It's been a bit of a dry spell, but today we got one of Jonno's postcards back from Denver. He calls this one "Dolphin and Basilisk." I'm not sure he actually knows what a basilisk is!
Monday, December 21, 2015
Postcard feature: Dolphin and basilisk
It's been a bit of a dry spell, but today we got one of Jonno's postcards back from Denver. He calls this one "Dolphin and Basilisk." I'm not sure he actually knows what a basilisk is!
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Library Feature: Uinta County, Evanston, Wyoming
The Uinta County Library used to be a supermarket, which is easier to believe when you're just reading it as words on a blog than when you are standing in the library looking at its beautiful wood paneling and high arching ceilings. Someone did a great job of turning an old Safeway into an elegant space for books. But as beautiful as it is, and as much as I love books, what really got under my skin about this library were the pianos.
Two pianos.
This library has two pianos.
How cool is that?
The older of the two is a beautiful little upright with an ornate stool. Its unassuming presence belies a wonderful backstory. In the early 1900s, Dale Carnegie donated money to build a library in Evanston. His wife, Louise, donated the piano as her part of the endowment toward a library in Evanston. The library long since moved out of its original building, but Mrs. Carnegie's piano with its pretty stool is still very much a part of the library.
Two pianos.
This library has two pianos.
How cool is that?
The older of the two is a beautiful little upright with an ornate stool. Its unassuming presence belies a wonderful backstory. In the early 1900s, Dale Carnegie donated money to build a library in Evanston. His wife, Louise, donated the piano as her part of the endowment toward a library in Evanston. The library long since moved out of its original building, but Mrs. Carnegie's piano with its pretty stool is still very much a part of the library.
The other piano is a white baby grand. It's beautiful! It was donated to the library in honor of a longtime patron who passed away of cancer in 2005. A picture of the family who donated it now rests on the piano. Sometimes, someone settles on the bench and plays music for the patrons.
I think every library should have a piano!
The Uinta County Library also has some wonderful historical documents and artifacts, and a room filled with Wyoming history. Some other lovely things to look at:
I think every library should have a piano!
The Uinta County Library also has some wonderful historical documents and artifacts, and a room filled with Wyoming history. Some other lovely things to look at:
The pretty arched ceilings.
Postcard feature: Birds on a wire
Sometimes, after making lots of postcards, I find myself becoming too entangled in complex ideas and designs, and I have to return to simplicity. It is, after all, just a 4x6 rectangle of paper I'm working with. My tools are limited, too--a few markers, colored pencils, my travel watercolors.
And the card itself may never be found, or may be thrown away, or may be--as this one appears to have been--run over by a truck!
The Uinta County Library is unlike any other. I'll be featuring it in a future post. In the meantime, check out their Facebook page--you can even see this card there in a post from August 6, 2015 when it was discovered in a book about dinosaurs!
And the card itself may never be found, or may be thrown away, or may be--as this one appears to have been--run over by a truck!
The Uinta County Library is unlike any other. I'll be featuring it in a future post. In the meantime, check out their Facebook page--you can even see this card there in a post from August 6, 2015 when it was discovered in a book about dinosaurs!
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Postcard feature: LOVE
Some people sent our postcards back with long notes...and some don't. This postcard, left in the library in Helena Montana on the same trip as the previous one ("Salt and Pepper"), was returned with just one word--LOVE.
I loved it. It was written in a tightly doodled hand ("hand" is what we calligraphers call fonts; to me, a font is something mechanically produced). The doodling that defined the letterforms was more than just scribbling--I was pretty sure I could see letterforms in the tangled lines. "Girls" appears quite clearly, for example, in the top extension of the E. But while the rest of it had the appearance of deliberate, meaningful movement, I couldn't discern any other words.
The postcard itself was inspired by a pattern in the carpet of the hotel.
I loved it. It was written in a tightly doodled hand ("hand" is what we calligraphers call fonts; to me, a font is something mechanically produced). The doodling that defined the letterforms was more than just scribbling--I was pretty sure I could see letterforms in the tangled lines. "Girls" appears quite clearly, for example, in the top extension of the E. But while the rest of it had the appearance of deliberate, meaningful movement, I couldn't discern any other words.
The postcard itself was inspired by a pattern in the carpet of the hotel.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Postcard Feature: Salt and Pepper
One place we visited often for a while was Helena, Montana, where The Dad once had employees he needed to visit. While he worked, Anna and the little boys and I would ride the carousel, swim in the hotel pool, hike, windowshop in Last Chance Gulch (and visit the toy store there!), and eat local food. Helena is where I had a Cajun crawfish taco so spicy I broke out in a hot sweat. It's also where Jesse (one of the twins, then just 4) fell in love with the general manager of the Days Inn, whose walk he could recognize without looking. He called her the Mom in the Black Shoes.
We often take inspiration from whatever happens to be around--like the salt and pepper shakers on a restaurant table.
This postcard, drawn by Anna, was discovered by a schoolteacher. And to be honest, until I asked her for a postcard to feature, I didn't even know it had been returned! But what a wonderful story it came back with.
It says, Wow. What a surprise it was to find this postcard tucked inside the book Horton's Miraculous Mechanisms by Lissa Evans. I am an elementary teacher in Helena, MT and was looking for a good read aloud for my 1-3rd graders. I'm not sure about this book yet, but it's pretty good. This book and postcard have traveled to Spokane, WA and Glacier National Park and some remote Montana places! I hope you get a lot of postcards back! Annie Tague
Anna keeps her returned postcards in this little gold evening bag.
Thursday, September 10, 2015
Postcard feature: Goji
Obviously, there wouldn't be a Lost Postcard Project blog without the postcards.
Well, okay, there would. There are actually quite a few Lost Postcards blogs, and we recognize that while we might have been the first Project (given that we created and hid our first postcards in Iona, Idaho in 2006), we are slow bringing it to the Blogworld. So let me start out by apologizing for being, in part, redundant. For the record, I tried to get the girl to agree to change the project's name to something more unique and maybe also more precise. Because the postcards aren't exactly lost, are they?
I suggested Misplaced Postcards, Forgotten Postcards, Unexpected Postcards (my personal favorite), Surprise Postcards--all kinds of postcards. But she wouldn't have it. She was, after all, six years old when she drew and hid her first postcard. She will be sixteen early next year, which means Lost Postcards represent nearly two-thirds of her life. She has a limited store of memories from the years before Lost Postcards. And in all that time, that significant segment of her existence on this earth, the Postcard Project has been Lost.
So, Lost it remains. And honestly, quite a few of the postcards really are lost now. Not all of them come back. We were especially unsuccessful with that first adventure, and it sort of hurts to think of all her sweet little first-grader artwork out there somewhere.
But our return rate has improved a lot since then. We have a little store of returned postcards. She has hers in a little bag in her room. I keep mine...well, in a considerably less organized fashion. But I keep them.
And if you're reading this, you probably want to see them. Well, maybe you don't care. But we want to show them to you, and it's our blog, so you're just going to have to deal with it.
We should have featured the first one we ever got back, of course, but we can't remember which one it was. So instead, we're going to start off with one that was a favorite of both of us when we hid it, and came back to us with about the best note ever. The finder was kind enough to give my elephant both a name, and an adventure.This is Goji, hidden in the Denver Public Library in July 2015, and returned to us postmarked New Jersey (New Jersey!) in August.
Well, okay, there would. There are actually quite a few Lost Postcards blogs, and we recognize that while we might have been the first Project (given that we created and hid our first postcards in Iona, Idaho in 2006), we are slow bringing it to the Blogworld. So let me start out by apologizing for being, in part, redundant. For the record, I tried to get the girl to agree to change the project's name to something more unique and maybe also more precise. Because the postcards aren't exactly lost, are they?
I suggested Misplaced Postcards, Forgotten Postcards, Unexpected Postcards (my personal favorite), Surprise Postcards--all kinds of postcards. But she wouldn't have it. She was, after all, six years old when she drew and hid her first postcard. She will be sixteen early next year, which means Lost Postcards represent nearly two-thirds of her life. She has a limited store of memories from the years before Lost Postcards. And in all that time, that significant segment of her existence on this earth, the Postcard Project has been Lost.
So, Lost it remains. And honestly, quite a few of the postcards really are lost now. Not all of them come back. We were especially unsuccessful with that first adventure, and it sort of hurts to think of all her sweet little first-grader artwork out there somewhere.
But our return rate has improved a lot since then. We have a little store of returned postcards. She has hers in a little bag in her room. I keep mine...well, in a considerably less organized fashion. But I keep them.
And if you're reading this, you probably want to see them. Well, maybe you don't care. But we want to show them to you, and it's our blog, so you're just going to have to deal with it.
We should have featured the first one we ever got back, of course, but we can't remember which one it was. So instead, we're going to start off with one that was a favorite of both of us when we hid it, and came back to us with about the best note ever. The finder was kind enough to give my elephant both a name, and an adventure.This is Goji, hidden in the Denver Public Library in July 2015, and returned to us postmarked New Jersey (New Jersey!) in August.
The front of the postcard, taken before we visited the Denver Library.
The postcard as it was returned to us.
What a wonderful return! Here's the fun story the postcard came back with, in a handwriting full of character (I'm a calligrapher, too; I notice these things):
Goji the elephant had forgotten the way home, which is odd, since elephants never forget.
While wandering with a friend through the plains, a great storm arose suddenly, and he became separated from his friend. He was alone. He cried for hours and days, until a soft voice called to him. Clearing his wet eyes, he saw a brilliant phoenix smiling kindly at him. A voice calmed him, "Do not cry, my dear. Never are you totally lost. My name is Keegan. Pleased to meet you. Your big ears are so beautiful!"
Goji blushed and thanked Keegan. "My name is Goji, and I want to go home! I miss my friends."
"We'll get you there," the phoenix responded with care as she carried him in her claws, flying away. "You made it all the way to Cape May, NJ while lost!"
Thank you, Keegan, for returning our elephant, and for giving us such an adventure!
--mejaka and Anna
Goji the elephant had forgotten the way home, which is odd, since elephants never forget.
While wandering with a friend through the plains, a great storm arose suddenly, and he became separated from his friend. He was alone. He cried for hours and days, until a soft voice called to him. Clearing his wet eyes, he saw a brilliant phoenix smiling kindly at him. A voice calmed him, "Do not cry, my dear. Never are you totally lost. My name is Keegan. Pleased to meet you. Your big ears are so beautiful!"
Goji blushed and thanked Keegan. "My name is Goji, and I want to go home! I miss my friends."
"We'll get you there," the phoenix responded with care as she carried him in her claws, flying away. "You made it all the way to Cape May, NJ while lost!"
Thank you, Keegan, for returning our elephant, and for giving us such an adventure!
--mejaka and Anna
Friday, September 4, 2015
So many of the things we love
Early summer, 2006.
My 40th birthday.
I was spending it at a friend's house in Iona, Idaho (which is so small some Idahoans have never heard of it). My husband had business in town, my friend and her husband were at work, and I was alone with my children and hers for the day.
It had the makings of a pretty miserable birthday, especially given that 40 isn't that great of a milestone to reach in the first place.
On a whim, I decided to invite the kids to make some art with me. I had some postcard-sized cardstock and my little box of art toys (pencils, markers, and old eyeshadows), so why not?
The boys weren't interested, but my daughter, Anna, loved to draw. She and I spent an enjoyable afternoon ignoring the boys and making little handmade postcards. Being six and curious, she wanted to know what we would do with them when we were done.
Not that my life is entirely run on whims, but when she asked, I found myself answering, "Let's take them to the library and hide them in library books. We can address them to ourselves and see if any of them come back!"
The Iona library was a small room in the basement of City Hall. Because we are book lovers and avid readers (we'd have read through that library's collection in a matter of weeks!), we hid the postcards in books that seemed obscure, because we didn't want the postcards to beat us home.
They didn't. In fact, we never saw any of those postcards again.
But we were intrigued by the idea of making art, hiding it in library books, and getting it back in the mail, maybe with a note from the person who found it. What if, every time we left our hometown, we would take blank postcards and an art toybox and continue the project? It involved so many of the things we love--Postcards, libraries, mail, art, books, travel, stories, and people.
So, we did. We hid postcards in Seattle. In Portland. In Coeur d'Alene and Hayden. In Salt Lake City. In Helena. In Evanston. In Denver.
People mailed them back.
And nearly ten years later, we finally decided that it was a real project, and not just a whim.
We started this blog to keep track of it.
My 40th birthday.
I was spending it at a friend's house in Iona, Idaho (which is so small some Idahoans have never heard of it). My husband had business in town, my friend and her husband were at work, and I was alone with my children and hers for the day.
It had the makings of a pretty miserable birthday, especially given that 40 isn't that great of a milestone to reach in the first place.
On a whim, I decided to invite the kids to make some art with me. I had some postcard-sized cardstock and my little box of art toys (pencils, markers, and old eyeshadows), so why not?
The boys weren't interested, but my daughter, Anna, loved to draw. She and I spent an enjoyable afternoon ignoring the boys and making little handmade postcards. Being six and curious, she wanted to know what we would do with them when we were done.
Not that my life is entirely run on whims, but when she asked, I found myself answering, "Let's take them to the library and hide them in library books. We can address them to ourselves and see if any of them come back!"
The Iona library was a small room in the basement of City Hall. Because we are book lovers and avid readers (we'd have read through that library's collection in a matter of weeks!), we hid the postcards in books that seemed obscure, because we didn't want the postcards to beat us home.
They didn't. In fact, we never saw any of those postcards again.
But we were intrigued by the idea of making art, hiding it in library books, and getting it back in the mail, maybe with a note from the person who found it. What if, every time we left our hometown, we would take blank postcards and an art toybox and continue the project? It involved so many of the things we love--Postcards, libraries, mail, art, books, travel, stories, and people.
So, we did. We hid postcards in Seattle. In Portland. In Coeur d'Alene and Hayden. In Salt Lake City. In Helena. In Evanston. In Denver.
People mailed them back.
And nearly ten years later, we finally decided that it was a real project, and not just a whim.
We started this blog to keep track of it.
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