Mail Art in the Time of Plague

I knew someone would be sending me a plague doctor postcard — I’ve been seeing that image in my head for months.  Of course, I am not the only one drawing masks on postage stamps.  I received a postcard from Gina Visione (1).  Peter Müller (2) reminds us to pray to Saint Corona. Gregg Biggs (3) latest offering from the Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera features two ladies who are all dressed up with nowhere to go.  And the latest piece from Kathy Barnett (4) just cracked me up — thank you!

The volume of mail art has unsurprisingly declined.  I have read that the movement of mail between some countries is barely happening if at all. 

 

I have avoided trips to check my post office box.  San Francisco has closed some streets to through traffic.  I now can walk all the way up Page Street to Clayton Street and easily get to my post office branch and practice social distancing. I can order stamps online or wait to buy them from the postal staff.  They are also wearing masks and are relatively safely behind new Plexiglas shields.  

The problem is the narrow passage to my post office box way in the back.  It’s a room where social distancing is impossible.  The few times I have gone up there, I have always had to ask someone to leave the post office so I can get to my box.  Some of us go in, key at the ready, open, mail in bag, shut and lock and get out the door.  But then there are the other post office boxholder types.  Every post office has them.  The post office is their reading and sorting room where they need to spend 20 minutes examining every piece of mail, including random junk mail, before they exit the building.  No pandemic will get them to change their habits.  I get glared at every time I ask one of them leave.  At this point, I do not apologize for offending them.  I imagine long hallways in their Victorian flats with piles and piles of old magazines and newspapers — because one day, maybe, they will need to disturb the silver fish and find that October 1983 issue of The Nation.

Meximail

Last month, when I was in Mexico I picked up these geography-themed loteria sets at a 25 Peso store.  I was trying to think of way to use them in some mail art — then I saw this story about how the Mayans invented a rare shade of blue.  That got me started, it was going to have to be about blue.  A series of pyramids were painted on the backs of the loteria cards.  Too delicate for postcards, they ended up in envelopes. This series is being mailed out this afternoon.

Museum of Latin American Art

I always like discovering a “new” museum when I head to Southern California and also appreciate my NARM privileges.  Today was my first visit to the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach.  The Nickolas Muray photos of Frida Kahlo are stunning.  It is a small how, but that alone was worth a visit to the museum.  Before today, Frank Romero’s art was something I only really knew from books and online.  It was great to see a large-scale retrospective of his diverse body of work.  Check out the links for both shows.

There are plenty of big name museums in the Los Angeles area, but it is always worth exploring some the smaller ones as well, today’s trip to Long Beach was a good example.