Paper is back!!
Paper ship of the day!
Balloon x Paper
seen from Dominican Republic

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Yemen
seen from United States

seen from China
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from United States

seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Dominican Republic
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
Paper is back!!
Paper ship of the day!
Balloon x Paper
Greek Aerograms
Last fall I received some aerogram-themed mail art from R.F. Côté in Canada. After seeing my post, Katerina Nikoltsou was inspired to make some aerogram-inspired mail art herself. She started with color copies of original aerograms. Ones she had mailed to an aunt in Chicago years back. I am wondering if an aerogram revival is at hand — at least for mail artists.
Remember the Aerogram
The latest mail art I received from R.F. Côté came enclosed in an unused aerogram. Aerograms were typically sold by postal services with pre-printed, or franked postage. This Canadian one cost a mere 15¢ at the time it was sold, I assume back in the 1970s. Reg had to add some additional 21st Century postage to guarantee I would receive it.
The trick with aerograms is they were made of thin, airmail paper and had to be folded and sealed by the sender. No enclosures were permitted. Their light weight meant they cost about 30% less to send than an airmail letter.
In most countries they were purchased directly at the post office with the pre-printed postage. You could also find ones at office supply stores where you would then need to affix a postage stamp.
With an aerogram, once the writer had filled the page, they were finished. If you typed, you could cram a lot into that letter. Back in the 1980s they were an affordable way I and my college-aged friends would communicate. As email became popular in the 1990s the use of aerograms started to wane. The US Postal Service offered them until 2006, but I can’t imagine the sold many in that final decade.
What I made in Aerogram and Vaporgram so far:
Just a thing I'd been doing when I don't do art or write, or honestly anything. But yeah, that's it! : D
Aerograms were lightweight airmail letters, folding into their own envelopes for economical global correspondence, symbolizing the art of handwritten communication before the rise of digital messaging.
Air Mail by Kombizz Via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/kombizz/3970786171/ An Aerogram or Air Letter, also called an aérogramme, is a thin lightweight piece of foldable and gummed paper for writing a letter for transit via airmail, in which the letter and envelope are one and the same. Most postal administrations forbid enclosures in these light letters, which are usually sent abroad at a preferential rate. The majority of aerograms have an imprinted stamp, however, some countries, such as New Zealand, Rhodesia and Ireland, sell unstamped aerograms. The unstamped aerograms are referred to as 'formular aerograms'. They can be issued by either postal authorities or by private companies. Senders are required to write their name and address on the reverse. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogram
Nina Bhattacharya sits down for a chat with Sailaja Joshi, founder of Bharat Babies -- a publisher of Indian children's books.
The next MiP episode is with Sailaja Joshi, co-founder of Bharat Babies! An indie publisher specific to celebrating South Asian voices/stories!
Here’s an interview via The Aerogram soon after Bharat Babies came to fruition and tune in to a new episode with Sailaja herself as they celebrate 5 years and counting!
NB: The work you’re doing now is material that academics down the line can research — looking back and examining texts. Like, there will actually be a body of literature out there with South Asian Americans in them for someone to study.
SJ: Part of the push I also felt was that I didn’t think I was doing enough. It takes so long for any manuscript to get anywhere, for any research to be done, and nothing felt actionable. Nothing felt relatable. Everything felt like it was taking such a long time, and it wasn’t going to go anywhere. I wrote both of my theses, and I remember thinking this is great, but now what? What am I going to do with this eighty-page document?
Leaving was the best decision I ever made. Quitting and leaving something helps you to understand your failures, helps you to understand yourself, and helps you to rise and succeed. While the work I was doing on South Asian American women is still completely underrepresented in the social sciences, I think of the work that I’m doing now as sort of an extension of that. It is still working with the same communities and thinking of them in a critical way. It’s just presenting that information in a very different format.
Views from the plane...at least during the times I was awake lol #flying #onaplane #airplane #aerogram