An international art exhibit that reflects on shared pandemic experiences will transcend time and place at its launch this week during Peterborough’s First Friday Art Crawl.
The Mail Art Stories Project: Mail Art in the Time of Covid-19 is an exhibit featuring a collection of decorated envelopes from creatives around the world who shared their story of life during the pandemic. The exhibit will be on display at Watson & Lou until March 23, beginning with a launch this Friday (March 1) from 6 to 10 p.m.
The project dates back to April 2020 as a collaboration between Peterborough writer Erica Richmond of Open Sky Stories and North Carolina artist and author Shannon Fitzgerald of Bold Moves Studio. The duo, who began their own friendship through correspondence as pen pals prior to the pandemic, used social media to invite submissions of mail art.
They encouraged artists to use materials they had at home — paint, glue, cardboard from a discarded cereal box, old magazines, photographs, and more — to create the works of art, and then attach a written response to share their story.
“I was astonished to find that mail art is such a huge thing that people have been doing since the 1970s,” says Richmond. “We thought it would be neat to collect this as a way of showcasing everyone’s experience by just decorating the outside of the envelope.”
Between the call for submissions and deadline in August 2021, Richmond and Fitzgerald received 119 submissions from 52 individuals across 11 countries.
With participants as young as seven years old, some submissions are from people who had never done mail art before, while others have been doing it for decades. Even the stories encompass a range of experiences including submissions from pen-pals in Spain and Sri Lanka who met during the pandemic, a child and his Nana who were unable to see each other, and a family who gathered together to create the artwork.
“The response was far greater than either of us had anticipated,” Richmond recalls. “Reading the responses showed that we were all dealing with similar things across the world, though in different ways.”
Both self-published authors, Richmond and Fitzgerald turned the collection of submissions into a coffee table book (after which the exhibit is named) published in 2022, before exhibiting it for the first time in Hillsborough, North Carolina last March.
Throughout the Watson & Lou exhibit, postcards will be available to encourage visitors to send physical pieces of mail, while posters will showcase participant responses made to survey questions.
Among other topics, responses comment on what the artist missed most about pre-pandemic living, what changed for them while living through a pandemic, and any ‘silver lining’ experiences.
“I am astounded that so much peace and healing could help my heart, just by creating a piece of mail art on a whim,” says one participant whose work is featured in the book and in the exhibit. “The pandemic seemed so huge and overwhelming … I never thought I could have a way to begin to come to terms with all the loss and suffering. I never thought peace could come from that endeavor.”
With the exhibit happening post-pandemic, when it is “distant” but still something the public recalls clearly, Richmond notes it can offer a thought-provoking experience.
“Even during the past couple weeks while pulling everything together, I was able to look back on the pandemic differently than when I was going through it and with a bit more compassion for myself,” says Richmond. “We can look at our experiences from a different mindset, while remembering the silver linings that people wrote about.”
As an example, the writer points to one submission she received from a woman who expressed that the pandemic allowed her to be able to spend more time with her husband.
“I don’t know the person who wrote that, but I wonder if they’re still spending a lot of time together,” says Richmond. “I wonder if they’ve continued to carve out time for each other, or if they’ve gone right back to regular life.”
The Mail Art Stories Project: Mail Art in the Time of Covid-19 opens on Friday, March 1st from 6 to 10 p.m. at Watson & Lou at 383 Water Street in downtown Peterborough and will remain on display at Watson & Lou store hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Saturday) until Saturday, March 23rd.
Richmond will be attending the launch of the exhibit on First Friday but, for those unable to attend the launch, she can make herself available on future dates. For more information on the Mail Art Stories Project and to contact Richmond, visit openskystories.com/mail-art-stories/.
