Mail Art

For this mail art project, I knew I wanted to do something that would involve the receiver. In today’s age of technology, mail isn’t something we often receive from friends and family for fun. However, when we do get mail, it’s always an exciting little treat. So for this project, I decided to send everyone a more or less hand-made puzzle.

To me, the envelop itself wasn’t really important, it was the contents. Therefore I didn’t put any artwork on the envelope. For the artwork itself, I didn’t want to create anything too complex and rendered – instead merely a simple doodle. Originally, I wanted to do doodles that depicted cityscapes. At first I thought about this scene in 500 Days of Summerwhere he draws a street corner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=angNn9Pmk0s). Then I remembered another doodle like city scape that the protagonist in It’s Kind of a Funny Storydoes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_uBF2AUX0k). I liked the idea of doodling cities that both these clips presented; however, in the end I wanted to do something flatter and more graphic look. I ended up coming across the illustrator Che Kumar (https://cheism.com/#/chili-kiwi-1/)who embodies a very similar to style that I was after. I like how you can get lost in the lines and it becomes a bit chaotic, reminding me of a Where’s Waldo illustration. 

 

Since I knew I wanted these to be a puzzle, I didn’t want there to be a clear focal point that the receiver could easily figure out before even putting the puzzle together. I wanted the receiver to need to put the pieces together in order to see the entire piece. Therefore, my doodle subjects expanded from cityscapes, to illustrative landscapes in general, to miscellaneous patterns.

Craig’s “brain doodles” from It’s Kind of a Funny Storyand Kumar’s illustrations encouraged me to do color, but after completing the illustrations, I decided against it thinking that the color would make the puzzle too easy to solve and might curl the ends of the paper so much that the receiver wouldn’t be able to fit the cut pieces of paper together properly. 

Instead I decided to back the illustrations on brightly colored paper. This also worked to solve a technical error. I planned on writing a note of some sort on the back, but once I found out that the ink would blead through to the back of the paper, I knew I would have to paste on another sheet of paper anyways.

The quote on the back of the paper is meant to not only encourage the receiver to put the pieces together when they get their letter (instead of merely accepting the art pieces as a bunch of cut up pieces of paper), but also reinforce the theme of the piece.

I want the viewer to have to take a pause in their day. College life is busy, especially during this time of year, but one of the most impotant things I’ve been learning is to be more present in what’s going on around myself. I’ve found that it helps bring a sense of calmness to my day, remembering to be present every now and then throughout my day. By putting together this puzzle, the receiver is forced to stop whatever they are doing or thinking about, and partake in the art piece. 

The quote pasted on the back of the piece is from the film The Switch -- I couldn't find the quote anywhere online :(  The protagonist uses variations of this quote at the introduction and conclusion of this film. The general message of it being that we all need to slow down a little and stop constantly planning for the future, and instead appreciate all the unexpected, great things that can happen in life – things that have the power to derail our planned future entirely.