Artist Statement:
These 4″ x 6″ postcard-sized images were made with pen and ink drawings on watercolor paper. They are part of an ongoing mail art project to produce physical artifacts for the expressed purpose of travel and processing by the United States Postal Service.
The title of each piece is a phrase first written and then overwritten with additional associative phrases until the mark making obscures the original phrase and/or voids semantic meaning.
After scanning these images, I then give them up to the system of the USPS as (unwitting artist assistants) — to get scuffed up, handled, possibly lost — as part of the process of creation and communication. As such, I am making these objects and corresponding with writers and artists throughout the United States.
Douglas Piccinnini is the author of Victoria (Bloof Books, 2019), Blood Oboe (Omnidawn, 2015) and Story Book: a novella (The Cultural Society, 2015). He is also the author of the encoded chromaglyph, FLAG (Well-Greased Press, 2013). Piccinnini’s recent work has appeared with The Brooklyn Rail, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Lana Turner, Nat. Brut. and Tammy.