MM, ONCE UPON A TIME BW X MM, WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE Mark Mothersbaugh and Beatie Wolfe go together like a stamp and a postcard. Both document our current time in tangible forms as artists, are accessible down to earth beings with no airs about them, and who take the road less travelled by being themselves, doing what they love and spreading inspiration, every, single day. So when Beatie first reached out to let us know about their new project, Postcards for Democracy, it couldn’t have felt like a more destined collaboration between these two rebels with a clause. Standing up for our freedom of choice, rights to creative expression and supporting longstanding systems which serve us — the people — by championing free speech, ideas, information, knowledge and tangible forms of creativity is at the core of this art demonstration. In light of the threat to our 225 year old United States Postal Service, at a time that could jeopardize the democracy of our country, Mark and Beatie are not only naturally stepping up, but bringing all of us with them. Postcards for Democracy aims to encourage as many people as possible to support the USPS at this critical time, our right to vote, and democracy as a whole via the power of art. The demonstration asks you to buy USPS stamps, design a postcard and then mail it to 8760 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069. The postcards will become part of a collective art piece presented in both a physical gallery and virtual space which will be directed by Mark and Beatie. We talked to Beatie and Mark to learn more about the project and why something as small as making a postcard can have colossal effects on all of our collective rights and freedoms. Beatie mentioned to us that you two set Postcards for Democracy into motion pretty fast and almost effortlessly, happening all within roughly a two week period of saying let’s do this! to launching the site and call for action for people to participate. How did you two come up with this idea in the first place? Mark Mothersbaugh: It was Beatie’s idea, to be accurate! We had been talking for sometime about collaborating on something together, but we weren’t sure what it should be. I think she just noticed that I was drawing on card stock roughly the size of postcards every time we chatted about something and that I was constantly posting images of that art, all over the place. So we talked about mail art, and I mentioned about my introduction to it back in the late ‘60s. Beatie Wolfe: Yes, I loved the idea of Mark and me creating an exhibition and installation of people's letters in lockdown (a kind of mailbox menagerie) at this time when physical communication is more important than ever and because of a shared love that we have of this lost art-form. And this became much more timely in light of recent events. So this project seemed to tick all the boxes of both where we meet artistically and what felt needed in the world right now. What’s your earliest/fondest memory of mail — receiving or giving — and/or the post office? BW: Well this isn’t my memory but a story told to me and it isn’t exactly fond, but it’s forever imprinted in my mind. It was my 3rd birthday and my mum was surprised that there was no card from my Grandpa. Then sadly we heard that he had died. A week later on the morning of his funeral an envelope, addressed to me in his handwriting and with blood on it, came through the door. On the back a stranger had written: "I found this in the street, and thought I'd better post it." It was my birthday card! MM: My family lived on a farm a couple of different times when I was young. And I remember watching for the mail truck to stop and leave things in our mailbox down by the road. I would run like mad to go collect post and bring it up to the house. This was the late ‘50s, and phone calls were expensive, and the internet didn’t exist, so people relied more heavily on postal service. It wasn’t uncommon for people to post a chat and wait a week to hear a response. I loved getting postcards and finding out someone in our family was brave enough to venture all the way to Niagara Falls. Mark — When we first went to your exhibition Myopia at MCA Denver in 2014, we saw thousands of your tens of thousands of postcards you created over the past several decades. Can you recall the first postcard you ever made? And what prompted you to start creating in this medium? MM: I don’t remember the first one but early on I got involved with the post-art movement that meant if you sent original postcard art to BW, MAIL US
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