Viva Snail Mail!

A week and a half ’til Valentine’s Day. Another valentine giving strategy is to buy some vintage valentines or, if you are a paper saver like me, raid your own childhood collection. Scan ‘em and print ‘em and send ‘em. I found these valentines at the Brooklyn Flea, which has taken up winter weekend residence in the most incredibly beautiful space, the former Williamsburg Savings Bank. The lovely woman selling valentines had her wares displayed on the marble table where many a Brooklyn resident used to fill out their deposit slips under a cathedral ceiling of mosaic and stone. Maybe you should go pay her a visit this weekend…

3 more weeks til Valentine’s Day, people. Last year I took part in two valentine making charity events. The first was hosted by Fred Flare.com. People made homemade valentines, which were sold on Fred Flare’s website and the proceeds went to Elder Craftsmen, an organization that assists senior citizens in making handmade crafts. Here are some of the submissions. Mine’s the one with the 2 boys in love on a bicycle. 

At Etsy Labs in Brooklyn, my friend Andrea Rosen and I made valentines that were included with Meals on Wheels deliveries on Valentine’s Day. Andrea is one of my favorite people to make valentines with because she is not only fun to be with, she’s the fastest crafter in the Northeast. Watching her blaze through a pile of paper is a sight to behold. Here’s us doing what we love with scissors and glue. 

Make a handmade valentine for someone who maybe least expects one.

Spread the love.

Well readers, its been a busy time here at Viva Snail Mail. Please excuse the infrequency of my blog posts- I have a new baby and she is the cutest parasite ever. While she sleeps I want to write about my favorite holiday- Valentine’s Day. I love it because I get to make homemade valentines and mail them to the people that I love. Not just my husband but my grandparents and my friends get homemade love testimonials via the post. But this simple pleasure requires some time so here’s your tip. Start now! Valentine’s Day is a month away. 

Over the years I have hosted valentine making parties at my house. Sometimes we have had combination superbowl/valentine making parties, since I have zero interest in football but love to cut paper hearts. Here’s me with the aftermath of one of these parties, sometime in the mid 1990’s.  Don’t let this photo dissuade you. You can be tidier than this if need be. I like to really spread out the collage materials for optimal sharing with my guests. 

So break out the glue stick and scissors. Start collecting colored paper from the recycling bin. Find your paper hearts. Order some stamps from usps.com. If you scan and email me your homemade valentines I will post them on the blog. Send them to melissa@vivasnailmail.com. Viva Valentines!

Have you been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam? On our way there in 2003 my husband and I stopped by one of Amsterdam’s many cafes and partook in its herbal offerings so we had a GREAT time at the museum. Recently the museum published Van Gogh’s letters in digital and bound book versions. Apparently Vincent was an avid correspondent. The web site, www.vangoghletters.org, allows you to view over 900 letters to and from Van Gogh. Its pretty fascinating, if you like to read other people’s mail.

My love of snail mail has been influenced by many people but the reverence for postcards comes most directly from my stepfather, Biskit, who turns 56 today, and is the second from the right in the photo above. 

Viva Snail Mail: Biskit, how and when did your love of postcards start?

Biskit: My friend Doug Zwick, before going to college went out to work on a cattle feedlot owned by his uncle in Oklahoma. He would send us back great classic postcards. The first I remember was “Saddling up Big Jack”, a cowboy riding a jackrabbit. And then a “jackalope” card.  We then got into the most mundane we could find as well, Pennsylvania Highway Interchanges and the like. Our group of friends, the Pastafarians, used postcards like a sort of precursor to email to stay in touch, with postcards being short poems as opposed to the prose of letters. I lived in rundown houses at college and would just pin the cards to the walls of my house. Anyone that came in my house would admire them and would of course send me postcards from their travels, whether far away or right nearby.  We also got into making cards from found objects, etc.

VSM: Did you and your friends see your postcard exchanges as a nod to any art movements or were you making it up as you went along?

Biskit: Short answer is no. We were not self-consciously giving a nod to anything, we just thought the cards were funny/interesting. We were both mocking the cards and genuinely appreciating them and then artists and great-grandmothers joined into sending us postcards.

We were definitely influenced right then by the Beat Generation poets we were reading and that not only influenced our writing on the cards, but in a way the visuals on the cards are poetry too. 

Those early exchanges in the 1970’s continued for many years, pretty much until email came along. That’s when Biskit’s postcard commitment dropped off a bit. He still had a huge postcard collection however, and so, due to my inquiries about the origins of his postcard love, Biskit was inspired to re-ignite the flow of postcards amongst his vast network of friends, the Pastafarians. He sent out an email, asking whoever wanted to take part in the Summer of Postcard Love to send him their mailing address. He then sent this mailing list to everyone interested. About 40 people participated and as a result, my husband and son and I received 67 postcards this past summer. 

This idea could be easily adapted by you and your friends. 

Here are some highlights from the Summer of Postcard Love:

Chocolate chip production at Hershey Foods Corporation from Abe.

Homemade card for my son from his aunt Allison. 

 

OK, it doesn’t have a direct connection to snail mail, beyond the ideal medium of paper, and I haven’t been to the show yet but I am still going to encourage you to go to the Museum of Arts and Design at Columbus Circle in Manhattan to see Slash: Paper Under the Knife. You just might be inspired by the range of ways that artists use paper and then take some of those ideas and make an amazing series of handmade paper cards and then send them to your friends who have forgotten the pleasures of receiving real, honest to goodness paper mail and then, comrades, you would make their friggin’ day!

In short, Viva Snail Mail!

A few years ago I saw Ramak Fazal’s show at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in Manhattan. In 2006 Fazel, a photographer of Iranian descent who is a US citizen, set out in a van to photograph state capitols and mail himself handmade postcards along the way. He used his childhood stamp collection as collage material for the postcards, sending them general delivery to the next stop on his route.

I went to the show for the postage stamp related artwork but there was so much more to Fazal’s story and experience of making the work, that the documentary film-maker in me was quite fired up by the levels of visual, cultural, and political content. Stamps! Road Trip! Photography! Being mistaken for a terrorist! Well there IS a film about Fazel’s trip, quite beautifully made from still photographs and voice over, which I hope gets expanded into a larger piece. Watch it here.

Remember how I posted a few months back about the upcoming Triboro Postmark? The one that would replace the individual neighborhood postmarks in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island? Well I have some new information. According to Bob Twombley of the USPS Triboro District’s customer relations office, outgoing mail dropped in blue boxes, started to get phased in with the Triboro postmark on August 24th. The postal service hopes to complete this transition by October 5th.  As of October 5, 2009, any outgoing mail that is placed in a blue collection box within the confines of Brooklyn, Queens, or Staten Island, will get the new “Triboro District” cancellation. However, Mr. Twombley assured me that every local postmark will remain available at the post office. If you want to have a local postmark with the town name and zip code, all you need to do is bring your outgoing mail to the post office of your choice and request it. Now who has time to stand in line for that, I do not know but it somehow takes a bit of the sting out of losing our neighborhood specificity on our outgoing mail. 

Steve Powers, aka Espo, has a beautiful project of 50 rooftop and street level murals called “Love Letter,” opening this month in Philadelphia. I am wanting to get my very pregnant self down there to see them. Here’s an article and slide show about the mural project. See you in Philly!