Park Slope Scribe: Performance Artist Sets Up At Brooklyn Mailbox

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — For the next three weeks, Brandon Woolf will leave his home each Wednesday, Friday and Saturday — 1940s typewriter in tow — and walk the seven blocks to a mailbox on Prospect Park West.

Hand sanitizer and mask at the ready, he'll set up a table, a chair, a little red stool and load a piece of paper into the Royal Quiet Deluxe typing machine. Then, he'll wait.

"Whatever type of experience you would like to have — I'm happy to provide letters, envelopes, stamps and my body to type your message," Woolf said.

The set-up is part of a project Woolf, a performance artist, is calling "The CONSOLE."

Inspired by the historical practice of consolation letters, it asks New Yorkers to use Woolf as something of a cross between a scribe and a confidant — all with the goal of making connections amid the isolation brought on by the coronavirus crisis.

"When interpersonal connection is risky...What are other ways where we can be together?" Woolf said. "What is a better experience than getting a piece of mail in your mailbox from somebody you didn't expect to hear from?"

The letter-writing, he hopes, can help New Yorkers dealing with all kinds of grief, whether it be the loss of a loved one, a job, or even a sense of normalcy, Woolf said.

But it also aims to help fill the void for a kind of connection usually found in Woolf's pre-coronavirus job — the theater. Woolf, who recently moved to Park Slope from Queens, has worked with theater groups in Berlin, California and New York.

"I’m a theater-maker and the theater is ailing right now," he said. "I was thinking about how we can’t be indoors in theater spaces, so what about bringing performance into our public spaces?"

Those who want to join in the art piece are invited to sit at the little red stool and either dictate a message for Woolf to type, or work with him to figure out what they'd like to say, he said.

So far, he's become a vessel for everyone from a mom worried about her son in the military to a young child looking to send a letter to a stuffed pea-pod at home, Woolf said.

"Interactions go from very endearing, to very heavy and serious," he said. "I feel like my job is to open up a space for as serious and heavy, or as goofy, or as in between as you would like."

And although Woolf said the piece doesn't have an explicit political message, it isn't a coincidence that he will be on the street corner in the weeks leading up to Nov. 3, Election Day.

The United States Postal Service, whether it be its funding or mail-in ballots, has been brought to the forefront of people's minds in recent weeks, said Woolf, who teaches at New York University about public institutions in times of political crisis.

"The project is not taking a political statement that we should be funding the postal service, [although] I feel that too, but I think the project is more about saying these are sites filled with contradiction right now," he said. "What if we sit together in those spaces of contradiction and community with one another and those we care about?"

Woolf will be at the 78 Prospect Park West mailbox, found near Fourth Street, for a few hours each Wednesday, Friday and Saturday until Nov. 3.

Anybody who wants to write a letter, or even just say hi, is encouraged to stop by, he said.

"I’m new to this community, it’s my new home," he said. "This is also my way of saying hello."