1) postcard of painting of a postbox from Wales with a commemorative Queen Elizabeth 2 Memorial franking & 3 language Air Mail seal
2) postcard from a dear correspondent in Gifu who’s postmaster always does a fantastic cancellation stamp (subject matter: motels around the world)
3) big envelope with collage art from Portugal with a fantastic oversize 4£ portfolio style stamp
4) a postcard i mailed to India that sadly, was returned because “mail to this region is not currently possible“ – keeping it on standby in the meanwhile
Vintage DaveO postcard from “Canadian Jamboree 1981” CJ 81 in Kananaskis Country, the summer i turned 11 yrs old (i was probably the youngest on site and needed special permission but ya know i was a keener as they say).
Bikes, canoes, beavers, creative handwriting… In other words, i haven’t changed much since :)
PS Funny thing is, I was back home from camp for a week before it actually showed up… Kind of defeats the purpose but great artifact
While in Sri Lanka for extended Ayurveda treatment, and later rambling a bit, I met an earnest young artist named Rasika specializing in postcards, diligently hand-painted and reflecting visual motifs of his culturally unique homeland.
a variety of Rasika’s handmade postcards
I, unsurprisingly, purchased many many postcards from him and struck up a friendship. He would come to my villa to work on paintings and I would sometimes visit him at his stand at the market in historic Fort Galle.
Rasika and his pals and me, (top left) at villa, (top right) in tuk tuk, (bottom) at market
I mailed many of his postcards around the world so hope his spirit lives on refrigerators and in shoeboxes and scrapbooks as well as in hearts.
Rasika’s card (along one from Stick no Bills) on a fridge in Utah
I purchased him a special ink stamp as a token of friendship and he also help me acquire a return address stamp.
You know i love writing postcards – all of which get mailed but only a random subset reach destination… I do struggle with keeping track of addresses, hidden in messages of all sorts: scraps of paper; biz cards; messenger; twitter dms; imessage; sms; email; random text files; notepad… you get the idea.
As such, i’ve crafted a wee form to reign the chaos in a bit. Consider filling out even if i already have your address (somewhere).
Please note: enter your address EXACTLY and as COMPLETELY as possible. Copy and pasteable, ya dig? No short-cuts, shortcodes, just Zip codes, abbreviations, and add your dang country(!) and so on.
A sunny patch of grass, all necessary tools, everything is possible
Came across this photo, I suppose there’s a chance it’s elsewhere in this archive but its significant memory for me… ergo:
When we were pregnant, went to the lovely “and clinic” for our usual check-in but, in those early heady days of the “notable public health conundrum virus” this was the first time I was not allowed in to participate due to uncertainty and concern.
Certainly crestfallen so, as I do when feeling blue, I grabbed my postal kit and wrote a postcard or a letter, possibly to you.
These sorts of photos with pens, papers, address book, inky and postal stamps, aerograms, ephemera, postcards etc, all sort of spread around on a table, desk, blanket (or just the flap of a leather satchel purchased in Nepal), I called “postal still life” and yes, I have dozens of examples, 100s possibly.
Dear friends in Coquitlam, British Columbia are amassing *quite a collection* of my/our dispatches over the recent months and years.
{In fact, assuming they’ve kept everything I’ve sent over the years, likely in the top three of all my accidental repositories.}
This string just holds a sampler, but what a sampler it is! In my spin spin spin brain, sometimes I forget these things made and sent out into the world. Thanks for reminder.
Oh bonus! I’ve made it to another refrigerator. You can keep your fancy galleries, I’ll take the shoeboxes, scrapbooks and fridge magnets :-)
postcard goes well with stainless steel
Bonus: Mail art dossier to (New) Westminster
Came across snapshots of poetry & art items mailed to a friend several years back, made a collage to enjoy the interaction again:
to which K replied, “I still have the flowers on my fridge”
Batch of friendship cards made / sorta meta as the snaps are (mostly) all of making cards &/or tools used to do so (+ inky stamps to taste). Highly collectible :)
Adding to my collection of precious items from Nick Bantock, writer of epistolary literature (noted for Griffin and Sabine series), fine artist of the finest – and exceptionally versatile –type, stamp maker (both inky and postal), and a font of wisdom and kindness.
As magnificent as this wrapping is, the contents were even more remarkable, to be shared under separate cover at some point.
Archives mailed to an invalid address, delayed upon transition, relevance no longer relevant, however, archive as needed if needed affectionately assembled
Remembering shelter from the storm every possible kind in San Francisco, “here are the keys tie use anything you like“
Postcard, written last year, was waiting for an address, now acquired - as such, sent this curious chap on his journey from the scotch and cigar "Drawing Room" at the Majestic Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to a mountain town across the Pacific. Red Velvet jacket not included.
Also: “I find that postcards require something quite beautiful between countries beyond politics and governments In that that little slip of paper touched so many hands making its way from me to you. It carries so many memories and so many intentions…
At first glimpse it’s just a goofy picture scribbled up but that original photo came from me on a meandering healing journey, not all that long after we sat together in San Francisco or I hid out at your house… in the “drawing room” at the Majestic Hotel in kuala lumpur, I made friends with a barman named Sunday (wrote a poem about him), wore a red velvet smoking jacket, drank hot toddys as i picked up a terrible cold on an overnight train from Thailand where i shared a cabin with a Buddhist monk in his saffron robes, a suitcase full of cigarettes and gold watches.
From one Leo to another, we carry-on, gently, kindly and intrepidly”
