Sample Collage by Martina Franz 2025

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As a 1950’s child growing up in a mixed race working class family in north east, New Jersey, I recall my Mother decorating the enclosed windowed porch with Christmas cards from family and acquaintances. The cards were stapled together at their top left corners and suspended like paper icicles from the tongue and groove vertical knotty pine walls. Out of all the cards delivered to our mailbox at 201, there was one card that stood out from all the rest…a handmade greeting card made by the Maryknoll Sisters. I later came to understand the Sisters were Catholic missionaries working internationally to promote their beliefs. What intrigued me about this particular card were the canceled stamps collected from their correspondences with their fellow sisters from abroad. The repurposed stamps were subsequently cut to fit within the outlines hand drawn by the sisters to compliment the otherwise hand colored compositions primarily of figures and occasional landscapes. The repurposed stamps got to go for another ride…

 

When I arrived in New York in early 1970 to study photography at SVA, I was recommended by a former high school friend for a part-time position at the Paula Cooper Gallery in Soho where he was departing from, to pursue a more lucrative career as a drug smuggler. During my 5 year tenure working at the gallery I became acquainted with the gallery artists, who coincidently were also instructors at SVA. While employed at the gallery and upon opening the gallery doors at the beginning of the business day, I fetched the mail dropped through the mail slot. Some of the unsolicited mail in the form of postcards generated by other galleries and artists like Eleanor Antin and Ray Johnson began to appear. That experience receiving and perusing the gallery mail sparked my curiosity about Mail Art and subsequently influenced my decision to switch my studies from photography to fine arts. One day while I was processing a mailing at the gallery for an upcoming exhibition for Jennifer Bartlett Drawing exhibition on a mimeograph machine, the automatic cardstock feed grabbed two announcements instead of one and printed partially on the two otherwise blank surfaces. The slip of the cardstock created my first accidental artwork, printing one word from the mailing address ‘Art’ on the second announcement.

 

In the mid 70’s after leaving SVA & PCG I began my search for identity. Since driving was a natural fit, having been a light vehicle driver for field grade officers in the U.S. Army (1967 to1969), I took to the road. Initially to ‘amuse myself’ (Henri Matisse) I sent postcards addressed to myself to document my travels transporting Driveaways as the ‘perfect vehicle’ (Alan McCollum). During this time I self-produced artist books that became part of the Franklin Furnace archives (now in the MoMA collection).

 

 I half-heartedly continued sending postcards and collecting postcards as a way to validate my search for identity. Upon my return from the road I established my roots in NYC in 1980 by becoming a rent stabilized tenant on Mott Street. To facilitate my decision to become a New Yorker I applied for and was accepted as a ‘permanent intermittent’ worker at the Cooper Hewitt Museum. In my 8 year tenure at the CHM, I recall an exhibition of postcards commemorating Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropic legacy contribution building libraries throughout the USA and subsequently named after him. The idea of collecting postcards gathered momentum. In and around that timeframe I began to also collect USPS stamps to be used in conjunction with the postcards. While intermittently being employed at CHM I was afforded the opportunity with my museum ID to visit other museums for free. This opportunity allowed me to collect museum postcards at a staff discount. The moment had arrived to integrate the postcard purchases with the USPS stamps (MCNY 1982). To create the vocabulary enabling the images to collide took some time to accrue. When there was sufficient and diverse printed matter accrued the arranged marriage of the two collections started to bear fruit. The stamped postcards that follow this statement are evidence of that intention toward  diversity, equality and inclusivity, better known as DEI.