At the beginning of 2005, my friend Masha and I started drawing and writing illustrated letters to each other. We had known each other since childhood — we were born in the same city, in the same month, in the same year, and our fathers were friends and artists.
Childhood passed, and for a while we lost touch. Years later, it turned out that both Masha and I had, somehow on our own and independently, found our way into illustration. That’s how we reconnected — and came up with the idea of drawing letters. We wrote, drew, and posted everything on LiveJournal.
The correspondence lasted for about two years. Over that time, we both changed a little and gradually became the kind of people who no longer have time to draw letters.
Unfortunately, Masha’s letters were lost — so I’m publishing only my part of the correspondence.
Hello, Masha. We’re doing well. Spring has begun. My hands and cheeks are red from the cold. Alice turned three today. Waiting for your letters. Zhenya. 05.03.05
Hello, Masha. It would be nice if coffee grew where we live. We’d harvest it and drink, drink, drink, drink… Zh. 06.04.05
Hi, Masha.
Sorry I haven’t written to you in a while. I’ve been very busy, and now I’m resting. I even stopped drawing — as if I’ve used up my entire reserve.
I’ve been sleeping a lot, though for some reason I never feel rested. And I don’t remember my dreams. I think it’ll pass when the rains are over.)) Or maybe I just need to get properly drunk! Will you join me? We’ll walk around in our underwear and pretend we live by the sea!!!
Zhenya 10.05.05
Hi, Masha.
I’ll be coming to Moscow soon. I hope you’ll recognize me. I’ve changed a lot over the summer — I now have a red beard and black underwear. Very nice ones.
Say hello to your husband.
See you soon, Zhenya 02.09.05
Hello, Masha.
I’m doing well. I even bought a gym membership. I’m going to build some muscle there and learn mixed martial arts. Though I haven’t actually gone yet. I work a lot. Barely see daylight at all…
Write back, I’m waiting for your letters, Zhenya. Mexico City 08.12.2005
Hello, Masha. I finally had the surgery — now migraines will never bother me again!) I stopped getting Botox injections. (I feel good. That horse (the one I fell off) got hit by a car yesterday (three times). We’re making sausages now))) There’s finally snow in this shitty city — it’s beautiful! I walk a lot at night, when the girls and Guy are asleep.
xxx, yours, Madonna 20.12.2005
Hello, Masha!
By the time I decided I didn’t want to be like my father, it was already too late: I had grown a red beard, stopped eating bread, and become an artist. Just like him, I like drinking beer in the evenings, and I’ll probably grow a snow-white belly soon. It depresses me. On the bright side, I have the name «Jennifer» tattooed on my butt. But you’re not going to show your ass just to prove your uniqueness! Besides, I suspect he might have the same tattoo.
Get well soon! Yours, B.P. L.A. 11.03.06
Dear Masha,
For a long time I was cowardly and faint-hearted. If something scared me, I would run away and hide. I sat in the dust under the bed, scolding myself for being a coward. But at least I wasn’t afraid there — among old toys, hugging a smelly poodle. Everything changed the moment I grew up and started working as a sexual maniac. I turned from prey into a hunter. «Kill your fear and eat its liver, ” says the little monkey. „Make a bag out of your fear and give it to a friend, ” I say.
Forever yours, Edward T.G. xxx Plainfield 20.04.06
You know, my grandfather was a kind man. He promised to teach me how to swim. His method was very simple — the student is thrown out of a boat in the middle of a lake. Usually, my grandfather taught dogs to swim. Dogs either swam — or they didn’t. «And in the lake, ” my grandfather used to say, „there lives a catfish — huge, unbelievable, at the very bottom. Sometimes it rises to the surface and eats children, dogs, and fishermen.“ My grandfather knew this for sure — he was a fisherman himself.
If you can’t reach the bottom with your feet, somewhere beneath you a big hungry fish is swimming.
Best wishes, Esteban du Plantier 18.03.06
Hello, Masha.
It seems that life moves in a spiral. And we, without realizing it, move along it — sometimes up, sometimes down — as if not noticing that we might find ourselves on the same stretch more than once. Though the spiral itself changes — it tightens more and more. I’ve returned to our native coast. But now the rustle of the waves at night keeps me from sleeping, the sand burns my heels and tail, and the sky hurts my eyes with its blueness. Strange…
My imaginary friend Vibo sends his regards. He quit smoking and now wears a tobacco mask (in the photo he’s wearing it).
Best wishes, Jean-Lou 22.04.06
Based on the project, a limited collection of printed T-shirts was created — a collaboration with Bang! Bang! Studio.
Aphex Twin shares his impressions of the letter T-shirt with Adrian Utley of Portishead. NHK Studio, Tokyo, 2014.
