Post Script; Photographs
Rachel Boillot (Photographer) Rachel Boillot, 2014. Limited Edition, signed and numbered, number 97 of 100. Hardcover. Format is approximately 11.25 inches by 12.25 inches. Photograph on front cover. Unpaginated (140 pages. Color photographs. Minor wear to boards. Rachel Boillot is a photographer, filmmaker, and educator based in Nashville. Boillot earned both a BA and a BFA from Tufts University (Medford, MA) as well as an MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University (Durham, NC). In 2011, she read a New York Times article about the plight of today’s USPS. Thousands of post offices are closing, mostly in rural communities. It was like a call to attention to a child’s bedroom corner. It’s always been there in view, taken for granted. She ultimately found her project’s foothold in the notion of disappearing ZIP codes. Rural communities were losing their post offices first, though they rely on them the most. With the loss of a ZIP code, the town loses its original presence on the American map. She began to realize that ZIP codes were almost symbols for place identity, the numerical identity of place. Excerpts from a Dear Reader letter at the end of the work. The eleven states depicted in this work comprise the American South. The work of female authors guided me through a landscape that was utterly foreign to me. I paired my photographs with a creative adaptation of Eudora Welty's correspondence with William Maxwell, her dear friend and editor. As I pluck spare lines out of original context and chronology, a new narrative emerges. Eudora Welty is the definitive muse for this project. Her short story "Why I Live at the P. O.," is arguably the best literary work ever to unfold in a rural post office. As I searched for these now threatened markers of locality, her lines coaxed me along. Prior to this work, I had scarcely though about the post office. Its ubiquity in the American landscape rendered it nearly invisible to me. I am glad to have had the opportunity to regard its pales and question how it defines place. Following the mail, I found worlds more than anticipated. Thank you for reading my letter to you. Condition: Good.
Keywords: Photography, Pictorial Works, Post Offices, Letters, Eudora Welty, American South, William Maxwell, Correspondence, Zip Codes
[Book #78911]
Price: $750.00