Bury Art Museum’s Bury Art Mail is reaching international audiences

Bury Art Mail is reaching artists on the other side of the world sparked by a New Year creative surge. 

The postal project has become a way of forging new creative connections physically through traditional post as an alternative to sharing via digital platforms.

Bury Art Mail was created by artists Alison Erika Forde and Lee Crocker at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Both artists - who are also members of the Bury Art Museum team - were aware of how important drawing and mark-making can be for mental health and wellbeing and believed mail-art could be a way to keep people connected in such an isolating and troubling period, and so, Bury Art Mail was devised. A call out to the museum’s social media pages gained initial interest back in Spring 2020, and the project has been flourishing ever since.

So, what is Bury Art Mail? Alison and Lee create blank concertina books, each with a song title on the cover – music is also an inspiration behind the project. The blank sketchbook is then posted to the first Art Mailer to creatively fill two pages, through drawing or otherwise. Once completed, the book is then posted onto the next Art mailer and so on until all pages in the book are filled.

Bury Art Mail is aimed at everybody with a creative urge. People who picked up drawing for the first time at the start of the pandemic and established artists alike have participated so far. Creatives from across the UK to the Netherlands have been getting involved, and the latest batch of books will be traveling as far as Australasia! ‘In a way, it’s creating an art-based pen pal circle,’ says Alison, ‘or a mail version of the Surrealist game “exquisite corpses”, making new art connections along the way. The act of receiving the concertina books and viewing other artists work is joyful and inspiring.’

The last person the book is posted out to returns the concertina book to the art museum, which is stored in the archives. A group of the books were also exhibited during October 2021 for The Big Draw Festival, which Bury Art Museum has been a part of for the last ten years. The Big Draw is a UK based organisation which promotes drawing internationally through a community network with events and festivals. The art museum runs a yearly programme of drawing events during the October festival month.

Bury Art Museum is keen to involve more local Bury-based artists in Bury Art Mail. If this sounds like your cup of tea, or you are new to this idea and would like more information please email artgallery@bury.gov.uk with the heading BURY ART MAIL to register interest and the art museum will get back to you in due course. Stamps will be included to pass on to each artist for postage, so no need to worry about additional expenses. The theme and starting point for the next batch will focus on colour.

Visit the website page for more information: https://buryartmuseum.co.uk/Bury-Art-Mail

ENDS

Press release issued: 18/01/22.