I’m one step closer to that comprehensive collection of decorated envelopes I have been vaguely planning- the other day my friend Amy Schoppert dropped by from Tacoma with a paper sack full of envelopes she saved from the years we sent each other snail letters (Amy is Amy Schoppert now; when I went to school with her she was Amy King, but for most of the years we corresponded she was Amy Lear. It’s complicated.). I’m in the process of scanning them all, but here are a few favorites.
Most of the envelopes in this collection fall into categories I already described in the post about letters to my friend Geoff Seaman: pictures of lovers and friends like the above image of Amy with her baby daughter, self portraits like this red/blue anagyph of me in the shower, and celebrities like Susan Sarandon (seen here in Atlantic City).
Others in the batch stretch the limits of what the post office will deliver, like this hexagonal envelope showing the kitchen of my New York apartment in isometric projection.
Among my favorites is this one from 1985 which riffs on the stamp.
A few images from my wild youth are so explicit that I wonder how they got through the mail. I won’t be posting the other side of THIS envelope.