At night the fog was thick. In the morning it was thicker.

I used to compose big posts about what I was feeling, smelling, thinking, and seeing. We read graphic novels and kissed and fell asleep. That’ll suffice.

Me: “I know, I left my phone at home so I can’t even take a photo and edit it into a frown face.”

Boss Lady, mouth slightly ajar: “…”

02/01/13 Postcard, Mary. Letter, boyfriend.
02/02/13 Postcard, Brandy. Letter to penpal Kayla. Several Valentines.
02/03/13 Postcard, Rachael. Letter to penpal Linsey.

02/04/13 Postcard, Kristen. Letter to random Postable address Emily.
02/05/13 Postcard, Lisa. Letter to Swap-Bot (SB) partner Jennifer. Reply to SB partner Amanda.
02/06/13 Postcard, Ken. Letter to random Postable address Olivia. Reply to Kimmie.
02/07/13 Postcard, Elana. Letter to LetterMo friend Deb. Several Valentines.
02/08/13 Postcard, Michelle. Letter to SB partner Melissa.
02/09/13 :( Too busy!
02/10/13 Postcard, Charlie. Letter to SB partner Alicia.
02/11/13 Reply postcards to Roy and April. Reply letter to penpal Kaitlyn. Remaining Valentines.

02/12/13 Postcards, Kimmie and my Aunt Dina. Reply letter to Ciara.
02/13/13 Postcards, Hev and Ariane.
02/14/13 Postcards, Derek, Leslie, and Andy.
02/15/13 Postcard, my Aunt Susie. Reply letters to Melissa, Suey, and Eunice.
02/16/13 Postcard, Esthela.
02/17/13 Postcard, PB address Elizabeth. Reply letter to penpal Suzie.

02/18/13 Postcard, PB address Ali.
02/19/13 Postcards, Martin, boyfren, and reply to April. Reply letter to SB partner Jennifer.
02/20/13 Postcard, Lynn. Birthday card, Brandy. Jellybean to Sendsomething address Emma.
02/21/13 Postcard, PB address Denise.
02/22/13 Reply letters to penpals Kayla & Linsey. Reply letter to TMC.
02/23/13 Postcard, PB address Cassie. Reply letter to Karen.
02/24/13 Postcard, Rhonda.
02/25/13 Reply letter to penpal Susan.
02/26/13 Postcards, SS address Kristi and Greg. Reply letter to penpal Kimmie.
02/27/13 Postcards, PostMuse and PB address Nicole.
02/28/13 Postcards, Zachary and SS address Nathan.

I’ve taken a lot away from this.

1. Found some nice new people to write! I wasn’t really looking for penpals because I have a handful already with whom I’ve already established a nice correspondence. I really connected with some people, so it’s wonderful to have the opportunity to get to know some folks that I otherwise may never have met!
2. I don’t have a lot of time to sit down and write a bunch of people regularly. Part of the reason I wanted to participate in Letter Month was to show myself that I do, in fact, have time… if I make the time. Something of this volume has shown me that it’s best to stay around 6-8 penpals, especially as we come into the warmer months and I don’t want to spend a lot of time at home. That said, I think I’ll be much more enthusiastic about writing letters during the week or setting aside a day for replying a couple times a month. I won’t have to worry about sending another letter 3 months later, with any luck…
3. Weekends are actually the WORST time for me to set aside for letter writing. It’s much more relaxing and calm and peaceful of an evening if I do it after work. I used to try to set aside Saturday mornings for it but I found throughout this month that weekends were actually the hardest time to fit anything in because even if I was feeling lazy I still would rather have done something else.
4. I learned this a little bit doing the Fun-A-Day Exhibit in January, but making mail art for each envelope isn’t very difficult at all. Sometimes you don’t need to spend more than 15 minutes on it; sometimes you can take the time to make that hour-long envelope decoration… but in the end, every envelope that leaves my house can totally be colorful, themed, or fun. All but maybe one or two letters that were sent from work were decorated.
5. I also sent a postcard every day and I found that except for weekends this was a lot of fun! Trying to find something to say was hard, and sometimes I ended up giving the boring details of my day so far… but I think I’ll keep up with regularly sending postcards.
6. I can’t write more than 3 letters in a row. It takes so much out of me (because I’m long-winded, I guess) that it’s futile to plan to reply to more than 3 letters in one day. I somehow managed to reply to most letters immediately so I didn’t get very backed up but at one point I had Friday evening and 6 letters and then the next Friday I still had 3 of those 6 plus every other letter that came in that busy week… If I’ve got a stack, I need to remember to pace it :)
7. Letter Month didn’t totally support expanding on my “mail crazy things and art” ideas because I was too burnt out after writing so many letters to try to put something creative together, but it DID give me more addresses to send to later in the year…

In short, there’s no way I could keep up with this kind of challenge across the year unless I decided to not have a life outside of home. Letter-writing takes a lot of time and thought for me. It’ll be nice to do this again next year, though. February is the month when I start getting super antsy that it’s not warm outside yet because I’m sick of staying in! But I’m very sensitive to the cold… so having something to occupy me during that time might be helpful in the future.

My table featured the mail art I created (bulletin board, above, and some in the box on the table along with free copies of the minizines I made), as well as some supplies and tools for making mail art so that visitors to the exhibit could create something of their own and send to a friend.

Here is what I learned:

• Mail art is made to be mailed, or at least mine is. It doesn’t hold any “display” value. I didn’t like talking about it or having to explain a “concept” (or explain that this isn’t concept art, it’s just envelopes with pretty pictures, LOOK DUDE I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW YOU CAN MAIL ART OKAY?) or to even be associated with my table. Though everyone disagreed, I didn’t feel like I really belonged at that kind of exhibit.
• On that note, I could have made ‘displayable’ mail art, but I didn’t go out of my comfort zone too much. Though I had a lot of fun, I definitely approached this more as an opportunity to advertise mail art and try to get artists into mailing, and less as an opportunity to show off my art. If I do this next year, I’ll have to keep in mind how awkward it felt to tell people that the point wasn’t the art itself, but what you can do with your own.
• It’s the same reason I’ll never be one of those great bloggers who posts helpful tips regularly and on schedule and engages her readers constantly: doing every-day routines, or really even having a “routine” when it comes to art and creation, is extremely difficult for me. I’m very happy that I pushed through and did it, but I’ll admit openly that I had to catch up a bit in the week between Jan 31 and the date of the exhibit, Feb 9. I need to create in the moment, not planned, and having a deadline is EVEN WORSE.
• Making mail art is actually not incredibly time consuming unless I want it to be. Some envelopes took 15 minutes, some took an hour, but it made me realize that I can send colorful mail out every time I send a letter without inconveniencing myself too much! (This has been helpful while plowing through Letter Month, and decorating an envelope has become part of the letter-writing process!)
• The above said, having my creations in an art gallery and publicly exposing myself that way… parents, friends, boyfriend, strangers all seeing something I worked on… I’ve gained some large amount of confidence in my own artworks and have created many things since then. I’m not making every day, but just having had that boost of month-long creativity coupled with actually showing it off was enough to make me realize how much I never want to stop. :)
• By forcing myself to create, I encourage myself to create. This is different from what I just said because I was forced to work creating into my daily routine during January. I do this every year in November during Nanowrimo except the difference with that is that I’ll put my life on hold for it. Between Fun-A-Day and Letter Month, I’m teaching myself how to successfully keep creativity as a regular part of my life without ignoring my life.

On my table, I included two disposable cameras so that makers could show me what they made. Unfortunately none of them came out very well– I guess only one person decided to use flash, and it was of a Lego man at Mary‘s table, but that’s ok! It’s fun to see people having fun and interacting with the rest of the gallery.

Thanks to everyone who came out and encouraged! And thanks to Mary who took it on to babysit my table while I cowered in the corner. Until next year!