Faces and butterflies, shapes and colors. Messages and spirals, dresses and sculptures. The USPS Project, running at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art on Trumbull Street through Nov. 15, is the riotous result of hundreds of collaborations for a cause.
“The USPS Art Project was started by artist Christina Massey,” the accompanying note explains, “as a call to action for her fellow artists to support the United States Postal Service amidst the Covid-19 crisis. The concept is simple — artists each began artworks for their collaboration partners to finish, sending them to each other by mail; the project was designed to help artists feel connected while practicing social distancing, and in doing so, supporting the financially struggling USPS at the same time.”
The exhibition began in Pelham, N.Y., and as ECOCA’s crowded walls attest, “hundreds of artists have joined in the project, ranging from sculpture to painting, drawing, mixed media, fiber art and more. The artists now have the opportunity to submit their collaborations for several exhibition opportunities, a hybrid traveling exhibition / theme exhibition.” After New Haven the project will continue, so far, with shows in Dallas, Denver, and Philadelphia.
Debra Feiman and Wendi Furman
Nostalgia.
Among the collaborators are those who hew closely to the theme of the exhibit. Debra Feiman and Wendi Furman together create a collage that serves as a kind of travelogue. Its combination of old photographs and postcards — two once-ubiquitous souvenirs of trips that have fallen somewhat out of favor now that so many people who travel have smartphones and social media — becomes more poignant now that international travel is all but barred to U.S. citizens, and even travel within the country is fraught.
Millen Umoh and May Nasiri
Affranchissement.
Millen Umoh and May Nasiri collaborate to create a stamp that reflects the year we’re living through so succinctly that it’s possible to imagine an actual stamp being issued that looks something like it — maybe in a few years’ time, when we’ve had a chance to process it all.
Carol Bouyoucos and Loren Eiferman
Nature’s Constellation.
Other artists seem to have used the project as a chance simply to collaborate closely. In Carol Bouyoucos’s and Loren Eiferman’s piece, it’s hard to tell where exactly one artist’s viewpoint begins and the other’s ends. Together they have created a cohesive vision.
Nancy Doniger and Robin L. Roi
Yankee Doodle.
The same is true of Nancy Doniger and Robin L. Roi’s piece. It’s tempting to imagine that, having decided on the subject, the artists each chose a specific color to work with. Maybe Doniger chose black ink and Roi chose red, or maybe it was the other way around. But the two colors are so interwoven that it’s hard to say exactly how they developed it, or how many times they mailed it back and forth to one another before they declared it done.
Alexandra Brock and Susan Luss
Pull and Bound.
Some pieces have fun with the sheer improbability of collaborating on certain types of pieces by mail. Alexandra Brock’s and Susan Luss’s piece is engaging enough in and of itself, but also enjoyable to imagine the difficulty and inherent humor in mailing one another a piece of broken furniture.
Bonny Leibowitz and Walter Brown
After Before
By its sheer existence, Bonny Leibowitz’s and Walter Brown’s piece is a testament to the efficacy of the U.S. Post Office in delivering fragile pieces intact.
Kate Fauvell and Hawley Hussey; Kate Fauvell and Arlene Rush
I Matter; Ever F__ked the System.
A few artists participated in more than one collaboration, and in those cases, a game can be made of using the similarities and the differences to think about how the process of collaboration can move the same artist in different directions. The two pieces that Kate Fauvell had a hand in share certain characteristics in form and content. There are dark bold lines and use of printed text, as well as an attraction to political subject matter. But the collaboration with Hawley Hussey yielded an almost innocent piece that got to the political through an appeal to emotions. The collaboration with Arlene Rush, on the other hand, moved in a more punk direction.
Donna Maria de Creeft and Sara Jane Munford
Slow the Spread.
Donna Maria de Creeft and Sara Jane Munford lean back into the concept of the project to send a postcard-size piece with a simple, timely message.
Lily Prince and Richard Klin
Alone Now.
Similarly, Lily Prince and Richard Klin use a postcard to get at the confined emotional spaces we may find ourselves in, the mirrors to our diminished physical living space.
Christopher Saucedo and Dan Charbonnet
Untitled (special power).
Christopher Saucedo’s and Dan Charbonnet’s declarative message feels right on a few levels. First, the collaboration between them may have been something of a lifeline — a lifeline extended to us when we get to see it. And in the context of the project, it’s tapping into the observation, made by ordinary citizens, science fiction novels, and certain movies starring Kevin Costner alike, that a functioning post office is an essential part of a functioning society.
In the end, however, the project makes it point through sheer mass, or maybe better said, masses. The rich diversity of faces peering back at the viewer from the walls, the variety in style and form, is a document of what our society looks like in all its messy glory, and suggests that maybe our country, like this project, is a collaboration, too — or should be.
The USPS Project runs at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art, 51 Trumbull St., through Nov. 15. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.
Thank you to this project for supporting the usps workers who continue to keep us connected and deliver our packages, ballots, letters, magazines and bills, day in and day out, in every sort of crisis and weather.