Enveletters

"Come rain, come sun, come snow, come hail; The postman will be there to deliver your mail!"

This was the battle cry of the postal system when I was growing up. I'm talking about REAL mail, delivered to your house by a human being, who drove around in a special mail truck. Delivery of the mail was critical to how we lived our lives and the slogan of the postal system gave us confidence that we would receive our letters.

Back in the day, love letters sparked and kept romances alive, tales from famous expeditions were retold in letters written by the explorers back to their families, and war letters written from the front provided much of the history of our country, as well as recounted all of the trevails that forged us into a nation.

The mail was our lifeline to our friends and relatives around the world. In fact there was special "air mail" stationary that was required to send letters out of the country. It was made of very thin paper stamped with the words "air mail" and was usually edged in red, white and blue. And the coolest thing was it's shape, which made it an all-in-one piece of mail. Once you wrote your letter, the paper folded into an envelope which could then be sealed and mailed !

When I was a teen, I eagerly awaited the mail in the summers, when my friends would write to me from camp or send postcards from their family vacations. When I was the one going to camp, I prepared by getting the best stationary I could find to use during the special hour set aside in the days activities for writing letters home. I'd get "cool" stationary, like "madlibs" to write to my friends and various other ones that had you write in a circle or inside the shape of a hot fudge sundae- anything different so it wouldn't get boring using the same paper all the time.

When we would go on vacation, the front desk lobby was always my first stop so I could pick out the postcards that I would send of the beautiful places I was visiting. Postcards, to me were all about the image, which was a good thing because there was usually very little writing room. I still have a large collection of postcards from people and places that don't exist anymore and which also includes a pictorial and written account of my backpacking trip to Europe after college.

So, I guess its clear to see that I have always been somewhat obsessed with the mail, as well as being a strong supporter of the postal system, praying that it does not become another casualty of our technological "advances." This passion, coupled with the fact that the pandemic shut down my dental office for 2 months led me to the creation of the enveletter.

The pandemic brought us full circle in our relationship with mail. We were being separated and isolated, and the elderly, to whom we needed to communicate the most, were frequently unable to use technology to send or receive emails. We were thrown back to the early days, as the need to connect with handwritten letters came into important focus by the many groups, organizations and assisted living communities coming together to inspire letter writing campaigns.

As a professional office, I have always had an ample supply of magazines in my waiting room. Since I have always enjoyed magazines mostly for their pictures, my collection includes the ones with good quality images like Dwell, Architectural Digest, Travel and Bon Apetit. And being a person who is also a bit compulsive about reducing waste to help save our planet, I have large stacks of magazines sitting around waiting to be recycled.

When the pandemic shut down my business, I, too was just sitting around looking for projects, so I started looking through the magazines. My thoughts jumped to the realization that maybe I wouldnt be subscribing to any more magazines, since the pandemic was keeping patients out of my waiting room and who knew how long that would continue. Magazines have always been a tangible window into the many facets of our culture, evolving and changing with the times. Sadly, I contemplated what would become of magazines, as their print numbers decreased and their digital presence increased. Would they go the way of cassettes, 8 tracks, records, CD's and even the postal system to become a piece of obsolete nostalgia that would exist only in my mind and not in print?

I decided at that moment, I was going to make a new kind of letter, an ENVELETTER (youtube: https://youtu.be/t90Xkl46S-M). Its a shout out to its forebearers, the all-in-one piece air mail stationary and the beautiful postcard. I got busy with the scissors and began to design the shape of the enveletter. After cutting hundreds of shapes and sizes of heavy stock paper, I had designed 3 different template sizes.

Once I had the templates, the real fun began of picking through the magazines for the most colorful, eye-catching images. Lining up the photos so that each enveletter became its own unique piece of artwork, and cutting each one by hand using the template, made the time off pass in a flash. After picking, arranging, and cutting for 2 months, I couldnt believe the beauty, diversity and number of enveletters I had made.

As I was making them, I was also sending enveletters in the mail to my friends and family to make sure they would survive the postal system. Bon Apetit, Martha Stewart, and Southern living were my go to mags for my foodie friend enveletters, while Architectural digest, Veranda, and Dwell made the best enveletters for my designer friends. Vogue, Style, and Vanity Fair enveletters for my fashionista girls and Nat Geo, Bark, and Discover for my animal loving, nature minded peeps.

The feedback I got when someone received an enveletter was so encouraging that it drove my scissors into a frenzied pitch, creating more and more ideas for how the enveletters could be used. I made enveletter invitations, thank you notes, and gift cards to fit specific themes, all the while, relishing the time I had to browse through the images in my favorite magazines. I was excited that what was old could become new again and with the dwindling number of magazines in print, my enveletters would help preserve the images of our culture.

When I saw all of the media about elders being isolated and the letter writing campaigns that were being created, I knew that my enveletters needed to part of this resurrection of the written letter. I participated in several campaigns by sending hundreds of enveletters to recipients, as well as donated hundreds more to various organizations (@loveforourelders, loveforourelders.com) to use in their letter drives.

Call it destiny, fate, serendipity or a manifestation of the belief that everything happens for a reason, the enveletter embodied all of those concepts for me. The confluence of my love of letter writing and postcards, my collection of magazines, my passion for the esthetic of beautiful images and the fact that I have been cutting as a surgeon for the past 30 years, all converged to create the enveletter. The down time during the pandemic allowed me the time to envision, and create these one of a kind pieces of artwork, as well as develop a new business, with limitless possibilities for their use. Once the pandemic passes and life resumes some normalcy, I hope that even if they are just a reminder of our beautiful past, enveletters will continue to send good tidings around the world.