Letters To The Pacific Ocean

In 2003, Pittsburg-based artist John Peña sent a letter addressed to the Pacific Ocean. He has continued doing this daily act for the past 13 years, amassing over 3,000 letters that have been returned to him with the US Postal Service stamp saying "no such place exists".

Here's the link to the article with photos.

http://www.designfaves.com/2016/04/...acific-ocean

One-upsmanship, on the part of the USPS, would be to place a box on a post at 1360 State Highway 105, and deliver the letters.

I think they ought to charge the guy for doing this. He is running up a tremendous bill with this idiocy!

Peter

The USPS should start charging him for the RETURN of the letters!

I question that he actually got one mailed out every single day for 13 years. In fact, the numbers don't add up. The article states "amassing over 3,000 letters"; if he had mailed one each day for 13 years he would have about 4628. Did he send one every Sunday? If you remove the Sundays, it still should be close to 4000.

They show a display of the letter, but the display only contains 1064 letters. Why display only 1/3 of the effort? If he had over 3000 letters why not display them all for the maximum effect?
Don
APS #094826

It's fewer than 4,628 because he only mailed one on days when he was not high.

If I display 4,000 used copies of the 3c. Thomas Jefferson Prexie is it art?

I like it! I could see that in my living room. Though I'm not sure the missus would agree.

In Canada you can write to Santa Claus North Pole and have an answer before Christmas. Even a gift if you've been a good boy! Daniel

Battle, only if it`s a commentary on slavery...

A few years ago I ran into a bunch of covers that caught my eye. They were for example from "John Jones" in NYC to John Jones in New Delhi India, or Ed Smith in Baltimore to Ed smith in Bali Bali. Apparently it was a thing to do in the 30s. Collectors would address a letter to themselves in various exotic foreign locations and hope the letter would have a fun trip and eventually get back to them as a well marked cover for their collection. I wish I had kept some of these covers they were a lot of fun.

Wow, that's $1000+ just for the postage! I guess I'm too much of a cheapskate to be an artist!

Although there's a picture of a letter or two, the article is not absolutely clear. Did he actually send 3000+ letters in the envelopes, and were they all different?

All I know is he at least succeeded in one thing -- getting one of the postal workers ticked off! (see some of the postal worker writing on the covers)

I think I'm more amazed that the postal workers were disciplined enough to follow standard protocol and send so many of them back to him!

cjpalermo had a great idea! That would be hilarious if the postal carrier just addressed and dumped a box next to the road and tossed the mail in there! But I guess they didn't want to get into trouble.