Send Us Your Collection
Guidelines
- We look forward to publishing your postcards. Of course, the best cards are those that will be of interest to your friends and other artists, especially if you want to reconnect with them. If you have lots of postcards, edit for your audience (your friends and the artists represented on this site) to tell a good story.
- Please send us only postcards from artists to artists (neither need to be professional, just actively practicing art at the time the postcard was sent). Be sure the content of the postcard's written message from one artist to another is about art or the broader context of art-making or being an artist (the front of the postcard, while it may be visually interesting, does not count towards the postcard's message being "about art"). And an "artist" can be broadly interpreted to be someone in an art ecosystem, like a critic or collector (not simply a consumer of art). A deliverable email address is required for the person that sent the postcard. At first, don't send us more than 25 postcards. If you have more, we'll ask for them later.
- We will not publish show announcements unless they have a personal message attached. Nor will we publish "mail art" that is not personally written to the addressee (no mass mailings). Finally, no holiday cards, birthday greetings or thank you notes that aren't sent in an "art" context. Of course, there can be exceptions to the exceptions, but what we're looking for most in the postcards we publish is evidence of a personal relationship between artists about their lives as artists. Note that we are under no obligation to scan and archive your postcards just because you send them to us. We reserve the right to publish only postcards that are consistent with the website's purpose.
- Please send us only the postcards you want to be published on the website. It's OK if you want to keep some postcards private to share them only with invited friends, but if a postcard is private and you don't share it then it's visible only to you. That doesn't make any sense on a postcard sharing website, does it?
- Consider the audience of the website when selecting your postcards. The vast majority of postcards archived on this website are visible to the public. This means that the content and context of the postcard are relevant to that public audience. If your postcard is relevant only to you and the person who sent it, it may not appropriate for this website. Make sure your postcards are interesting for a general audience of artists.
- Once you've selected your cards, be sure to review step 1 and edit accordingly. We have limited capacity to scan and transcribe your cards, and want to provide this opportunity to as many artists as possible.
Instructions
- For each postcard you send, we need the following information: the full name of the sender (their professional name, not a nickname), their email address (required, you'll use it to invite your artist friends to see your collection), and a current location (city and state or province) for their main residence. A Post-It note is handy on each postcard (you only need to note an email address and location once for each unique sender). If you don't have ready access to this information, Facebook is pretty handy. Please make your best attempt.
- If there is information that you want to redact on the postcard, it is your responsibility to redact it before you send it to us (we will not physically redact postcards under any circumstances, we will only redact text at your direction that is transcribed from the message text). Make sure you redact with a tool (marker or tape) that completely covers the redacted information so that it cannot be read by a scanner.
- Clean your postcards if you want to. If there is any detritus on the front or back, it will be scanned and appear in reproduction on the website. We do a cursory cleaning of any postcard before scanning.
- Please review our standard copyright and licensing language. If you want any different language associated with a postcard, please include it when you submit the postcard (we can accommodate many options).
- If a postcard is part of a series, please indicate its position in the total (for example, 3 of 6). If you are submitting more than one series, make sure each series is clearly marked. Note that a series can still be published even if some postcards in the series are missing (who knows when they might show up!).
- Make two photocopies of the back (message) side of each postcard. Keep one for your records, and include one with your shipment. If you do not include a photocopy of each postcard with your shipment, we will not be held responsible for any damaged or lost postcards while they are in our possession.
- Include with your shipment your full name and shipping address, as well as your phone number and email address. If you have any special instructions for the handling of your postcards while they are in our possession, please include them.
- Include with your shipment pre-paid postage from the USPS, including insurance, for the return of your postcards. Postage for a Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box (under $10 from US addresses, not including insurance) will suffice for most collections (you do not need to send us the box). We will return your cards in the same manner that you sent them. In no case will we physically archive your cards.
- Package your postcards and send them to Marshall Mayer, 524 Clarke Street, Helena, MT 59601-6228. Insure your package. Please note that we will not be held responsible for any damage or loss of your postcards while they are in transit. Also, note that we do not want our name and/or address to be put on any mailing lists, analog or digital, for future generic postcards as there is absolutely no implicit or explicit obligation to do anything with your mail art. Please do not send us any. If you insist/persist, we reserve the right to remove your postcards from our website. (Yes, mail artists sometimes don't respect boundaries.)
- If you have a scanner, you can save yourself some postage by sending us digital versions of your postcards. Scan the front and the back of each card in color and at the highest resolution (most on this site are scanned at 2,400 dpi). Select the scan area to include all edges of the card and nothing else. Save the scans as JPG files and name them in the following format: [sender name] Front.jpg or [sender name] Back.jpg. If you have more than one card from the same sender, include a numeral on each file, for example [sender name] Front 2.jpg. Put all scans in a folder, titled with [your name] Postcards, compress it (a .zip file is standard, and email it to marshall [at] take-note [dot] com. Alternatively, we maintain a Dropbox account at marshall [at] take-note [dot] com. We will acknowledge receipt of your digitized postcards. If you have questions, contact us first.
- Finally and optionally, you can help us a lot if you transcribe the message of your postcards. In any word processor, start a transcription with [sender name] Back [1] and follow it in a new paragraph by the transcription. Redact any personally identifiable information (such as addresses and phone numbers) with [address redacted]. If there is any other text that you do not want to be indexed by Google, and thus want to be redacted, just replace the text with brackets, i.e., [redacted]. If incomplete names or nicknames are used in the text, please provide full names of artists only (they will be indexed). For example, "Jude visited me." becomes "Jude [Judith Freeman] visited me." Finally, include the sender's full professional name, email address, and current city, state/province, and country as part of your file. If you have questions, contact us first.
What to Expect
- Assuming that you have followed the instructions so far, your postcards will be scanned and archived in the order that they are received. We will contact you by email when we have received your postcards and give you an estimate of when we think your postcards will be published. If we have to contact you with questions about your postcards, it will slow down the process (your place in line may be bumped).
- We will contact you again when we have finished archiving them on the website. You will be asked to verify the work we have done. Once verified, your postcards will be published (or kept private for personal sharing, as you wish). Once published, we will return your postcards using the same postage service and insurance you used to get the cards to us.
If you have any questions about sending us your collection, please read about Art Goes Postal, and do not hesitate to contact us.