Spofford & Jones: Bent Pages
Volume #10: Per Spofford: "I began this postcards project in mid-March of 2020, the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown. As I thought about what it means to be socially distant, I also thought about how we make connections—and the ephemerality of our means of communication. I wanted to reach out, to make art, and to continue forging those connections that were so suddenly disrupted. I wanted to return to a slow process of writing, something more nurturing and physical, something to be experienced in a variety of ways. The actual creation of these pieces was somewhat difficult; I’m very much a perfectionist but I wanted the text to be as ephemeral as the medium, so I wrote each piece without revision, in one sitting, and using a typewriter, trying to embrace the process as opposed to the product. The process itself was different in particularly sensory ways—the postcards are richly textured, and the type-written text is imperfect. I mailed each postcard and that process alone added another level of physicality—not damage so much as movement and complication and disruption. I’m not even sure all the postcards arrived and, from a process standpoint, I hope some of them are lost, or perhaps torn, or perhaps arriving at unintended addresses. I don’t mind if they wander. The whole point is connection in whatever form that might take—which is how I experience writing in general, the idea that it can be what helps us relate to and connect to each other.
Our collaboration was born out of this postcard project. Barry received a postcard (his wasn’t lost in the mail!). Since much of his work is reflective and text-based, centered on connection, he chose to work within the original constraints I set myself in writing, amplifying the text that is imprinted on the page, the literal product of the process, the texture and ink. By emphasizing sections of the text, he draws attention to the slow-process of writing, asking the reader—and now viewer—to sit with what they are experiencing and facilitating an immersive environment in which to do so. As part of the Unbannable Library, this project aims to bring attention to the egalitarian nature of writing, how the act of writing is one aspect of a relationship, the other being the act of reading, how reading and writing can cross distances and time, and how there is so much beauty in even the smallest curve of a letter on a page."
All postcards Curt Teich & Co. circa 1900-1940.