Saturday, May 22, 2021, 2pm at the Greenbelt Nature Center, 700 Rockland Ave, SINY 10314

NYSAI Press and Staten Island OutLOUD co-host this fun & free workshop

Mail art is for everyone, whether you’re a trained artist, or if you’re just starting to explore your creative interests. It’s not art hanging in a gallery, it’s art that anybody can share via regular mail. It’s free. It doesn’t hang in a gallery, and you don’t have to buy a ticket. Mail art is whatever you want it to be.

Our workshop will show you how! We’ll provide paper, pens & markers, images, scissors & glue, you name it: we’ll even have a stack of junk mail, or bring your own! We’ll keep everything COVID safe & sanitized.

This spring and summer, NYSAI joins Staten Island OutLOUD to present a series of free community events celebrating the life and work of Emily Dickinson. A renegade poet and mail artist, Dickinson wrote with “found paper”, whatever scraps she happened to find. She distributed her poetry via mail — sometimes tucking her verses into a basket of baked goods, or other whimsical delivery modes. In this spirit, we invite Islanders to respond to Emily‘s poetry with 21st century found paper: junk mail.Here’s your chance to share your poetry and save the planet by recycling your junk mail.

Here’s how it works: Grab a piece of junk mail and an Emily Dickinson line or poem. Write an Emily quote on your junk mail. If you feel like it, or cut out some printed words or pictures, and glue them together. Get creative!

Bring your piece of mail art to one of our drop-off locations: Stapleton Library, St. George Library, ETG Book Cafe, Greenbelt Nature Center, or the Conference House Visitors Center.

Then email your name and mailing address to wecarryus@gmail.com.We’ll send your mail art creation to some lucky Staten Islander, and you in turn will receive a piece of mail art yourself.