Traditionally, I send a letter to all members and those interested in the project late in the year in which I lay out the vision for membership, artwork, and events in the calendar year to follow. In recent years, this has involved an elegant mixture of annual membership dues, benefits, a twelve part artwork series, and events ranging from casual after work cocktail mixers, to quarterly social extravaganzas, and, on occasion, elaborate formal dinner parties. This year’s plans, however, must respond to the current moment, reflect the unknowable future, and in doing so accommodate a myriad of uncertainties about the year to come.
The group now known as the TDG Social Club began as a way to bring into the world the kind of experiences I craved more of, from elegant, tasteful, and sexy aesthetics, to ethical, kind, and considered manners and etiquette. Together over nearly a decade, wonderful collaborators and I gathered a community that enjoyed lovely memorable events, treated each other with kindness, and appreciated saucy art together. In the early years, shifting photographs, stories, and ephemera from the electronic world (of mainly Tumblr) to a more tangible one by sending corporeal artwork to each of the members’ homes via the post — to be strewn across coffee tables, tacked on walls, held up in sunlight streaming through gossamer curtains, with craft and handiwork admired — was one of my favorite ways of maintaining an ongoing connection.
While I continue to deeply believe in the benefits of all these efforts, and find joy in the creation and connection it has offered us, this year’s circumstances necessitate key differences — In short:
· SOCIAL: I do not expect to host in-person events in 2021.
· FISCAL: All membership dues are waived for the year. Everything will be free.
· ART: I will be designing and mailing a twelve part art series monthly; it is free but you will need to request it each and every month.
While I remain optimistic that vaccines, curves, and healthcare factors will improve in 2021, the unknowable makes it inappropriate to announce expectations for in-person events. And while gathering people in these circumstances might be logistically possible, I don’t feel it sets the right example to entice dear people into situations which could potentially lead to transmissions. Should the health and safety landscape change significantly late in 2021, I may add in-person events but, in the current landscape, am unwilling to commit to doing so before 2022.
The great challenges, inequalities, and difficulties in our and our adjacent communities mean that this is not a year to be asking for dues. Thus, everything we do in 2021 will be free, extending all the way to the monthly artwork. We are mailing a limited edition of one photograph each month to the first one hundred recipients to sign up at no charge whatsoever.
Creating art in these times, getting cherished objects in the mail, receiving hand-addressed envelopes, and supporting the postal service, all continue to hold great meaning for me. I remain committed to sending out something beautiful to those who will appreciate it each month.
Each year, the twelve-part art project has a theme:
· Last year (2020) it was “Fortune Telling,” and photographs explored themes and traditions of chiromancy, tasseography, palmistry, scrying, &c.
· The year prior (2019) it was “Diptychs,” with each parcel containing a pair of images, themed on such lovely topics as lips, nails, shoes, ties, &c.
· A prior year (2017) it was “Paper Products” and artwork included a tiny coloring book, a small paper doll, recipe cards, and even a pre-publication copy of my book on Etiquette (now more readily available).
This year’s theme is “Object Portraits” — Inspired by my knolled tray social media explorations during the the second quarter of 2020, and the left panels of the Diptych Series consisting of elegantly arranged object compositions. Instead of exploring broad themes of lips, eyes, and shoes, individual recent members of the Social Club have generously gathered a collection of personally meaningful objects, both timeless and ephemeral, and shared them with me. Over the year, I’ll be sharing each photograph, composed elegantly to present one possible incarnation of them and their experiences this past year, as well as some of the lovely stories behind these objects.
In these distanced and isolating times, small odds and ends have taken on great potency and emotional significance, both as we look back at more social times and reflect on those lost to us. I aim, with the series, to capture these objects, some modest and others extravagant, and share and imbue them with the potent personal histories usually hidden from view.
Like a traditional portrait, I aspire to show the inner beauty of these lovely people through a faithful depiction of this small sliver of their experience.