Postcards from the Pandemic
Jonee Kulman Brigham, Full Spring Studio, LLC
2020-2022 (Currently in Progress)
Multimedia Collection
Artist Statement
>>View
I. The Postcards
Mixed Media: archival cardstock, silver pencil, inkjet photograph, paraffin, sumi ink
>>View
II. The Deliveries
Multimedia: Mailbox stage, mixed media postcards, audio, video, social media
>>View
III. The Collected Moments
Reflective essays, multimedia Installation: mailbox, postcards, video, audio, book, and other artworks are in progress.
>>Read More
Image:
“Postcards from the Pandemic: March 26, 2020”
Front and back of two-sided postcard.
Part of a series: Postcards from the Pandemic
© Full Spring Studio, LLC
Mixed media: archival cardstock, silver pencil, inkjet photograph, paraffin, sumi ink
Artist Statement
April 11, 2021
Jonee Kulman Brigham
In March of 2020, as the realization of the scale and impact of the pandemic was gradually taking hold in me, I sensed the cascading losses of certainty. Plans for the future – for my job, for social gatherings, for my children’s schooling, for what it meant to go to the store – all these were up in the air. The rituals of planning, setting goals, and meeting deadlines were suspended. Life became tentative. Time was distorted and disordered. In response, I decided to do something to reclaim what sense of normal time I could. Like a shipwreck survivor marks days on the wall of a cave, I decided to mark time based on the reliable cycles of day and night. Each day from March 21 to June 21, I decided to collect and catalog a moment with an image and an observation to create postcard vignettes of my experience. I completed this almost every day.
The postcard records were like micro-time capsules, sent from the early pandemic to a later version of myself. A year later, still in the pandemic, I thought about how I would retrieve these messages, and share them, joining with the pandemic reflections as multiple as the population. The post office delivers mail across distant geographies – from one mailbox to another. I decided I needed a mailbox to deliver mail across distant time periods. So, using a salvaged mailbox from my childhood garden, I set a stage for the postcards to be retrieved across time and remembered. After assembling my records of pandemic moments into postcards each day, I video recorded and ritualized a daily visit to receive the mail, reading the messages, and viewing the moment partially preserved in an altered photograph.
Our stories are lonely if untold. So, I forwarded this daily mail via video on social media, through Facebook and Twitter, distributing it into the digital atmosphere we share. This is currently in progress as I write this in mid-April, 2021, a day after receiving my first vaccine shot, another milestone in my timeline amidst the many personal timelines that exist inside this defining historical disruption.
First, was the impulse to record the moments for postcards to the future and send them through time. Second, – one year later – is my current retrieval, remembering, and sharing of the messages. But this is still a forwarding of the flow. The travelers have not returned from their pandemic travels. The story is not complete. And how can it be while still in the midst? But the midst has its own messages too. The tentative collection of tentative moments.
Artist’s Amendment March 2022: As the pandemic continues, so does the Artist’s Statement and the project itself, in the form of two-year anniversary essays, and a developing, exhibit, compilation video, and book take shape.
I. The Postcards (In Progress)
Mixed Media: archival cardstock, silver pencil, inkjet photograph, paraffin, sumi ink
Gallery: Click to view larger image, then use the browser back arrow to return to this page
II. The Deliveries (In Progress)
Multimedia: Mailbox stage, mixed media postcards, audio, video, social media
Video Gallery: Press play to view playlist of videos.
March 21-(ongoing addition of videos)
Jonee Kulman Brigham
Part of a series: Postcards from the Pandemic
© Full Spring Studio, LLC 2020-2022
III. The Collected Moments (In Progress)
First there was the experience, then the postcards, then the delivery of the postcards, and now re-groupings and recollections across the extended pandemic time-scape.
Monthly Essays March 2022-June-2022
Over the anniversary months of the initiation of the project, I am writing four essays that explore the meanings that emerged each March, April, May, and June. The first essay, also posted on the Full Spring Flow blog is titled, “Time Capsules: Postcards from Three Pandemic Marches.”
An exhibit, compilation video, book, and other artworks are also underway.
Follow Full Spring Studio on Twitter or Facebook for updates and to share your own pandemic reflections.