An exciting Mail Art call

Over on the International Union of Mail Artists’ (IUOMA) website, a mail art “call” has recently been posted…

(a call is basically an invitation to mail artists to participate in making and sending mail art to a provided address, for use in a specific exhibition, project, thesis presentation, etcetera. Often there are rules, such as size, or medium, or a theme for the mail art project…)

The call that caught my attention tonight was from one IUOMA member who is “Helping to Start a Permanent exhibition on the most remote and isolated Island on the planet : TRISTAN DA CUNHA”

What a MARVELOUS place to send mail art! Just look at the ADDRESS we all get to use:

Post Office & Philatelic Bureau
Edinburgh of the Seven Seas,
Tristan da Cunha,
TDCU 1ZZ
South Atlantic Ocean 

Have you ever sent mail to a dreamier address than this? Imagine, not even a country but an Ocean for an address! It’s almost as good as sending a letter to Peter Pan (“Second star to the right, and straight on till morning…)

N.B. Tristan da Cunha is part of the group of islands known, collectively, as the “British Overseas Territory of St Helena, Ascencion, and Tristan da Cunha”

There is a settlement, known as The Settlement, and a Post Office on the island. Although they have internet, the Post and the arrival of the mail is still a very important aspect of everyday life. Look at these recent postage stamps…

“Hitting the gong heralds the news that the long-awaited post is ready for collection by Islanders in the Prince Philip Hall.”

“Post Office staff read out recipients of mail, and a family member comes forward to collect it “)

The Mail Art Project is to send some artwork to a permanent exhibition on the Island for the locals who live there, and for all who visit the Island.

No Limitation on Themes, Size, or Number of works. Just send mail art. It’s very different from penpals, or letter writing clubs—you’re not writing a letter, and the point is not to get to know anyone, although after some time friendships are built on a steady backing-and-forthing of mail art.

Best think of it as an open and inclusive art exchange, made possible by the International Postal network, where art has no price tag or monetary value, and money is not a motivating factor at all. For a feel of what mail art is, you can browse Wikipedia’s Mail Art or IUOMA’s Start Here page.

If you’re curious about the mail art scene, this is a great first call to respond to (unfortunately, you probably won’t get mail art back…unless some local gets it in his/her head to reply…well you never know!) and a fantastic address to write to. Imagine the locals looking through what you have sent, and imagine the few visitors to the island enjoying the fact that somewhere in the tiny Post Office there is this exhibition of postal art from around the world.

Go on, make something and send it to the village of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, you know you want to.

P.S. despite the “badge’ and all this talk of membership, anyone can join IUOMA …all welcome, no experience necessary… IUOMA

Can’t believe I’m doing this again, so soon…

Letter No. 8  http://www.Patreon.com/scarletletterbox

A letter about the sudden compulsion to buy a bus ticket to New York—”What a lark! What a plunge!”— when I (probably) should have been visiting all my relatives in Virginia, listening to the clan gossip, and diplomatically dodging any pointed questions about my family…

This letter’s print run was the same as last month’s. That’s okay, since I can’t add anyone on at this point, I had just enough printed to send to current patrons. As I warm to the idea of doing this full time, and to using Patreon as my homebase, my ideas for future letters are getting bolder, more heavily illustrated, and more experimental in format. http://www.Patreon.com/scarletletterbox

I can’t do back issues, because of Patreon’s system. Print quantities are for current patrons, you must be signed up before the 30th of the month, and the mail goes out on the 5th of the following month. It waits for nobody, comes back for nobody, repeats for nobody…this is not a drill, it’s a rocket to Mars, baby!

If you missed this one and don’t want to miss the next issue, please consider subscribing!

For the price of a coffee break, you get a beautiful letter in the mail, illustrated and (I hope! I try!) well-written, with calligraphy and postage stamps and wax seals and little gifts included, each month. And you don’t have to write back. Sign up for as long as you like, unsubscribe at any time.

You can even ask me to send the letters to someone that you should probably be writing to, but just can’t seem to get around to doing it. It’s not the same as a personal letter that you wrote, but it can still be very exciting to receive a beautifully addressed envelope, knowing that each month’s letter is a present from you.

All right, that’s enough, I know you know the routine. This little piggy has hustled enough for tonight!

Going…going…

Outgoing mail, in the company of my journal pages from Haiti, the Baron Samedi (His Purple Majesty), a goat’s skull I found on a city sidewalk in Darwin (waaaay more bizarre than if I’d found it in South America somewhere…) and our homemade Elegguá (in some ways, the star of my letter).

The letter “Cemetery Story” will no longer be available by end of day (ACST, UTC +9:30) on October 30, so if you enjoy slightly morbid stories about visits to cemeteries, or are famiiar with the Lucumí, Mayombe, or vodoun religions that traveled with the diaspora from Africa to the Americas via the African Trans-Atlantic slave trade, then today is your last chance to sign up to Patreon and receive this issue of The Scarlet Letterbox.

{Become my patron for $9 a month…}

The letter is a little longer than usual, but I’m reluctant to amputate any more of it than I already have, so this letter will have an extra page of writing, so I can finish telling the story! The envelope has been printed by hand, using a homemade rubber stamp, in black and gold inks.  I’ve also slipped a postcard of my interpretation of Baron Samedi’s vevé, a design particular to Haitian vodoun, into the envelope.

On the Patreon site, patrons will have access to my favourite poem on the subject of death…(it’s not what you think—it’s a humorous, wonderful poem that totally celebrates the fact that life and death are yin and yang, each wrapped in the other’s embrace, both natural and desirable) as well as photos of some of the people, places, and things that I mention in my letter.

By the pricking of my thumbs,
something wicked this way comes.

I’m still waiting for my new phone (La la la…’nuff said…so boring) and so text and photos taken with my old DSLR are all I can offer on the Patreon site, for now. It’s coming, though…it’s coming…it’s very close…I can feel its presence…it may even be in Australia by now…

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¿Why can’t I do ‘back issues’, anymore?

The thing with Patreon’s set-up is that I can’t charge individual patrons for individual letters. These days, when I publish a “paid post”, all of my patrons get charged at one time, for the same letter. It’s too confusing to charge everyone, but for different letters.

“Oh, that way madness lies…”

When November’s postal train pulls away from the station on the 1st, that’s it; you may sign up for Patreon any time in November, but you’ll be waiting for December’s letter car to pull up.

If you want a previous month’s letter, I can make that “back issue” available to you, over in my Etsy shop (provided I have copies left) but you can’t get it as part of your Patreon patronage, anymore, because the only time I’ll publish a “paid post” will be when the next letter is ready for mailing out. Besides, I’m now ordering the minimum quantity of printed copies, just to cover the current month’s number of subscribers…

Cemetery story

Here I am, carving a rubber stamp for next letter’s hand-printed envelopes…this is the one and only test video I made for Patreon, before my iPhone went for a swim in the saltwater harbour (*sob*)

The motifs are directly from Ta Makuende Yaya, a key book about Palo Monte, the Congo religion that slaves brought with them to Cuba. It was one of the first books I bought and read while I was in Venezuela, learning Spanish (June-October 2015).

In Venezuela, Palo had been given a bad name because it was linked to a rash of grave robbing. Residents in the capital of Caracas claimed that many of the graves at Caracas’ Southern General Cemetery had been pried open to have their contents removed for use in Palo ceremonies.

The relationship between this juicy snippet, and my letter, is one of very loose association:

I write about my quest to a Colombian cemetery for a specific ingredient, and how a misunderstanding  with the gravedigger results in my coming home with something unexpected…

There’s still time to become my subscriber on Patreon, and be among the people who will receive this crazy story as a beautiful letter in the mail, along with a freshly-printed new postcard design: Voudoun’s Baron Samedi!

Cut-off date for this letter is October 30.

and what’s this button?…oops…

 

Hey! Heeey Everybodyyyyy!

✉I’ve launched my Patreon Page!*✍

Kinda by accident…I was hovering over the LAUNCH button, thinking, “I should read it through just one more time…” but oops, touched it, and ZING! A screen of confetti announced that the page was live. Darn. Oh well…no time like the present!

And guess what? There was already one patron there! Nine hours before I launched, somebody had signed up. HOW COOL IS THAT?! My very own personal Medici. I feel all warm and tingly! What a compliment! In Philippine culture, she’s the one we call the buena mano, literally ‘the good hand’, my Lady Luck. It’s awesome to not have to start from zero!

I couldn’t be prouder if I’d just got myself a snazzy apartment. Please drop in some time…even if you don’t want to join up, just have a look around and tell me what you think of the set up. Were you familiar with Patreon before this? Do you support some creators on there, already? Who are they, and what do they do?

Yeesh! I’m excited!

*  Launched much later than I had planned, because of a little accident today… I fell into the sea…with my phone in my pocket. It’s dead. Like, ‘dead’ dead… Pretty upset because I promised videos and stuff on Patreon. I am working on a replacement…luckily I have savings, but there goes the travel fund! *sniff*

The Scarlet Letterbox is moving…

I’m just a few weeks away from moving The Scarlet Letterbox to Patreon.

I like that artists created Patreon for other artists (Jack Conte is, together with wife Nataly Dawn, one-half of the band Pomplamoose…music that I was somewhat obsessed with, 10 years ago).

As “beautiful monthly letters combining my art and creative writing with postal paraphernalia”, The Scarlet Letterbox is well suited to Patreon’s ‘pay per project’ plan: You can sign up for as little or as long as you want, and pay for each letter, one at a time (rather than several months up front.) It’ll be easier for me to organize each mail-out, because Patreon keeps track of the activity surrounding each letter issue.
Patreon can help create a better rapport between artists and their supporters.

At the moment, aside from the actual letters, I don’t share much with my subscribers because Etsy is a conventional online marketplace…it wasn’t designed to process recurring payment, or to nurture community. Patreon, on the other hand, is all about community.

I don’t mean there’s some ready-made crowd of pledge-happy “Patreon community”people waiting for me! Patreon is not a promoter or social media “influencer”; it’s not a team of marketing experts who will selflessly volunteer their time to spread the word about me; it’s not their job to care about what I do, whether I sink or swim. They won’t be getting my work “out there”, or attracting potential patrons to my Patreon page. Patreon is a subscription-based payment processing site. That’s it.

It’s my job to find my own supporters, to spread the word, to advertise, to care and hustle and be passionate about it, and make it grow. In order to make this work properly, I have to dedicate much more time to The Scarlet Letterbox.

As luck would have it, my employers are cutting my work down to 9 hours (about $160) a week. While the pay’s not great, it’s the waste of precious time that really disturbs me. I row, and then cycle, to work: I’ll spend nearly an hour getting there and, before I know it, it’ll be time to cycle and row home again…a two-hour commute in order to work for three. Sometimes the huge tides trap me ashore for half a day, and I have to wait till there’s enough water to float my dinghy. I can’t afford that kind of dead time, sitting on land, waiting for the sea to turn around and come back! It’s not as though I knit!

This is the push I needed to quit my day job and do my own thing, I guess. I can’t fall much lower than the proffered $160 per week, after all…there’s not that much of a distance left to fall! At least, by writing stories, illustrating, painting, embroidering, bookbinding, and creating beautiful letters, I’ll be doing something that I love, full time.

My Patreon page is set to open sometime around the first week of October (which is also my last week at the day job.)

More information on this blog, closer to the date.

I hope that if you’ve ever been interested in The Scarlet Letterbox, you’ll consider taking a second look at what I’m doing, now that

fabulous letter = the price of a coffee and croissant, per month