Elizabeth Was mail art to John Held
Dublin Core
Title
Elizabeth Was mail art to John Held
Subject
Mail Art
Description
In a movement as broad and amorphous as the practice of mail art, finding and agreeing upon a set of themes is no easy task. Of the seemingly countless artifacts that make up the John Held mail art collection, this work offers us a surprisingly salient articulation of the key features of the is often overlooked movement.
Elizabeth Was or Elizabeth Perl Nasaw, also known as Lyx Ish (1956-2004), was an artist primarily based in Wisconsin, who engaged in a variety of media (poetry, music, improvisation, yoga, etc.), and focused on themes of identity, feminism, and exploitative economic systems.1 The great variety of creative pursuits that make up the mosaic of her life call to mind the collage form of much of the mail art movement, as well as the specific piece of mail art discussed here. The cobbling together of many disparate elements, linked together by a common theme as revealed by their relationship to one another, permeates correspondence art as well as Nasaw’s work.
The mail art movement is often associated with a rejection of the commercialization of art as well as of gallery practices, reinforced here by the prominent placement of a xeroxed copy of a dollar bill with the words “art ≠ money” pasted over top of it. This is reinforced by her pasting of several reptilian and amphibious creatures onto the note, adding an alien or distanced feeling to the bill, when combined with the degradation from the copy machine makes is seem like a long lost and mysterious artifact.
Another prominent feature on the card is a large pink sticker stamped with the words “Xexoxial Endarchy.” Xexoxial Endarchy is a Wisconsin based, “non-profit artist-run multi-arts organization devoted to the distribution and support of… experimental arts, with an emphasis on networking.”2 Networking is another key feature of mail art that is encapsulated by this addition to the piece. In some ways the complex web of interconnections between senders and receivers and triangulated mail exchanges is essential to the mail art movement itself. The invisible connections are in large part the by-product and end goal of the movement, and make it stand out as a truly democratic, and all inclusive practice.
Using a mixture of puns, plays on their own names, and a mashing together of various proper nouns, mail artists often jostle the idea of a fixed identity (or address perhaps?). Elizabeth Was, in changing her name and identity several times in her life, embodied in practice the themes of shifting nomenclature often just played with on the page by other artists. Not only does her work fit in neatly with the subject matter explored by other mail artists, she lived these themes as well.
1. Was, Elizabeth, Maria Damon, and Miekal And. Every Lines Other: The Collected Poems of Lyx
Ish Aka Elizabeth Was. La Farge: Xexoxial Editions, 2016. Print.
2. "Dreamtime Village - Xexoxial Endarchy." Dreamtime Village - Xexoxial Endarchy. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Sept. 2016. http://www.dreamtimevillage.org/xe.html
Elizabeth Was or Elizabeth Perl Nasaw, also known as Lyx Ish (1956-2004), was an artist primarily based in Wisconsin, who engaged in a variety of media (poetry, music, improvisation, yoga, etc.), and focused on themes of identity, feminism, and exploitative economic systems.1 The great variety of creative pursuits that make up the mosaic of her life call to mind the collage form of much of the mail art movement, as well as the specific piece of mail art discussed here. The cobbling together of many disparate elements, linked together by a common theme as revealed by their relationship to one another, permeates correspondence art as well as Nasaw’s work.
The mail art movement is often associated with a rejection of the commercialization of art as well as of gallery practices, reinforced here by the prominent placement of a xeroxed copy of a dollar bill with the words “art ≠ money” pasted over top of it. This is reinforced by her pasting of several reptilian and amphibious creatures onto the note, adding an alien or distanced feeling to the bill, when combined with the degradation from the copy machine makes is seem like a long lost and mysterious artifact.
Another prominent feature on the card is a large pink sticker stamped with the words “Xexoxial Endarchy.” Xexoxial Endarchy is a Wisconsin based, “non-profit artist-run multi-arts organization devoted to the distribution and support of… experimental arts, with an emphasis on networking.”2 Networking is another key feature of mail art that is encapsulated by this addition to the piece. In some ways the complex web of interconnections between senders and receivers and triangulated mail exchanges is essential to the mail art movement itself. The invisible connections are in large part the by-product and end goal of the movement, and make it stand out as a truly democratic, and all inclusive practice.
Using a mixture of puns, plays on their own names, and a mashing together of various proper nouns, mail artists often jostle the idea of a fixed identity (or address perhaps?). Elizabeth Was, in changing her name and identity several times in her life, embodied in practice the themes of shifting nomenclature often just played with on the page by other artists. Not only does her work fit in neatly with the subject matter explored by other mail artists, she lived these themes as well.
1. Was, Elizabeth, Maria Damon, and Miekal And. Every Lines Other: The Collected Poems of Lyx
Ish Aka Elizabeth Was. La Farge: Xexoxial Editions, 2016. Print.
2. "Dreamtime Village - Xexoxial Endarchy." Dreamtime Village - Xexoxial Endarchy. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Sept. 2016. http://www.dreamtimevillage.org/xe.html
Creator
Elizabeth Pearl Nasaw
Source
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/elizabeth-was-mail-art-to-john-held-jr-18555
Publisher
Archives of American Art
Date
November 3rd, 1987
Contributor
Matthew Goodwin
Rights
Artist Rights Society
Relation
[no text]
Format
Various Media, 10.5 x 24 cm
Language
English
Type
Mail Art
Identifier
[no text]
Coverage
[no text]
Files
Collection
Citation
Elizabeth Pearl Nasaw, “Elizabeth Was mail art to John Held,” Collaborative Correspondence: Mail Art from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, accessed April 27, 2024, https://collaborativecorrespondence.omeka.net/items/show/4.