Can you tell me a little bit about Nora Gee? How did you come across her collection?
Nora Gee kept all the cards, invitations and telegrams she (and sometimes relatives) received form the 1940s to the 1970s. We came across Nora’s collection in the ephemera collection of Special Collections at Auckland City Library. We were going through the ephemera collection methodically as a first step in our research, which was a logical starting place as we had mutual interests in the converging themes of print culture and ‘small’ narratives.
So what do you know about her?
I was talking to someone at Elam today and they asked me about who Nora was. I answered that she really was a nobody - not in a value judgment sense but in the sense that she wasn't part of a society-forming grand narrative. Nora was a kind of 'every woman' of her generation in that way. When you talk about the cards to people they transgress into stories about their mothers or aunts or friends who keep similar collections. The only unusual thing about Nora's collection is that it is complete and is held as such by the library. From the cards you learn odd things that you wouldn't normally learn about a person. Like that she sometimes kept cards that she gave to other people; and that she sometimes wrote cards to herself. She had a husband that died and she wrote cards to him after he died. She had no children of her own, but fostered children. She immigrated to New Zealand in the 1940s and that's when the card collection started (with Bon Voyage cards).
When sneakily scourging through someone’s rubbish bin in a systematic way, you start to learn a lot about them. Nora's cards are very much a trail of her personal relationships and life events. Initially starting this project I felt like I was dumpster diving where I shouldn't be - almost grave robbing. At the time there seemed to be a responsibility implied to finding out more about Nora. The librarians’ production of a timeline through the cards and the intense engagement we started to take with the cards on a print value, however, soon calmed this need and exposed more truths about Nora as a character than perhaps a traditional life-heritage search would ever expose.
So what do you see as Nora's values and how have you responded to them?
I am not sure that Nora was interested in the actual printing processes. The value of the cards to her was their ritual function. But the fact they were printed objects allowed them to have that function. That Nora held onto every one of these 'rituals' suggested she wanted to keep them alive for herself. Nora had dated the cards and the library had categorised them according to date and occasion, but what stood out for us were several reoccurring themes in the images and text; and the people who'd given the cards to her. We have reorganised the collection according to those themes: kittens; birds; flowers and ships - and selected some of the text themes like 'greetings' and 'wishes'. We have also 'extracted' examples of these themes and hand printed them as one-offs, or reconfigured elements in small editions, attempting to ascribe importance and material value by inverting the notion of mass production.
You say that Nora’s cards present a value for print culture that you haven’t found elsewhere, what do you think that value is? Is there a sense of nostalgia or sentimentality?
The 'value' has two general levels. One is that the collection contains a selection of examples of the different printing processes, inks and papers that were in use during the period she kept her collection - as well as design formats. Then there is the 'value' of the portrayal of someone's life and what mattered to them through such a comprehensive collection.
Perhaps you could describe some interesting examples of design aesthetics, print processes, or types of imagery that you have found in the collection?
It's fascinating what becomes interesting to you when you have thoroughly looked at 837 cards belonging to an individual person. One of the things that was apparent was that earlier cards had much more attention paid to their design and printing methods. For example single cards often had an overall design that connected the inside and outside, and included both foil printing and embossing. Others had silk inlays, or glitter effects, or were die cut, or had pop-out features. Even some of the simple cards – like those that were essentially a sheet of paper quarter folded – had been thoughtfully designed as an overall effect and included some of the embellishments mentioned. Later cards were generic and although the printing was slick, less attention was paid to detail and the 'personalisation' of the cards. This indicated to me that cards a generation or two ago had much more of a meaningful ritual function than they do today. Cards in the early 21st century are highly finished and mass produced and appear to have a throw-away commodity function; a reflection perhaps of societal values in general on both counts.
So what do Nora's cards tell us about print culture, or New Zealand
culture more generally at this time?
New Zealand print has a brief history as an imported tradition of European explorers, missionaries, local private presses and governance structures.
Originally an agent for organisation, record keeping, education, community, documentary, propaganda and the dispersion of information; print became more popular as a means of personal expression after 1900. Printmaking has been considered in recent years as unfashionable, stuffed in tradition and un-critical. Because we have such a short tradition in print there hasn’t been much research done in order to critically respond to it on a local level. It’s important to ask whether the baggage associated with printmaking should be left in the dungeons of Europe, in order to allow the re-assessment of what printmaking is and can be in a New Zealand context.
I’m interested that your discussion of print media encompasses both traditional fine-art printmaking and commercial or mass produced printed matter, greeting cards and the like. Do you think that the renewed interest in print comes from the convergence of these forms made possible through digital printing and the like? Does technology shift your perspective in this way?
The distinction between fine-art printmaking and commercial or mass produced media is a rather recent development. In fact historically these are no such distinctions. 'Traditional fine art printing' was an adaptation by artists of the tradition of printing itself, which is a continuum of the print revolution brought about by the Gutenberg Press around 1439 (although printing technology existed before this, woodblock printing being used for centuries by the Chinese in particular). This was the beginning of mass production of knowledge (through printing) and consequently its democratisation (hence the revolution). Print split along different lines from this point: broadly one associated with text, literature, the book and design; and another with visual arts and design. The lines converge in the fields of design and cultural studies. In many ways the way we are looking at print is in its most traditional form by collapsing the distinctions between fine art and mass production. Digital technology is another step on the printing technology continuum, which paradoxically is heading to non-printed forms. Personally, I find it interesting that artists first became interested in print mediums because of its democracy (that of mass-production) and now artists are turning to traditional methods as a kind of revolt against mass-production - which has kind of eaten itself.
The average card size in Nora’s collection was 15.3 by 10.8 cm, and contrary to presumptions (toward apparently ‘generic’ artifacts), rarely was the same phrase or image repeated.
Looking at the collection for so many months was rather myopic. Sometimes we digressed into card ‘madness’; sometimes we rephrased linked message themes; and with that, we would like to wish you a wish with best wishes for kind thoughts and every good wish.
Best Wishes Nora Gee
projectspace B431
22-24 April 2010
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