(warning: the following post is filled with a heapin’ helpin’ of words and is pretty low on visuals. But don’t worry: I promise LOTS and LOTS of beautiful eye candy in future posts!)
2014 has wrapped up and I have to say that it was one of the most interesting, educational, and inspired years in recent memory. Things started out with a bang: Ex Postal Facto seemed to be the pace car, setting the bar high for mail art interactions and postal socializing (postalizing?) From there, I jumped headlong into Red Handed Rubber Stamps and all the details a new business requires: sourcing, purchasing, designing, phone calling, marketing, and a thousand-and-one other niggling details that keep a girl awake at night.
That was May 2014. Sure there was a trip to NYC and a completed artist book as well as an interview with the USPS, but for the most part I kept my head down here in San Francisco, working on a handful of pet projects that had been put aside since 2013. By the time summer arrived, I was neck-deep putting together SF Zine Fest. My fellow organizers — an incredibly talented group of writers, illustrators, and zinesters — are some of the hardest working folks I know, with a refreshing take on the DIY scene (and small press publishing in general.) It was a pleasure to work with them (once again) in 2014.
SFZF always marks the beginning of autumn for me. The event takes place on Labor Day weekend, traditionally a time associated with the end of summer and the beginning of the fall teaching semester. Just like every other year, the last few months of 2014 were booked solid: SF Correspondence Co-op meetings, workshops at SF Center for the Book, teaching in the Printmaking Department at the Academy of Art. Recently, I’ve been completely buried (once again), hard at work putting together another artist book edition for the upcoming Dig show at Central Booking in NYC (but I’ll talk about that in a different blog post.)
Looking at the above paragraphs, it’s no wonder I haven’t had much of a chance to update the RLD blog! My time has been spent getting together with other artists, working in the studio, creating things with my hands — activities which make all the (other) hard work worth it. Meeting people face-to-face is a far different interaction than sitting solitary behind a screen; 2014 showed me that I sometimes need more of one than the other, and that’s just fine.
So what does that mean for the RLD blog? Well, a bit of a re-tooling for starters — but nothing too too drastic, I promise! I’ll be trying a few things out, to see what you guys are interested in. Instead of my usual, super-wordy blog posts (do people even read that much these days?!) I’ll be posting more photos of mail art and postal related things: an occasional piece of mail, inspiring articles from around the ‘net, projects I’m working on. I’m hoping this will be a new direction of interest to all RLD readers, regardless of which side of the screen we’re sitting at.
That being said, my email inbox is always open (and my PO box too!) I love hearing your feedback, dear readers — your ideas help make a good blog even better! Back in 2009, when I started the RLD blog, it was a way for me to reach out to readers of Good Mail Day and connect with the mail art community on a deeper level. Today, I count that as a goal which has come to pass, and generated incredible interactions with each of you, on so many different levels. Together, with each letter/postcard/artwork sent and received, you and I are creating a new wave of postal Networkers. Our shared love of bonding via words, art, and writing is something I give thanks for every day.
Viva le Mail Art! (and happy new year to all!)
–JH
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