Although there's the performance looming, and yes its existed in an entirely different order everyday this week, I have decided to share with you something else.
I received two letters today- I posted them to myself from Sandon back to Hertford. Last week I did the reverse and opened two more letters in Sandon. They are not letters however but drawings, mark making if you like.
I think I mentioned this method a few weeks ago, well the exchange is up and running. The idea came out of the journeys I make between my studio in the village which was my ‘home’ and ‘home’ and then what was my ‘old home’ to what is now my ‘home’. And that both addresses are still associated with me. You never manage, however hard you try to stop some of your mail still going to your parents… unless they move I guess.
It comes from feeling very distant from somewhere at times yet in terms of location and physicality it being quite close. Then there’s the ridiculousness of posting this letter to myself when really I could drive it between the places, I often do this, explore the insane, the unordinary and awkward, the very reason for doing something purely because normally you wouldn’t.
It also attempts to celebrate the use of the post box, the royal mail, and the nostalgia of receiving a letter. Further more and initially it also came out of this idea of remembering and those addresses and telephones number that almost become embedded in your memory and what it would feel like to suddenly forget them and the resulting anxiety then in ensuring this doesn’t happen. In particular I have been focusing on my parents address and phone number, which were also my own growing up and between the age of 8 and 19.
These ‘accidental drawings’ are created by the marks made during the process of the letters traveling from one location to the next, and therefore also attempt to visual the journey between one ‘home’ and another.
