In one week, three related messages arrived in my mailbox:

• A new member of ARTdecos asked for a little help with the anxiety of creating decos, and then sending them off without ever knowing if or when they will come home.

• A long time member of the same group discussed with me her own struggle with random swapping. Although she loves creating and sharing with the group, she needs more of a guarantee that all her work will come home again.

• A newsletter subscriber asked me to talk letting go of work. She said sometimes when she’s working on swaps, she has a hard time letting someone else have work that she really likes.

These messages started me thinking about art swapping, collaborative projects and trust. I thought I’d try to put these thoughts down in writing, in hopes that they’ll help some of you who are struggling with the same issues find a way to get past them—or at the very least, laugh at them.

Why Swap Art?

For any artist, there must be a certain amount of practice and experimentation. Artistic growth doesn’t happen by just thinking about art. If you are to grow as an artist, you must produce artwork! Swaps and collaborative projects offer a reason to make a specific piece, some guidelines to provide a challenge, a deadline to spur us on to complete the piece in a timely manner, and the opportunity to view others work.

Ask yourself why you swap art. Do you enjoy creating swap pieces? Do you push yourself to try something new with each piece, or to learn something from each work you finish? Do you enjoy seeing the work of other artists? What are you trying to gain from this experience? Understanding your motivation for doing the work in the first place will make it easier to let it go and fulfill its destiny.

For me, swap art is made for a couple of reasons. First, I am deadline driven. I work better and faster when I have a definite deadline to meet. I can dawdle for months over personal projects (like the time shrine that’s been hanging on my wall half finished since December), but for the most part, I make and mail swap items on or before the deadline dates like clockwork. Since I know I’m deadline driven, I use that to trick myself into making more art, and making it faster. Swapping art prompts me to make art regularly.

Second, swapping art means when I send something of mine, in return I get some real artwork from someone else to hold, look at from every angle, and contemplate at my leisure. While it’s perfectly fine to lock myself in my studio and produce art night and day, I do think it’s helpful to occasionally take a look at someone else’s stuff. I’m inclined to be a bit of a hermit, so it’s good for me to have regular packages of art from the outside world delivered to my doorstep. Swapping art keeps me in touch with what other artists are doing, and lets me get up close and personal with their work.

Crazy as it sounds, one way to learn to let go of your art is to make more of it! A perfect card that’s a one-of-a-kind is hard to give up. A line of a dozen identical cards—well, I can send in the ten I need for my swap, and still have two to keep. Any two cards can stay with me. If absolutely necessary, I can line them up and pick what I think are the best two from my twelve identical cards, and keep those. If I am particularly fond of a design as it’s coming together, or if the items I’m making are not complex, I tend to make them in multiples. This is particularly true of ATCs and cards—making several is just as fast as making one in most cases, and it’s nice to have those extras around.

I also think it gets easier to say goodbye to your work after you have a regular schedule of both creating it and swapping it. After a while, you start to notice how much artwork you’re producing, and how impossibly full your work room would be if it all stayed home. I often let my swap work pile up, since I try to mail only once a week, on Mondays. Along about Sunday afternoon, I start talking to certain pieces: “You girls have got to move out and find yourselves a new home, because I’m starting to feel a little cramped here!”

Your Personal Safety Zone

I’m currently in an enviable position when it comes to most types of swapping. I’ve hosted every altered book round robin in which I’ve participated for the last two years. I moderate the only group in which I swap decos. When I swap ATCs, I generally host the project. Perhaps it’s easier for me to let go of my art because I’m working in safer environments, and trust the people with whom I’m working. I’ve arranged my swap life so that I feel more comfortable—sometimes, that’s what it takes to let go.

If you’re stressed about sending your own swap art out, ask yourself why. Are you new to swapping? Find yourself some online friends who are old hands at it, and get some tips from them. If you’re unsure of what to expect, or what happens next, just ask. As a host, I always try to find out about the experience level of my players, and if there are newbies, I give more instruction and am prepared to answer more questions. Are you new to the group in which you’re swapping? Get to know the people with whom you’re working before the mailing date. Something as simple as sending out a message to the group saying you’d like to get to know them will bring plenty of responses. When I host altered book projects, I do everything I can to get the group talking to each other before we mail. This really lowers the anxiety level, and I also believe it makes for more responsible players—it’s much harder to flake out on a project when you’re playing with a group of friends than it is with a group of complete strangers.

Find your personal safety zone, and swap your art within it. I will do collection projects until the cows come home with a certain group, but it might be a long while before send out another travelling journal there. Why? Because I’ve had plenty of successful collection projects there, but my one and only travelling project was lost. I feel uncomfortable and protective when I think of sending out another travelling journal there—it’s no longer in my safety zone. I’ll have to think about what I can do to feel more comfortable about this. Maybe the solution is to only invite people I know to participate? Maybe I limit the project to only people in the United States, since the problems arose overseas? Maybe I just have to work harder to tell myself that once that travelling item leaves here, I really have to let go of the idea that it will ever come home!

There Is No Equity In Swapping

I often read messages from people who are looking for swap equity. There’s no such thing! When swapping artwork, you send in your best efforts, and take your chances with your returns. There are all sorts of variations on this particular theme, and I have smart-assed answers for all of them:

Q. If I send something out to someone on this random mailing list, how do I know I’ll get something in return?

A. You don’t. Random mailing is just that—random. You send your mail, and you take your chances. If you want a guarantee, arrange a face-to-face meeting with another artist, and only give her your piece after she gives you hers, and it passes inspection. Good luck arranging a second swap!

Q. If I send my deco out into the world, how do I know it will come back?

A. You don’t. Doing mail art means taking a risk. Sure, you can minimize it a little—only swapping with people you know, or only swapping in a round robin project. Even then, people drop out, lose their minds, or have life play through while they’re making other plans. Part of the joy of deco swapping is the not knowing. You never know when a finished piece will arrive home, or where it has travelled. Embrace this. Find joy in the creating, not in the having. The alternative is to find a handful of deco artists who will agree to be locked in a room for a day. Each of you makes a deco and hands it to the artist next to you. Keep passing them until your own deco returns to you. Kinda pales in comparisson to sending it around the world, but if all you want is a finished booklet, you’ve acheived your goal!

Q. How can I be sure the artwork I receive in a swap is as good as mine? I don’t want crappy returns!

A. You can’t. If you want a guarantee of great artwork, go to a gallery and buy it, or only swap with artists whose work passes your inspection. When you swap, you do your best work, and assume that everyone who is participating is also doing her best work. If that’s not good enough for you, don’t swap.

(I think you get the general idea…)

Art vs. Swap Art?

What’s the difference between making art for swaps and making it for yourself? For me, the answer is nothing. When I made art for swaps, round robins, or collaborative projects, I don’t really differentiate between art that’s going to come home some day, and art that I’ll never see again. I produce the same amount of work and the same quality whether I’m working in my own altered book or someone else’s. I don’t think about whether I get to keep it or not—for me, the joy is in the making, not in the having.

Now, before someone goes out and nominates me for artistic sainthood for that last sentence (please don’t—you’ll be struck by lightening immediately), let me say that I religiously scan each and every piece of work I do before I send it away. This includes work that should eventually come home to me, like my decos and round robin books. When I scan these items, I’m documenting what I’ve done, which really does make it easier for me to let them go. Even if I never see these things again, I have something to show for my work. I have an image—something to post on my site and share with all of you.

Since I am also a ridiculously prolific artist, I cannot possibly keep all this artwork at home. I have a 1250 square foot home, and I promised myself when I bought it that the walls would be filled with my own artwork. Gradually, I’m filling them. If all the artwork I did last year had stayed home instead of going out in swaps, I’d have to get a bigger house. Sending the art away gives me space to make more of it. Swapping allows me to create without worrying where I’m going to put the finished piece. It’s liberation.

The Big Bonfire

I had a series of unforgiving art teachers when I was in school—my favorite was one who used to come by and scribble on a new sheet of art paper if I left it unworked for too long. He used to say, “There, now it’s not virginal and pristine any more, so get on with it”. Recently I read a message that put them all to shame. An artist posted that when she was a student, one of her teachers had her do a series of drawings that required a great deal of time, thought and work. When they were complete, the teacher had her burn them, in order to help her learn to let go of her finished work. This sounds harsh, but it also illustrates an essential thought: when you’re finished with a piece, be finished with it. Don’t fawn over it or dwell on it. Close the book and move on.

It doesn’t matter what you created yesterday—what are you creating today?