Peterborough writer Erica Richmond is about to release a book featuring mail art collected during the first 18 months of the pandemic.
Richmond collaborated with artist and author Shannon Fitzgerald of Hillsborough, North Carolina on The Mail Art Stories Project: Mail Art in the Time of Covid-19, which showcases 119 decorated envelopes and postcards received from 52 people from 11 different countries around the world.
Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, began in the 1960s when artists sent postcards inscribed with poems or drawings through the mail rather than exhibiting them. It has since developed into a global movement that continues today.
Richmond, founder of Open Sky Stories in Peterborough, partnered with Fitzgerald of Bold Moves Studios in April 2020 to ask people to share their stories of life during the pandemic, by mailing pieces of art with the suggested addition of three words or phrases.
“Early in the first lockdown, I sat in my house and contemplated how I might be able to help others who were feeling isolated and scared around the world,” Fitzgerald says in a media release. “That’s how the idea for this project was born.”
Over the next 18 months, Richmond and Fitzgerald mailboxes became “vessels of heartache, celebration, and much desired connection,” according to the media release.
“In all the stories that were shared, there was an overwhelming cry for connection that often felt met by this simple act of sending mail to complete strangers,” Richmond says.
While some of the submissions were from people experienced with mail art, others were creating it for the first time.
Richmond and Fitzgerald received submissions from people who became pen pals during the pandemic and chose to participate together, from a family who created mail art as a team, and from a young boy and his grandmother who were missing each other.
The Mail Art Stories Project: Mail Art in the Time of Covid-19 will be released on Wednesday (April 20) and can be purchased through Amazon, openskystories.com, or boldmovesstudio.com. The book will also soon be available through any bookstore through the independent publishing platform IngramSpark.
