"Invitation" explored possibilities for hand to hand exchange and dreams of meeting and travel in a time of loneliness, social distance and confinement. It is composed of 33 pieces that give an impression of the Parisian apartment where I unwittingly became a long-term resident in the midst of the pandemic. In other times, I might have invited friends, family members and colleagues for dinner, drinks or tea. I could have hosted a housewarming party. En lieu of those invitations I send out pieces of art that register the atmosphere of my new apartment and "touch" those who received them. I imagined the pieces as part of a total work of art that like my firneds and family, could never be brought together in a single place, but were connected through the artwork, which was both very material, and virtual, but not digital.
I worked with paper, inks, tempera, thread : things related to me setting up house, and things that could catch on a fingernail when the recipient opened the envelop. I added carbon paper to smudge their fingers to "touch" them. The pieces are casual, impromptu, more like a conversation than a formal letter. I purposefully avoided making the pieces in a rectangular shapes that readily fit in a frame. I wanted to highlight the tactile, the hand to hand and include something of my environment and my hand in each piece. To make a piece to send to a particular person implied a more than online connection.
