A rich visual collection of encaustic art from Shannon Amidon, whose 30-day art challenge reflects on insect life to dramatize the need for connection during a time of crisis.

Oregon artist Shannon Amidon has frequently focused on insects as her artistic subject. In Postal Entomology, she merges her entomological interests with a new project. Every day for the month of April 2020, Amidon created a new encaustic painting from vintage postcards and envelopes, then sent them by “snail mail” to various recipients across North America. Produced during the 2020 shelter in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the series works as a moving homage to a nearly obsolete mode of communication. At the same time, Amidon’s work—each piece integrates the image of an insect—reminds us of the essential connections insects and pollinators build across ecosystems. Like these creatures, Amidon’s Postal Entomology uses art to create and keep alive distant connections.

This book brings together each piece in Amidon’s month-long challenge. Lovingly photographed, the images show Amidon’s encaustic designs: vintage mail, covered in the beautiful scrawls of intimate handwriting, overlaid with the lines and colors of Amidon’s bees, beetles, moths, and butterflies. 30 days of art and letters: 30 color images—an important new publication that speaks to the art of connection during an unprecedented time of isolation.

An 8.5 x 8.5 full color, soft cover art book

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