Corrected Love Letters consists of seven typewritten love letters ambiguously addressed to “Love” and signed in closing “leah.” These typewritten and folded letters were then outsourced to an editor who made proofreading marks in the margin. Each letter was then scanned on top of a floral printed fabric, enlarged and printed. The red pen signifies that some editing or correcting has been done. A coded language is written down the left hand side of the letter, providing an alternate reading in the margin. The letters address intimacy through language, and the proofreaders red pen clinically rectifies the grammatical errors. This red pen attempts to correct the mistakes but even though the, “corrections may offer some degree of consolation…they can not make the failure undone.” The corrections place the letters in the category of ‘drafts’ or rough copies of the final. No finished, re-edited letter is displayed, rather it is presented ‘as is,’ and functions as a sketch and thus, “reject[ing] conclusions in favour of repetition and recalibration."
In Barthe’s A Lover’s Discourse he explains that Freud believes the love letter is evidence of the continual rhythm of “thought.” He states, “What does ‘thinking of you,’ mean? It means “forgetting you” (without forgetting, life itself is not possible) and frequently waking out of that forgetfulness”. This rhythm or pattern of thought is mirrored visually through the pieces of repetitive floral fabric that provide the background to the letters.
The floral images repeat over and over, this decorative pattern functions as the ground whereas the letters themselves establish the figure/subject. The patterns serve as the chorus and each individual letter a separate verse within the series. The rhythm of the floral patterns connotes a domestic quality as well as aspects of decoration.
The text in these images function both as a legible narrative as well as an image. The series of seven letters allow each image, each framed piece, to become sculptural, and the
“words in this context [can be] treated in some sense like objects- to be looked at, and also to be accumulated, built up, moved around, and broken apart- just as objects could be treated like words, could be read or interpreted to have meanings beyond their mute physical appearance.”
