Envelopes

Summer is the only time of the year when I actually send hand-written letters. With so many people leaving town for the season, the volume of inbound and outbound text messages and emails inevitably swells like high tide and I find myself growing tired of turning to various screens for human contact. Envelope art is something I started doing to break the monotony of communication, and perhaps inspire others to pass on the favor.

Above is a detail of an envelope sent to my boyfriend Ben in the summer of 2008, when he was living near Redmond, WA for an internship. Completely covering an envelope with a design became my preferred aesthetic, although for a time I continued to use envelopes rather than sketch pads or scratch paper, resulting in a lot of random stuff like this next one lying around. It’s based on a design from a lintel at the ancient Mayan site of Yaxchilan, where some pretty bonkers stuff is going on.

I’ll continue to post more of these as they’re completed; I’m also doing some work on a portfolio, which I’ll link to when finished, so keep an eye out for that in the upcoming weeks.  This last illustration was inspired by a line from a beloved childhood movie, The Secret Garden.