Due to some hassles with the “buy me a coffee” platform – specifically payment methods, (along with my lingering bewildering illness #MECFS), i’m putting the “DaveO Postcard shop” on hiatus indefinitely.
Might return at some point in another format. I’m still making stuff, albeit slowly, and have some new creative schemes and ideas in mind. And of course will continue on with my usual correspondence with high level of diligence and affection.
DaveO Shop on Hiatus, still making stuff
If there’s something you really want, just get a hold of me and we’ll work it out. Also, anyone who paid in advance or whatever, don’t worry, will get you all sorted out.
Thank you to everyone who supported this project buying art dossiers, monthly postcard subscriptions, my lovingly prepared postcard sets and so on. You gave me an opportunity to create some of my favorite things ever and I’m very proud to adorn your refrigerators, scrapbooks and shoeboxes.
Coming to you from “Giggling Piglet Studio“ on the second floor of a historic kura storehouse in Tsuchida, Japan.
While I’m here >> while in bed I did scribble & stampify a batch of lovely postcards. This month’s offerings features payphones around the world. Each unique capturing variations of pinnacle of practical utility & design
Aside from the payphone postcard series, were a few other incidentals that went out in this last batch. Note: When I decide to send a postcard to someone, I consider which postcard (theme, paper, metaphor) would be *just right*, kind of my way of doing Tarot cards I guess.
Including New Year’s cards, sent out about 500+ last year (includes my “postcards as a service“ members, art dossiers, packets, presents etc.) but it never feels like *enough* >> I always have a stack half finished i’m meaning to finish & send, especially to kids.
Related: my friend Cathy Browne (now on CBC) sent me this in replay to my payphone snaps – its a beauty!
"Oh that’s a beauty! I see hopes, waiting, being lost, being found, unidentified bacteria, debris never to be collected, a pin on a map at a maintenance shed no one looks at, pockets full of coins that’s never quite enough, figuring time zones & what to say when it’s been so long."
By the way, my adorable wife mailed me a postcard from a museum she visited recently for work. Such a treat to receive! And my friend @atomicpoet mailed me a cassette mix tape with custom J sleeve. two items of quality indeed!
While I am sharing postcards, this New Year’s card was on its way to a Tzouras player in Greece but Greece & Japan’s postal systems arent getting along right now so it came back. Pretty though.
However: Re-considering my little slacker “postcard shop” as @buymeacoffee changed their payment options/workflow and my meagre little funds are captured in limbo. Admin hassles kind of takes the fun out of it :(
So my choices as I see it are:
1) Set up a “proper” shop with Shopify or Woo #hassle
2) Set up a cheap and cheerful Etsy shop #cheesy
3) Move to Patreon #Patronizing & pressure
4) Shut it and go back to sending postcards ad hoc for no reason in particular Thoughts/advice?
Ok, one more envelope to address *and* this month’s “postcard as a service” postcards are printed! Gotta figure another/different/better system than current though.
Newest Postcard series for the “daveo postal club” members and other free radicals. Snaps come from Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Australia maybe, other places as well but mostly tall slender red unit except the blue one, and the ones that are red but not post boxes.
such elegance and utility in the designs which somehow feel universal and unique at the same time
completely unrelated, half finished and lost painting (that was changed entirely) in Jamaica which appeared on a robot and posting here so i don’t forget it
Fired up the printer last night, with two kinds of paper and 12 or 15 different designs with trains and trams/street cars in & around Nagasaki – plus another “bonus series” of symmetrical views of vanishing point in train interiors.
So many cute trams & trains in Nagasaki, plus some other treats which seemed to want to find a way into the world
Turned out so well! The trick is getting all the crops and the captions on the back just right as well as no/borders and choosing appropriate paper from extensive assortment. In this case, some are on thick watercolor paper, others done on glossy or thinner paper with a little white border which might get a crinkle cut.
Now comes the part where I diligently & specifically choose who gets which one, which stamp (Note: i generally over pay the postage in order to get the better designs on the 84¥ stamps) & which pen to use. Yes I’m very enjoyably overthink all of it.
You can see the same designs on different paper with different borders
I did let my doctor today choose first from the whole stash and enjoyed telling him the back story -– down to the nuanced detail – of the one he chose / indeed this photo has so much backstory to me – From Pender to Newfoundland to Nepal. I’ll tell you sometime if you ask.
Dr chose this one which holds such meaning for me with memories & boots from Pender to Newfoundland to Pokhara to Nagasaki
Made some extras so If you’re feeling a little blue or done something particularly nice out there in the world or, I don’t know, like a birthday or something, sign up for the postal club and I’ll see if I can’t get one coming your way… Always trying to catch up, I’m sort of trying my best 🙂
Of course the smart folks sign up for the “postcard as a service“ for a new unique piece of art every month / Surprise every month &/or blanks to send to pals / totally worth it #Endorsement
Aside: Paralympic stamps are already disappeared from the post office along with all other evidence of the recent Olympics around Japan. It’s not a happy feeling in general despite all the shiny shiny performances
Sharing this August batch so a recent new penpal in India can see some Paralympics stamps from Tokyo2020/1 > love the big stacks! sending vibes out to so many.
September series are thick textured tactile washi paper with ink drawings of tea ceremony items / you can get in on the goodtimes / priceless + putting “fun” into fungible.
Bits of inspiration for September’s postcard as a service assortment
oh! comes back around so the envelope goes int an envelope and round again
Sometimes the letters come back – due to an errant digit or NATA or maybe just want another circumnavigation / so, off they go again! Get in on the rotations.
Thanks to R Scales for original snap – art’d up by dvo
[UPDATE]
The very special dispatch loaded with b&w lomography photos from Gandhi Beach & oil pastels of sherbet-colored houses in Kerala India, Jack Kerouac exhibit in Kobe items, collage of fake IDs (or are they?), & snaps from Suez Canal – which (somehow appropriately) required two circumnavigations to reach Montréal due to an errant “8” not “3”.
Question: Does the mail travel west or east from JPN to QC, Can?
Almost end of #DaveO50, so made some postcards which are kind of “meta” from snapshots of various collections of ID cards, spectacles, knives, lighters, conference passes, passport photos, passports, ribbons, badges, biz cards and whatnot #personalarcheology
Snuck into the kura barn (after moving some items back into the almost done construction house) for a little bit to put on some inky stamps and scribbly hand writing.
These plus a few other dossiers to the post office tomorrow after the piano gets moved (not doing that).
By the way I am out of both cyan and magenta ink so it’s a great time to sign up for my “postcard as a subscription service“.
Keep in mind, I put extra love into the postcards for subscribers but also send to loads of other people, especially folks who seem to be putting goodness out into the world and/or need a little spark in their life. Is this you?
i find the letters find homes faster when augmented with wax seals and inky stamps
Of course, post boxes are only useful if you have letters to go inside or somehow magically the world is connected by pneumatic tubes (its the only explanation I can think of).
Not absolutely required but I find letters find destinations better with liberal use of wax seals and a variety of inky stamps.
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