Coffee Mail-Art Exhibit Stirs Up Plenty of Undiluted Passion for Java

Friends relaxing with friends, students facing yet another exam and workers starting their daily commute can all appreciate good coffee.

S. Bach, too, knew about coffee’s spell when he wrote his “Coffee Cantata” in 1732.

“Unless I make me a nice cup of coffee morning, noon and night,” sings his heroine, “I soon will be a perfect fright!”

Obviously, coffee inspires response. That’s what local artist Ted Meyer was banking on when he imported the Coffee Mail-Art Show, on display at Quel Fromage, a coffeehouse at 523 University Ave. in Hillcrest.

“I figured coffee was a great theme. People are pretty passionate about their coffee,” Meyer said.

Entrants in the second annual show were asked to create a piece of art using coffee as a theme and mail it to Quel Fromage, one of 13 local coffeehouses sponsoring the show. Entries were as diverse as a pink Melmac cup and saucer, stamped, addressed and mailed as is, to a mere restaurant check on which the artist scribbled a coffee cup hooked to an IV.

Mail-art began in the 1950s when New York artist Ray Johnson started sending his work to friends and other artists, asking them to reciprocate, or add a piece to his work and send it on. The idea behind true mail-art is to send the piece sans envelope, as the creator of the Melmac work did. Fromage received 100 entries.

Most mail-art is of the flat, post-card variety that Carolyn Speranza of Columbus, Ohio, designed. On a thick piece of square cardboard, she pasted maps of Europe, South America and California. She added pictures of coffee beans and coffeepots marching toward San Diego.

Other entries included an embellished coffee filter, a flat, paper and metal collage, and various drawings. A woman from Kona, Hawaii, created a 10-foot-long plastic cape with pockets. Each pocket features information about the Kona Koffee Festival in Hawaii. The cape was designed for the festival’s

queen.

“That’s part of the fun of mail-art, seeing what will make it in. The post office is real sweet about delivering everything,” said Scott Paulsen, organizer of this year’s event.

The avant-garde art form is a little-known but still oft-used medium among artists, according to Paulsen. Mail-artists thrive around the country, and the local show received pieces from throughout the United States after advertising for entries in a national art magazine. A cafe in Massachusetts sponsors a similar mail-art show featuring napkins.

This year, Paulsen expanded the show by asking local politicians to participate. The attempts, if not inspiring, were at least heartfelt. Councilman Wes Pratt decorated a piece of his official stationery with a coffee stain, while and Mayor Maureen O’Connor photocopied a picture of her office coffee mug.

The show even brought out an O’Connor detractor who called the mayor “an artistic fascist who hates art and coffee beans.” The downtown arts community has consistently attacked O’Connor for promoting the Soviet Arts Festival, held here last month. They argued that the money should have been spent on promoting local artists.

But most of the coffee mail-artists stuck to java rather than judgments.

Meyer and Paulsen said the show was created not only to feature mail-art, but also cafe society in San Diego. The number of coffeehouses has grown so rapidly over the past two years that San Diego can boast more such establishments than Los Angeles, Paulsen said. And cafe-hopping has become a popular pastime in downtown and uptown areas of the city.

Cafes and mail have common roots as well, Paulsen pointed out. In 18th-Century Europe, people with mail often searched cafes for merchant marines who would carry their parcels and letters overseas.

And as for coffeehouses and artists, “Their only dispensable income is a buck for a cup of coffee, so it just seems like an appropriate theme,” Paulsen said.

Non-artists, whether or not they have a buck, will enjoy this show as well.

The entries will be on display at Quel Fromage through Dec. 16.