the postcard project
“The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence.
[…]
But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.” - David Whyte, Consolations
Although it would be easy to chalk up my feelings of disconnect to living in a COVID-19 world, the truth is that the older I’ve gotten the more disconnected I have felt from my friends. It’s fairly logical and seemingly an inevitable process of growing up, working, moving to new cities, and getting ‘busy’. If you were so inclined, you could murmur about ‘time zones’ or trot out one of the most overused and underutilized phrases of adulthood, ‘let’s get together sometime soon!’ Whatever the cause and whatever roles I play in feeling disconnected from my friends, I’ve been motivated to seek out new methods of connection.
The last thing I recall decoupaging was a box of some kind back when I was in the Girl Scouts in middle school. When I tried my hand at making a vision board in 2019 I created it entirely digitally using Adobe Illustrator. So when I was feeling the itch to make something new with my hands and a simultaneous desire to toss out a proverbial can with a piece of string in the direction of some of my friends, I was surprised when my brain came up with ‘collage art postcards from scratch.’
But, as soon as the idea popped in my head I loved it and committed to it. It would be a chance to go slow, go intentionally, get away from all of my screens, and make a different kind of art than I’ve made in a long time. It’s no secret at all that I love snail mail. I love sending and receiving letters, I usually have a stack of greeting cards ready to be postmarked in the event of a friend’s birthday or achievement, and I’d recently read about how writing something physically on paper creates a layer of intimacy that can get lost in other communication forms.
So, I set out to create a handful of postcards to send to some close friends.
I started with making a list of who, followed by cutting out magazine images (from the stack next to bed…) that reminded me of that person, and then finished with a process of cutting out cardstock to postcard size, decoupaging the magazine cut outs, and flattening out the cards where they’d curled up like warm smiles from all of the glue. Writing on the postcards was the hardest part--it’s such a tiny space! Then I affixed my recently purchased postcard stamps to the top right corner and sent them on their journey around the country.
Although I didn’t hear from everyone that I sent one too, several friends let me know they’d received and appreciated them. I hope that the others did as well and more than anything, I hoped the postcard helped them feel a little more connected in a world that throws a dozen communication tools at us that feel sterile and cold. There’s nothing like the warmth of handwriting and paper.
I am planning another series that will feature some doodles as the artwork--something else I haven’t done in a long time--and I look forward to the process, which these days, seems like one of the biggest victories.
until next time,
