Community Service :
Letters and Flicks

Before the rise of websites like Art Crimes and later Flickr and Instagram, trading through the mail was the only way to see fresh flicks from other regions between zine drops. Flicks were often mailed in illustrated envelopes along with stickers, sketches, and notes. Usually signed with tags or throw-ups, these mostly longhand letters document an array of handstyles.

Writers would also photocopy favorite sketches from their blackbooks to submit to publications or share with faraway friends, sometimes even using them to create personal letterheads. Though writers began to print stickers during this era, graffiti stickers were more commonly hit with marker tags and slapped on any surface in arm’s reach.

The Skills archives contain letters from and flicks of graffiti legends at their prime as well as by art world names before they were acclaimed. The ephemera on display demonstrates not just a trading economy but a community urging each other on.