and non-commercial, involving non-traditional distribution methods and the potential for global reach. Let's breathe new life into this fascinating movement, which predated and in some ways predicted the artist networking boom enabled by the internet.

It is asked that the artists adhere to the following guidelines:

1. Please send one piece of mail art to: Mail Art, NCCC Gallery, Niagara County Community College / 3111 Saunders Settlement Road / Sanborn, New York 14132-9460 by February 14, 2008.

2. The mail art can take any shape, in two or three dimensions. Pieces can expand when opened, but must be easily re-mailed for less than five dollars.

For more information regarding submissions please email beckymoda@gmail.com or visit nccmailart.blogspot.com.

And speaking of typewriters!

We were blown away to discover Paul Smith's Typewriter Art. Smith made his pictures based on the @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) __ signs, a technique he developed because cerebral palsy as a child left him unable to type with two steady hands at once. Instead he used his left hand to steady the right one while holding down the shift key. Pretty incredible.