Dear Everyone ~
Christina Bevilacqua is a rhapsodic fan of Rivoli Rose. She had been patiently waiting for her new Rivoli Rose pad, her first assortment of Cambridge Imprint envelopes, and her refills on Cambridge Imprint labels. Here’s what she wrote after decanting:
“ All, needless to say, were thrilling to my eyes, starved, as the late, great André Leon Talley would say, for beauty! I love the shade of pink. It’s my favorite, just pale enough, but just rosy enough. Also, the paper is wonderful to write on. I always use a fountain pen, with pale grey ink, and pale pink and grey is probably my favorite color combination. I have such a huge collection of postcards that there is always the perfect image for whomever I'm writing to on whatever occasion. But I almost always enclose the postcard in an envelope, in part because the pleasure of receiving and opening an envelope is more engaging and literally enveloping (!) than just reading a postcard through all the postmarks, etc., and in part because that way I can write on the whole postcard, including the space allocated for the address and stamp. But often that is still not enough space, and that's where the beautiful petite Rivoli Rose sheets come in so handily! And, life has not been the same since my last bit of rosy Rivoli was torn from its tablet some weeks ago. ”
Christina & I first met in the record-breaking sweltering summer of 1995, the same summer that I met Alyson, my postal muse, and learned how to hand-fold envelopes. I couldn’t have known then just how momentous these two friendships would become, personally, creatively, epistolarily! Christina moved back to the East Coast in the late ’90s, and we have continued our friendship via real mail ever since. Though I have yet to visit her desk and divinely reclaimed dental cabinet in person, a photo is worth a thousand cards.
One of my most prized pieces of mail is Christina’s three-dimensional plastic fish, inside which she sang the praises of Cod. In the pre-pandemic days, whenever I taught The Art of the Handfolded Envelope workshop in studio, I always had Christina’s fish on display to inspire students.
And here is my freshest catch from Christina, a Rivoli Rose envelope addressed in pale grey fountain pen. She has sealed the flap with a slightly vintage French love stamp perforated in the shape of a heart. This one was designed by Yves Saint Laurent.
Christina started 2022 with what she has named her evangelically philatelic aPOSTALic resolution, her correspondential vow to send one piece of mail a day, for the first 100 days of the year. As of last week, she wrote:
“ I am keeping track! I just have a little section on each page of my daily journal where I write down the names of those I've sent to. So I just tallied things up, and we are now on Day 85 of the year, and I have written and sent 79 cards/letters to date—not bad! Having made this tally, I am now determined to catch up to the date this weekend! ”
I asked Christina what had sparked her epistolary resolve, and she replied:
“ It occurred to me that if I made a vow to just write and send one card a day for a hundred days, and some of them could be extra-effortful, with handmade envelopes, etc., but mostly I needed to just commit to communicating again, giving myself the pleasure of beautiful paper and cards and stamps, etc etc etc again, and I also knew that writing cards would increase my chances of getting cards, and the prospect of snail mail was also a big motivator. ”
As to whether she was finding this epistolary exercise therapeutic, she enthused:
“ I have been cultivating the habit of looking forward to my note-writing as a break at the end of my workday, a way to transition from my desk feeling like a frantic, anxious workspace (I'm still mostly working from home) to my desk feeling like a place of creativity and communication and conviviality. The process slows down my racing brain, and brings me back to tactility and anticipation and also happy memories of whomever I'm writing to. ”
Meanwhile, back at the Rivoli Ranch: Rivoli Rose pads are robustly replenished. Ditto the Carta Pura pads the Schreibblock pads, and both sizes of the Coccoina glue sticks. And that’s not all! The medium awls from Carta Pura, with superb replaceable point, are also back in stock.
Verily epistolarily, Bari
P.S.
The binder’s dozen Spring Bundles of Stationery Joy sold out in a Cambridge minute. But I have assembled a handful of additional bundles for early birdies.