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Kristin Mitsu Shiga Shag Shaggy Chug P.O. Box 83191 Portland, OR 97283 tel: 503.329.2352 fax: 503.286.8679 Write to us 
E-mail
© Copyright 2001 Kristin Mitsu Shiga All Rights Reserved |
| THESIS: Mail Art |
PROCESS: PART I
Participants:
My initial springboard for this topic was my own relationship with my father, and the emotions it evoked in me. It may seem natural for me to have continued in this vein and explored it further, and many people questioned the omission of my story from the thesis project. I had considered the possibility of including it, but felt I had already explored my own story through artistic expression. With this project, I saw the chance to give the same opportunity to other women, while gathering meaningful stories to inform my work. I wanted to be a translator for the women who chose to participate; to take their submitted explorations and illustrate them in a physical form to which they could relate.
As with most projects, I started with traditional research: books, articles, clinical studies. The information I found was general, dry and, often, simplistic. One study states, “...for girls, studies link a sense of competence in daughters, especially in mathematics and a sense of femininity, to a close, warm relationship between father and daughter.“ Another found that, “Female students who have higher self-esteem and lower depression reported having greater intimacy with their fathers.“ Though these facts about fathers and their daughters were interesting in themselves, they were not anything like the charged stories that came from women I knew. In short, traditional data was not very inspirational. I needed real memories. I needed help.
I had worked collaboratively in the past. In book arts classes, I had even experimented with “mail-art” collaboration. By using the mail (postal or electronic), one can trade ideas and visions with any number of collaborators, anywhere in the world. I chose this route for gathering the stories I needed. As my second craft, book arts has always been a natural language to me, and my background in graphic arts gave me confidence in my ability to communicate through printed material. So, I designed a preliminary mailing list database, and filled it with every woman’s name I knew. In addition to these 100+ names, I gathered names from friends and colleagues via a “Call for Women” card (at right), and its e-mail counterpart. When the database was complete, I had 350 names. The next step was to invite them to join me on this project.
I designed and produced an invitational brochure and reply card (at right), that I sent through direct mail to the women on the list. In the brochure, I explained the project, and asked that the recipient pass the invitation along if she were not interested. In hopes of getting as broad a range of participants as possible, I also hung posters with reply cards in community centers and shelters around Portland.
Response:
The response far exceeded my expectations. Because I was planning on using the replies I got as the "raw materials" for finished gallery pieces, I knew I needed as many participants as possible. By mid-November, 2000, I had received hundreds of enthusiastic responses from all over the country, and women are still contacting me to participate today.
Not all of the responses, however, were positive. Some women, whose names I had received through a friend or family member, were deeply disturbed at being included in the mailing at all. Although it was unexpected, the depth of the responses I received, both positive and negative, renewed my faith that my instincts were right: I had hit a nerve, and, indeed, this was the topic I needed to explore.
Interestingly, when I discussed the project with my male friends and colleagues (some fathers, themselves), the responses were often defensive. Although I was looking for input from women with all kinds of relationships with all kinds of father figures, these men seemed to feel like I was trying to make a general statement about fathers as “the enemy.” “I think you know what you’re going to get in the end,“ said one male friend. Another, who is coincidentally a father figure to me, was not able to discuss the project with me at all. It was too raw a subject for him as he faced a bitter custody battle for his estranged birth-daughter. From their responses, I knew I had to make more of an effort to specify my intentions. I was, in fact, not interested in making a general statement about fathers at all. I simply wanted to hold a mirror up to whatever input came my way. What I most wanted to avoid was any implication that I was judging these stories or the relationships they illustrated. I wanted to be a translator. The end result, then, was to be dependent on the responses I received.
Sowing & Gathering
An important element to my method of gathering information was the use of "snail mail." There are faster, cheaper and, some would argue, more efficient ways I could have gathered my stories. I could have interviewed my participants, by phone or, in some cases, in person. I could have used the Internet’s chat rooms, bulletin boards or e-mail. But the use of “snail mail” was integral to this project. In this age of instant messaging, it is difficult to give ourselves the time to emotionally process our responses. Computers process “thoughts” faster than we can. There is something about putting a pen to a piece of paper, affixing a stamp to the envelope and delivering it to the mailbox that inherently allows for emotional processing time. As a bonus, the receiver has an object to hold in her hands, to be read over and over, to yellow with age. In addition, I feel that the open-ended nature of the participants’ replies would have been compromised had I been present, or the interaction bounded by a specific “appointment.”
Mailings:
With my participants on board and my method of communication in place, I proceeded to design and produce three participatory mailings. With each mailing, I hoped to give individual participants the opportunity to explore and express their relationships with their father figures in a different way. To encourage this expression, I divided the mailings into three components: “Story,” “Image,” and “Object.” This format also insured a broad range of input on which to base my finished gallery work. Women were encouraged to respond only to the parts with which they felt comfortable and connected.
The “Story” mailing (image at right) was the first to be sent, in November, 2000. In the invitation, I had made several promises to the participants. The first was that I would never ask them to share anything with me without first sharing something, myself. So, I sat down to reexamine my own story, put it into words, and sent it into the world. The process was cleansing, and re-grounded me in my original concept.
This first “assignment” was the most challenging I presented, as it required the participants to truly consider and inspect their relationships, then document their findings. Some women chose not to participate in this part of the project, while others are still working on it. To date, I have received 107 responses in various forms: poetry, prose, lists and one-liners. Each relayed a different view on the topic.
While still awaiting responses on the story, I sent the second mailing: “The Image” (shown at right). This included a photo of me with my father. In the photo, I am sitting innocently on my mother’s lap while my older siblings display varying degrees of fear and impatience at being forced to pose for posterity. I included a brief description of the strained family dynamic that inspired me to share that particularly illustrative image in the mailing, along with a request that each woman return an image to me. Although I have not yet found an appropriate direct use for the 79 images I received, having them helped me better understand the relationships these women had with their fathers. Their choice of image, as well as what they wrote (or didn’t write) about it, was very telling. For example, one woman sent me the last photo taken of her with her father before his death. They were playing golf, and as she explained in her letter, she “never cared much for the game, but it made (her) feel close to him.” Several respondents wrote that they could not include an image of themselves with their fathers, because it was inevitably their father behind the camera. To document the family of women I’ve had around me this year, the photos will be included in an album at the Thesis Show.
I sent the final participatory mailing, “The Object” (shown at right) in mid-December. This was the most open-ended of all the mailings, as the response could be in the form of a graphic, a piece of text, or an actual object that reminded the women of their fathers. For my part, I chose to include the photocopied image of a pair of manicure scissors, which I associate with my father and his obsession with his children’s grooming. The 71 responses I have received to this mailing have been quite varied, from magazine clippings and pipe tobacco to amp meters and watering cans. Since my method of working tends to include found objects, I found these physical cues quite informative and helpful in taking the next step towards finished work. Some have inspired actual forms or materials I used directly in finished pieces, while others served simply to round out my understanding of the individual relationships they represent.
"Call for Women" - Distributed October 7, 2000
Invitational Mailing - Sent October 20, 2000
First Participatory Mailing: "The Story" - Sent November 27, 2000
Second Participatory Mailing: "The Image" - Sent December 11, 2000
Third Participatory Mailing: "The Object" - Sent December 18, 2000
Thesis Show Announcement - Sent April 21, 2001