MAIL ART NEWS #5: Stardust and Water, with Adam Blackshaw
TB : Hi Adam. How did you get into mail art? AB: Hi Thomas. I first started creating Mail Art in the early 1980s while at university. I was in my late teens and hadn't studied art at school at all but I was interested in the Surrealists and just painted for my own pleasure. Like many young people I had a yearning for something bigger. Some connection to people and places elsewhere, beyond the conformity of the small town I grew up in. I don't remember how I first came across Mail Art. But it was a call out in 1983 to participate in an international exhibition in Berlin. The theme was, 'Kunst Für Der Frieden'. For a young person living in Australia, the idea of contributing to an exhibition halfway around the world was incredible. It was like sending my work to another planet. I can't even recall the work I sent, but I do remember the feeling that I was living a parallel life to my friends which gave me a feeling of 'specialness'. You have to realise that ...