hfs, y’all.
are you as exhausted as i am by e-mail after the last week? the lead up to black friday, followed by small-business saturday. i’m pretty sure sunday has something i can’t remember, then cyber monday. plus all the emails through the rest of the week, begging you to check out something you missed. i think i’ve unsubscribed from about a million different mailing lists this week, many of which i would bet money i already unsubbed from. repeatedly. (enter suspicious side eye here)
email is the worst. you know how the minute you finish laundry—the washing, the drying, the folding, the hanging up, the putting away—there’s more laundry to do? or dishes? you load the dishwasher, run it, hand-wash all the delicates, dry ‘em, put ‘em away, and then there’s more dishes in the damn sink.
email is even worse than both of those things. i hate email. so much.
all this to say, thank you for signing up for emails from me. admittedly, i still feel a sense of trepidation hitting send. bombarding your inbox with yet another bit of mail you have to dig through, decide to open, click links, dedicate your time and energy to consuming.
isn’t it funny that we don’t feel the same way about snail mail? or i don’t, anyways. when we moved to florida, i signed up for an email (ha!) telling me what was coming in my mail that day. it’s my favorite email all day long, especially when rupert and i walk out to the mailbox to grab the mail. (he hops up on the couch and waits for me to pick him up and head across the yard towards the mailbox.) i love postcards. i love letters. i love packages. i love seeing someone’s handwriting, or a picture tucked in. hell, i even love holiday cards with super long breakdowns of what happened to someone’s family this year. i’m blown away by people who have the ability to make that happen, especially when those people have kids. i love stamps, and hand decorated envelopes, and when people are fancy enough to have a wax seal for their letters. (i want one so bad, please send me suggestions for places to get one! plus the wax for them!)
i hated throwing away mail after all the effort people put into writing it, or that i so frequently ended up just shoving it into a closet and never looking at it again, so derek and i started hanging hooks in the hallway that leads to our bedroom. from the hooks we hang metal rings, and on the metal rings are the letters we get. i punch a tiny hole in the corner and pop the letters on there, so when i walk down the hallway i get to see the physical reminders of all the people in my life who are willing to give me some of their time and energy by sending me mail.
the only thing i like better than getting letters is writing them. i have a P.O. box now (i’ll put the address at the bottom of this email, and on my website!) and i had a set of postcards i designed printed earlier this year, so i sit down in big chunks and write a ton of postcards all at once. dropping that pile off in my mailbox is so satisfying. i love picking out one of my fountain pens, filling it with ink (or—heresy!—letting my inks mix for some beautiful in-between color. right now my favorite is this purply-blue in a benu pen), and scrawling away until my wrist hurts and my fingers dislocate. cuz they do that, it’s just the name of the game.
the silly splotchy pictures in this email are the paper towels i use to clean my nib when i fill my pens up with ink. i don’t think about it too much, i just grab and dab and let them collect in the bins that hold my inks. it’s probably the only artwork i make where i don’t egregiously overthink the creation. of course, it still ends up all over my fingers, but such is the nature of using fountain pens on a regular basis.
if you’re interested in those postcards i had printed up, here’s a link to my shop where you can buy them individually or in one big ol’ pack of 25. you’d be surprised at how quickly 25 go, when you’re writing regularly!
while i’m mentioning the shop, don’t forget to pre-order your masks. i’m placing the order on monday, so if you’re queer or nonbinary (or both!), they might suit you.
if you wanna send me letters (or anything else fun, like, idk, tardigrade art or portraits of my dogs or your favorite mystery you read in 2020), write me here:
ace tilton ratcliff
P.O. box 696
boynton beach, FL
33425
i’ll write back!!
okay, friends. head into a good weekend. go listen to your spotify wrapped playlist. ignore your inbox. finish the last of the thanksgiving leftovers. eat something delicious (especially if it’s dessert!) hope that 2020 doesn’t have any more terrible surprises up its sleeve. i’ll chat with you next week!