An oversized pile of letters
When I was making the piece Letter From The American Cousin, I didn’t even think of how I would display it until very late in the process. By then, the issue was not just one of aesthetics but one of concept as well: I needed the presentation of the piece to reveal that Letter was in fact a large Manila envelope.
That’s when I decided to make a second manila envelope that would be displayed with its back facing the viewer. The clasp would ensure that people knew what kind of envelope I meant it to be. But even though I didn’t plan on revealing the front of this second envelope, I didn’t feel like I could leave it blank. Doing so would have been incomplete somehow, so I touched on a few aspects of what it means to be American with my addresses and stamp.
And then, because mail comes in other things besides manila envelopes, I created this letter too. It’s addressed to my grandparents in France at the house that they had when I was growing up. The home at the Moulin was hidden up on a hill of trees just outside of town and had a large yard full of vegetables and raspberries and lawns and flowers and trees and trees and more trees! It was an extraordinary place to grow up and I wanted to be sure to include it in some way in Apple Pie, my series about how my immigrant origins shape the American that I am.
Gwenn Seemel
Letter From The American Cousin (Celeste, Filipino-American)
2008
acrylic on canvas
18 x 24 inches
Letter was designed to be displayed as an oversized pile of letters…
...but, when I got to DIVA to set up the show, Leonie and Sara had a better idea. They liked how Paula Bunyan’s Pine Nut Planting Pouch was hanging from the ceiling and thought that these air mail letters should fly too. Brilliant! I love how this piece looks at the Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts.
Apple Pie is on display in Eugene for another month. Join me for my artist talk at noon on 19 June!
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CATEGORIES: - Apple Pie -
