The postcard I wove for the Here and There project did make it to Michigan. I wrote about the adventures of making it HERE.
I love sending real mail. Cards or letters with stamps on them and maybe some artwork. Perhaps tapestry postcards are something I’ll do again.
Here and There online exhibit
The postcard exchange was through the American Tapestry Alliance and you can see the whole online show on the ATA website HERE.
Dorothy Clews (hopefully with a team of helpers!) did a tremendous amount of work to make this postcard exchange happen. In her curators intro she talked about subverting the postal system by sending these pieces of art naked through the mail—sometimes around the world.
“The ideas of value and preciousness is hard to forget when it comes to tapestry...”
That bit about our perception of tapestries being precious grabbed me. I do believe this is something we come to believe as tapestry weavers. Perhaps that has to do with the length of time it takes to make a tapestry. I have had numerous recent experiences hearing experienced tapestry weavers say some version of, “Weave Every Day.” While researching my last blog post about Archie Brennan, the Weaving Illusions videos show him not only embodying this in his 500+ life-long tapestry production, but in his discussion about just weaving anything. Practice. Work. Get it in your hands. Play with it. These are the things that I tell my own students. When I figure out how to arrange my life so I also weave every day, I’ll add that one to the list also.
So tapestry postcards definitely are a great medium for us to learn to let go of the preciousness. I’ll admit that after weaving my card (which I thought I was not that emotionally attached to), I had some difficulty letting go of it. I expected the postal employee to refuse to send it naked, but she was almost gleeful about it. Not a problem! It was flat enough and light enough to take one single stamp. Off it went. It was a good lesson in attachment for me. Let’s send more tapestry postcards. I think it does help us share, encourages us to weave, and maybe helps us understand that these objects, though fun and beautiful and even meaningful, are just things and maybe not so precious after all.
The postcards
Just click through those galleries and allow yourself to enjoy all the heres and theres. My goodness but these postcards are fascinating. What a wealth of communication in 5 x 7 inch weavings. I love how so many people interpreted their every day surroundings in tapestry. They are so varied and all so wonderful. Some are woven by people who had never woven a tapestry before, others by decades-long practitioners of the craft.
The images are all so steeped in place. Ideas about where we are, where the person we’re weaving is, how we’re connected, how we’re different, what is important to us… I just can’t get over how much I love seeing all of these images in one place. (Yes, I realize I’m a total nerd, but you’ll feel the same way if you take time to look at them.)
There are four galleries. Take a look at them all!
My Waypoints postcard
I was paired with an artist from Michigan, Shanna. My parents are both from Michigan and I spent some time in my childhood on Lake Michigan near Sleeping Bear Dunes. My grandfather’s family owned a cottage on Glen Lake and there were a few summers where my parents loaded us up into a huge boat of a blue Ford and drove us from New Mexico to Michigan for a week at the lake. We always got a parasite-caused annoyance called “the itch”. Our parents attempt to avoid children with bites all over their legs was to cover our legs with gobs of Vaseline. What a mess that must have been. Fortunately my memories are fun ones of playing with cousins and visiting the sand dunes.
So when I realized my partner was from this area of Michigan, I was pretty thrilled. I hatched a whole plan about the tapestry I was going to weave, but it didn’t happen. I’m working on the design and I’ll weave it next year. The tapestry posted here is what happened instead.
Shanna did receive the postcard and she sent me the photos below. They make me miss Michigan!
Tapestry postcard, Waypoints, by Rebecca Mezoff. photo: Shanna Robinson
Tapestry postcard, Waypoints, by Rebecca Mezoff. photo: Shanna Robinson
The cancelled postcard is clear evidence that I did not read the instructions clearly enough. The postcard was supposed to be sent and received by October 15th and the recipient was supposed to take the photos for the online show. I missed the boat by a bit there.
Cancelled postcard after arriving in Michigan
Other postcard exchange projects can be found at these links:
Do you have links for other postcard projects? Please leave them in the comments! There was a great international postcard show some years ago in Oaxaca but I can’t find a gallery post of it. Please share if you know where that is!