Lately I’ve been focused on the mail art project I started last July. I am learning that there are seasons for planting and seasons for blooming and that there’s not much sense in beating myself up for not being able to make those two things happen simultaneously. In 2023, I started many projects and stressed about my seeming inability to complete any of them. Reassuringly, in Q1 of 2024, I wrapped several of these including a quilt, a series of paintings, and the first edition of a mail art project I’m calling Garment Samples.
Garment Samples truly started back in 2021 when I bought a stack of vintage photos of clothing samples from Galerie Monastiraki. They were liquidating stock in preparation for the closure of their beloved Saint-Laurent boulevard storefront. I had no idea what I was going to make with the photos at the time. Just knew I had to have them.
Fast forward exactly two years later. I’ve started this Substack and decided I will use the photographs to make mail art pieces for Patron-level subscribers. The first format I tried out was inspired by the denim edition Ruby Webb made for the mailable exhibition Rhythm last year:
After some initial experimentation, this project took a backseat as I worked on other things. But I picked it back up in early February of this year, eager to complete the first prototype. Two back-to-back photographs were sandwiched and sewn in place between two layers of warm yellow canvas left over from a previous work. The same thing was done with colourful patterned paper in the upper corner—a spot to easily stick a postage stamp. I filled the remaining surface area with various swatches from my fabric stash to go along with the garment sample theme.
While I quite enjoyed the look of this first attempt, I didn’t enjoy how it felt to hold. The side with the photographs sewn into it was rigid while the other side was flimsy. This imbalance, as well as the size, felt awkward and insubstantial.
A breakthrough came when I played around and folded the piece in half. This led to a new prototype which used four photographs instead of two and folded down the centre. Much more satisfying to hold and interact with.
For the sealing of the three open sides, I returned to the technique I used for the collaborative work Calendar: April 2020—sewing the edges shut and having the recipient remove the stitches in order to reveal the contents inside.
This time, the stitches are hand-sewn with pearl cotton thread rather than machine-sewn. After testing this prototype by mailing it to myself, I put a small edition of ten into production. The giant stack of garment photos included ones with yellow, pink, white, and grey tones. For this edition, I chose photographs that had a yellow-y tint to coordinate with the fabric.
The Practising Patrons’ pieces have been stitched and mailed, and the remaining works from the edition are now available via my website.
Fuel (4 sources of energy)
[videos] The Minimal Mom YouTube channel. When I tell you this woman has changed my life…
[podcast] Senders Receive: Making Mail / Sending Art with Jennie Hinchcliff, especially the fifteenth and final episode about the artist Ray Johnson who is often referred to as the founder of contemporary mail art.
[podcast] We Can Do Hard Things. Two recent episodes:
[art fair] Looking forward to my annual tradition of attending Plural (fka Papier) mid-April. In past years I’ve posted round-ups of my favourite works from the fair on Instagram, but as I am trying to distance myself from that platform, I’ll probably share my 2024 round-up in my next letter instead!
Paid subscribers, please read on below for a first look at something else I’ve been working on. Free subscribers, I appreciate you so much. Take care till next time.
xx Clara
P.S. As I was drafting this newsletter it dawned on me that the pants from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants could be considered mail art.
P.P.S. Also while researching I came across this fun tidbit: Elvis Presley had a hit song in 1962 called “Return to Sender” about a guy who sends out love letters that keep getting returned to him unopened. In 1993, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative Elvis stamp. Many fans bought the stamps and sent their envelopes to fictitious addresses so that they would get "return to sender" postmarks on their mail.
“Every once in a while, someone will mail me a single popcorn kernel that didn’t pop. I’ll get out a fresh kernel, tape it to a piece of paper and mail it back to them.”
— Orville Redenbacher
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