My visual practice began around 2017, when I started making mail art, asemic writing, and visual art almost simultaneously. Working visually is genuinely foreign territory for me — and that’s exactly the point. The abstraction engages creative muscles I don’t always use in my writing practice, and forces a different kind of thinking. The handmade dimension was a natural extension of a DIY ethos I’ve carried since my early twenties, when I was making punk zines in Anchorage. The mail art community — international, generous, gloriously low-tech — felt like home immediately.
Postcard project
Around 2017, I made a series of watercolor postcards with accompanying poems on the back. During this time, I continued my work with Asemics, and began experimenting with alternative coloring liquids like beet juice, and coffee. Finally, I began integrating salt, sand, ocean water, seaweed, and other materials into the mix… with varying levels of success.
Artist Signatures and asemics
In 2017, I joined the International Union of Mail Artists, and connected with folks on social media. These pages come from the “artist signatures” we exchanged. For this particular project, about 5 of us worked on our own pages, folded but unstapled. After we finished filling up the pages as we saw fit, we mailed our signature to someone else. Eventually, when there were enough pages, we combined all of the signatures together as one multi-artist book.
Mail Art Shows
WALL PIECES
At the same time I was making the Beard Gallery pieces for Fulgor, I made a series of faces using Google AI, and aphorisms using Inspirobot. I also made a tiled sunset, using a series of tiny canvases spaced out and placed in a box frame. I also made a series of small canvases with a quote included.
Josh Medsker 