Brace yourself - this is long - but, I have no idea how to shorten it. If you are wildly excited about the project - please do not send me an email asking to participate in the next one. I have not decided where this whole *thing* is headed.
On Sept 24th, our blog post included an invitation to participate in an Add&Pass project. I do not recall why I even made the offer - it must have come out of some email conversation with someone. I have never participated in one. All I knew was that it was some kind of *thing* that people did. It had some kind of *art* that someone would start and then send to the next person, who would ADD to it and then PASS it along to the next person on the list. I think the finished piece would end up back with the person who started it. So, if 6 people each started something, they would all end up with something that had been added to, by the other 5 people on the list.
I just Googled - Add and pass art - and this was the first hit - I might do a little more searching - if I ever run out of things to do. A link - for the curious who have a lot of spare time. https://mailartbyjayne.weebly.com/blog/add-pass-creations
Having done my version of an envelope-based-Add&Pass -- I'm guessing it has never been done with envelopes. I think it is usually a piece of art that is mailed from one person to the next.
I think *we* have invented something that was wildly complicated - and yet the results were quite nice.
Five people responded that they were interested, so I put the 6 of us in alphabetical order: Amy, JeanR, JeanW, Juliana, Mary and Susan. I created a list of instructions and emailed the list and instruction to the other five people.
My first mistake.....I did not ask for confirmation that the list and instructions arrived. One person did not get the first email, so that took a while to figure out. Then JeanR and I realized that she would be relocating to her winter address so we needed to insure that we let Amy know when to start passing envelopes to Texas instead of Iowa.
To further complicate things - I got JeanR's envelope first and I put her W Des Moines address on it - and then promptly forgot that - and didn't think to tell Amy to mail it in an outer envelope when she returned it to JeanR - so it got sent to W Des Moines and JeanR is in Texas - so - we're waiting to see if it ever shows up. Her station appears to be very behind in forwarding mail.
When the envelope starts its journey - it needs to be enclosed in an outer envelope and when the 6th person receives it - and adds something....then they drop it in the mail. I also suggested that we put a piece of note paper inside the envelope so that each person who was adding something could leave a comment.
My original idea was that the last person would send the finished *art* in an outer envelope - but some of the exchangers wanted their envelope to have the patina of an actual piece of mail with a postmark. When I had Juliana's in hand, ready to return it to her - I put a very clear address on the back with another stamp - because the address on the front was black lettering on red - which I already know is not scanner friendly - and wanted to make sure it made it back to Juliana. The design was wonderful - but - I just didn't want to take any chances. I took it to the post office and had a pretty hand cancel on the front. I hoped that the machine would just scan the back and put the bar code, etc on the back - and leave the front alone. I'll ask Juliana for a photo - so we can see how it looked when it arrived at her house.
There was no instruction about what to contribute to the envelope. The person who started the envelope could put the stamp on the envelope that they started or they could just send it along and let the next person decide where to place the stamp.
There was no deadline for adding to the envelope. I figured I would just do my ADDing - on the day it arrived and PASS it along the next day. And then I fell into the trap of pondering. Sometimes it took me over a week to figure out what I wanted to do.
I sent the list on Sept 30th --- and it's Dec 31st as I write this and I have not heard from JeanR if she has gotten her envelope back -- so -- it was interesting to see that it took us 3 months to circulate the envelopes. I think 5 of us got our envelopes back in December.
Because we had some confusion in the beginning, I started to feel like this was too complicated and not that much fun and I doubted I would ever want to do it again. But... when the end results arrived - I started to feel like it might be worthwhile to do it again. I'll have to ponder and hear from those who participated on how we could improve the procedure.
I know that having anything like this going on in December is not a good idea. And I'm not sure we need 6 people - 5 people might be enough. But - that's hard to tell - on one of them - the last person did a great job of pulling things together.
Here is the envelope that I started with the Underground Railroad stamp.
Here is what each person wrote on the note that was inside the envelope as it was passed along:
I wrote:
I went with an A6 envelope so that it will fit in an A7. Happy Adding and Passing
Juliana (who added the name and address) wrote:
I think the hardest part of this is not being able to finish the envelope. There were so many ideas and I only got to choose one! I’m excited to see how these develop.
Mary wrote: Howdy! Juliana is right, it’s difficult to know where or when to stop. I added the lantern as a symbol of hope and light for the Underground Railroad. I’m looking forward to the next one. (JeanW says: Mary's use of a bold marker was an excellent choice to go with a bold stamp and the bold name and address. Juliana had such a clever way to compliment the lettering on the stamp)
Susan wrote:
When the envelope arrived, I thought it was finished, plain, simple and elegant - with much regret I added the flame, colored the candle and lined the envelope. I hope I haven’t ruined it.
Susan added apologies for dropping the Add&Pass envelope into her pallet and leaving a little blob on the back side. (JeanW says: I had not even thought about lining the envelopes - good idea)
Amy wrote that she tried to make the amber glow inside the lantern.
And finally, JeanR wrote: It’s a beautiful envelope. I made the accidental red blob into a ladybug.
JeanW's final comment: Amy and JeanW made minor additions which was a good call - and illustrates how we might not need 6 people - but - it's hard to tell how any project will go. As I have already noted - some envelopes were pulled together at the end.
I'm guessing that if we all did more of this kind of collaborative project we might generate some good ideas on what works best.
Here is the liner and JeanR's lady bug. I suggested we all put a very clear address on the back of each envelope in case the final design was hard to read. That's another whole issue to consider..... That looks like my writing - so I must have done that.
I was happy that there was a *blop* to fix. Part of a project like this is to embrace the idea that we might have some regrets. I know we will get to one where JeanR had done some testing of inks and then when she got to the actual envelope - it bamboozled her. She was not pleased - but - I thought it turned out just fine.
Maybe we should do a Make-a-Mess-Add&Pass - where certain people are assigned griffonage or scribbling. We could mask off an area for the address. Or maybe put the address on a mailing label - that the last person puts on the envelope.
Sadly - I am lapsing into that zone of ideas (too many ideas) that prevents me from doing the stuff that is urgent....
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