Counts in my book! I'll be interested to hear what the experts say.

Damned if I know what makes something mailart but I always enjoy images with unexpected text.

I've been reluctant to call my postcards "mailart" and just call them "handmade." I'm going to be learning about mailart as the year goes on and then maybe attempt to figure out "fluxus."

I have no claim to expertise here, but it seems to me the important word in the phrase "mail art" is not "art" but "mail": the fact that we create a piece in an intimate one-on-one sort of way way, address it to another person, then give it over to the postal system to deliver that person--that act of addressing and giving over, is what makes it special, right?

Because the best definitions of "art" are always tautological anyway: "Art is an act of beauty." "Art is something done with aesthetic intent."

Because the medium in "mail art" is not what's important--it's the intent and the method of delivery. We don't say "mail collage" or "mail drawing" or "mail painting," we say "mail art."

And all the senses are open to us--not just the visual. I can imagine situations where a tape recording of music would be mail art, where a video of a dance would be mail art, where a hand-crafted perfume would be mail art. And I'm getting increasingly sure here, of letters being mail art--sure that creations that are purely verbal & not visual, are mail art.

I have a reason for wanting to be sure of that, as I embark on this 365 journey with the rest of you, which is that I'm primarly a writer, in my background so far. The visual arts are a new & uncharted (exciting!) terrain for me. And so a significant percentage--I have no idea how large--of my 365 missives will be letters.

Anyway....you know writers...they do blather on... =laugh=