Briefkaart aan Philip Zilcken Possibly 1910 - 1928

This is a briefkaart, a postcard, that Xavier Mellery sent to Philip Zilcken. You can tell that it was made with pen and ink, but also from the smudges that mark it as belonging to the postal system. Just imagine Mellery holding this little card, pen in hand, as he jots down the address of Zilcken, an artist and writer, in La Haye. Think about the gesture of writing, the pressure of the pen on the paper, the little imperfections of the letters. It's kind of like painting, isn't it? The way each stroke is both deliberate and spontaneous, building up a kind of texture. You can see how the writing trails off in places, as if Mellery was in a hurry. He could have been thinking about other things! Like what he was going to paint next. There's an intimacy here, something personal being sent out into the world. Even though the writing is not a painting, it's still a way of communicating, of making a mark. And it reminds us that all artists, no matter their medium, are in conversation with each other.