During the start of quarantine, I decided to challenge myself with something I have never done before: writing letters to myself. As a visual arts person, I do not always think about the written arts and how they could be beneficial in times of high stress and uncertainty. So, what better time than this present situation to pick up a new art form, the art of writing letters.
This started off as a personal project, I would write a letter and then seal it with wax so I cannot open it until this is all over. I started off a lot stronger than I thought I would. I wrote a few in the first week and then slowly lost sight of it. As classes have been picking up even more, I kind of forgot about my project. While these letters got forgotten, a new way of writing has, for the most part, taken over. I have started actually sending letters in the mail, which I have never done before. This was a whole new playing field; knowing that another person would see it made me slow down and think more. I have had to really think about the structure and the way I displayed the letter. I feel like we always hear about how letter writing is a lost art form, and I do not think we can truly understand how creative it is until we try it. I have found a whole new outlet during these hard times.
Now that classes are wrapping up, I hope to start writing the personal letters again and think about them more as individual artworks. When we can go back to campus, I plan to give my personal letters to the IU archives. While my letters might not be the best documentation, they will still be an important part of my quarantine experience.
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