Mail Art Madness

So, I’m cheating a little this week, using a photo from a postcard I put into the gallery last week. Chalk this up to not being quite ready to scan my first layout in Livia’s altered book, which I’ve been working in off and on all weekend. I’ll flaunt some of that work next week.

Anyway, so far, I’ve done a dozen random postcard mailings at SendSomething.net. This week, my mailbox had a nice little trickle of return mailings—fun postcards, some ATCs, and nice notes from total strangers. I love random mailing. You never know what you’ll get in return.

I also got a little piece of mail art from UT Austin’s Harry Ransom Center. I sent them a small donation to help restore the Scarlett O’Hara dresses from Gone With the Wind, which have fallen into a sorry state. The center wants to display them for the film’s 75th anniversary in 2014—but first, they have to make them presentable again. In exchange for my donation, they sent me a lovely postcard with a photo of the green velvet portieres dress, which is my all-time favorite bit of costume art. It was a lovely surprise. Bonus: a handwritten thank-you message on the back, written by a member of the center’s staff.

Yay for the magical powers of fun mail!