Elizabeth Costigan
Casondra Cunningham
Erin Hawley
To stand still in a moment,
Finding it sticky as resin, un-cured and raw.
Waiting. Always waiting.
Creative collaboration in the midst of a global pandemic.
…
This imagery, created with mail exchanged by artists Elizabeth Costigan, Casondra Cunningham, and Erin Howley during the summer of 2020, explores themes of growth, freedom, and artistic inspiration through collaboration using the United States Postal Service, despite the global COVID-19 pandemic and economic shutdowns at the time. The incorporation of resin as a material is significant as a means of literal and symbolic preservation of an unprecedented moment in global history.
Specifically, it is the intrinsic weight and preciousness of mail-service that creates, informs, and expands the art of this collaboration.
Many themes were found during this letter exchange, including the need for a collaborative process to become both collective and individual. Each artist has taken their predominant studio practice and included a new medium: Resin. All three artists had no experience with resin at the moment of collaboration.
In a time devoid of in-person learning, this addition of artistic skill-sharing was difficult in some instances and much easier in others. The ability to use technology to learn was both a boon and burden, as most Americans have experienced during ongoing shut-downs, civil unrest, and social isolation throughout the pandemic.
Casondra Cunningham
Thursday Mail is a one-of-a-kind artist book, produced by Casondra Cunningham in collaboration with Elizabeth Costigan and Erin Hawley.
The imagery, created with mail exchanged by the artists during the summer of 2020, explores themes of growth, freedom, and artistic inspiration through collaboration, despite the global COVID 19 pandemic and economic shut down of the United States at the time. The incorporation of resin as a material is significant as a means of literal and symbolic preservation, of an unprecedented moment in global history.
A big thank you to Open AIR and Stoney Samsoe for initiating this collaboration and organizing the digital platform to share this work.
The Page Process
Each page of Thursday Mail is a curated collection of the mail exchanged between myself, Elizabeth Costignan, and Erin Hawley. The images explore themes of growth and freedom, an antithesis to 2020 and the COVID 19 Pandemic, but ideas that were frequently exchanged between the artists. The process of creation is documented in the clip labeled “Page Process” along with a photo of the finished page. After the page was complete, it was sealed with shellac, preserving, both figuratively and literally, this unprecedented time in history.
The Resin Process
Our group decided that, in addition to incorporating at least one piece of mail exchanged in our final piece, we would also work in a new medium: resin. We felt that resin had a symbolic quality, a way to take this time, 2020 and the COVID 19 Pandemic, and preserve it. To make the finished resin you mix equal part resin and hardener, using a kitchen scale or some other method to make sure it is exactly 1:1 or it won’t cure. You then mix and pour, using some sort of mold. Because I chose to make my book covers out of resin after already completing most of the content of the book, I needed a very specific size of mold- 8 ½ in x 5 ¾ in-not something that was readily available for purchase. As a test, I tried two methods for making my molds: Plastalina, an oil-based modeling clay, and good old-fashioned silly putty. The silly putty worked better, releasing easily from the cured resin, and so I used that material to make my final molds.
The final resin pour was an exciting, if arduous, process. The first layer of resin goes down and has to cure for at least 24 hours. When that is no longer tacky, you can affix whatever you plan to seal into the resin, using many layers of tacky glue. It is important to remember that the resin is a 3-dimensional object; when finished, you will be able to see both sides of whatever it is you put inside so to make a double-sided image you must layer your contents accordingly. Once your two to three layers of tacky glue have dried, you can pour a second layer of resin. My second layer pour had some issues, I placed a piece of paper on top of it before it was fully cured, using one of the only available flat surfaces. To dry the shellac I applied it to the pages of the book, #tinyhouseproblems. The paper fused with the uncured resin and so I had to sand it down and pour the third layer of resin to get a clean finish. For this pour, I used blue tape as my mold, a trick I’ve used many times to make molds repairing surfboards.
Erin Hawley
Inspired by the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed in late September at the impressive age of 87. Her most fashionable statement was always ‘the collar’, a symbol of her grace and tenacity in the courts. She was a lifelong voice for equality, especially the rights of women in the workplace, in education, and in her own famous words ‘wherever decisions are being made.’ I can only imagine her terror to find out her judiciary shoes were filled not but 35 days after her passing, the quickest confirmation of any newly appointed Supreme Court Justice in history. No doubt this was a gross display of political chess that felt not just rushed, but foolish. As the country grappled with the untended wounds of racial and civil inequalities highlighted by the pandemic earlier in the year, we laid RGB in state as the first woman to do so in the history of our country. Even in death, she made sure there was equal place for a woman to hold.
This collar-style necklace is a collaborative resin and sterling silver project honoring her truth, her strength, and her unwillingness to bend over backward for the patriarchal ways our country was founded in. It is a combination of each artist’s talents, as creative minds, as painters, writers, book-makers, and as women collaborators. The collar is a sterling silver frame made by me, plus paper from our letter-writing from both Elizabeth and Casondra throughout our correspondence during the worst of the pandemic. I used resin to fill the collar frame in order to ‘hold’ the paper in place. Resin felt like the perfect goopy mess to hold all of our collective thoughts, our heartache, and our strengths together.
Inside each sterling 'frame' is a piece of mail cut specific to size, painted with glue to seal, and poured over with two-part resin. Some paper pieces were chosen for color and composition, others for the stamp used, some for the words written. I specifically cut out a line in a letter with the words 'keeping it together' from a watercolor piece from Elizabeth, and a scribbly handwritten word of Casondra's: 'Pandemic'.
Elizabeth Costigan
And there is green. For growth…
“The Collective" is a theoretical stamp encapsulating the feeling of 2020. This painting materializes the thematic expression conveyed in correspondence between Erin Hawley, Cassondra Cunningham, and myself, in the summer of 2020.
During the darkness of a seemingly endless global pandemic, and while the dual alarms of forest fires and social protests raged, the Postal Service experienced an unprecedented threat to its budget. A mere two months before the November 2020 election, these catastrophes shed light on our fragile democracy. This stamp is a memorial to this moment and to the shared collective grief - a communal mood - despite prolonged individual isolation.
Through our letter writing, it was clear that we each reached for similar sources of solace: nature and beauty. I encapsulated this piece, this stamp, in resin, to honor our experience during this socio-historic moment, and as a reminder to preserve what we yearned for in our collective grief.
