A picture is worth a thousand words, which can be tough news for a writer. I like words and images together, and art cards are a peaceful place to be while sorting through the longer storylines happening around here.
To start an art card, I pull together a collection of cards and ephemera related to a theme or style I want to explore. Gather tools, supplies, and a drink at my art board. Set my phone aside, and pick up an exacto knife. Then, I sit down, quiet down, and begin to make meaning out of the materials in front of me. I’m nowhere near my computer or journal, but making an art card now and then is part and parcel with my writing process.
The Posted Past Art Card Gallery is inspired by so many wonderful postcard projects over the years. Worth mentioning are PostSecret, which invites anyone to share an anonymous secret on a postcard, and PostCrossing, which makes it easy to send and receive postcards around the world.
For our part, we collaborate with collage artists to make something small and special for everyone to enjoy. The artist requests a theme or two based on interests like, trees, farms, or portraits. We send an art card bundle and they create collage postcards with these materials. The postcard collages come back through the mail, celebrating the wear and tear of the postal service journey.
The Art Card Gallery is a place to see art card collages created by artists around the world.
If you’re already a subscriber, bless you for hanging on as you do. You get a little note in your inbox each Wednesday. Most times it flits away like a red cardinal, down into the cold, thatched hinterland of your inbox scroll. I know.
Introducing the Wednesday Weekly Reader, a new place to catch up with a previous story series bundled in a way that is easier to read. If you love our national parks, wonder about where the past gets lost, or know a few lonely snowbirds, a story series may meet your fancy.
Reed Fowler is a textile artist, pastor, and writer. Originally from Vermont, he now calls Minnesota home. Reed taught themselves to sew at a young age, following in the path of their grandma and aunt, and fell in love with weaving in college. Reed’s dad instilled in him an embodied love and care for the spaces and people he lives with, expressed through craft.
Reed is a member of the Weaver’s Guild of MN, and a founding member of a queer-centered intentional community, where they live with their spouse, their four cats, and housemates. They love books about magical libraries, watching reality cooking shows, and dreaming about garden layouts, systems, and tea blends.
Q: Are there stories that came to you while looking through the Art Card bundle that was sent to you?
A: Unfolding pathways, roots, landscapes. Distance and closeness – across time, and geography. Timespans of creative practice, of months feeling like decades. Calling back to ourselves, to our embodiment, to the tactile. Mycelium below the surface.
Q: How has your relationship with these collages changed from first receiving the images, through the process of cutting and gluing, and to final finishing touches?
A: The relationship to empty space evolved over the course of the collages. Density, words, lines, space. I originally resisted the blank cards, choosing instead for one to collage atop an existing postcard, rather than dissembling it. The sharp contrast of new printed paper to what I knew had passed through many hands before it reached mine threw me at first.
Q: Among your creations, which images stand out and why?
A: The “All happiness this day” was one of the hardest for me to cut into – the postcard was from the 1920’s, and was the main card I received that had writing on it – it had already gone through the mail. The final collage it’s in makes my heart happiest. The collage on the existing postcard, with the line “home away from home” feels most aligned to when I was creating it – in a cabin at a state park, celebrating my 5th wedding anniversary with my spouse, crafting by lantern-light.
Q: Is collage similar or different from your regular studio practice?
A: Collage is one element of my regular studio practice, at least for my personal creative practices. I’m primarily (currently) a textile artist – working in wool and thread and fabric. Earlier in my life, I was more of a mixed-media artist, where collage featured more heavily. So now, when I need a creative outlet just for myself, or if I’m trying to think through a project, or feeling, I’ll often turn back towards mixed-media, and collage.
Q: If you could give and/or receive a postcard from anyone living or passed, who would it be and why?
A: My late grandfather. He shaped my current path in beautiful ways that he never knew, and I’d love a chance to send him a postcard and receive one in return.
Like the flash of a red cardinal in the winter snow, both George and Nina suddenly see something that has been there all along.
George woke early in the day on New Year’s Eve. Light snow outside and the question he’d been turning over since Christmas: when to take Emma birding. He called before he could overthink it.
“Tomorrow morning?” Mai answered. “She’ll be ready at dawn.”
They met at Frontenac State Park at first light. Emma hopped out of Mai’s car already dressed for the cold—layers, boots, a hat George recognized as one of her mother’s favorites. Mai waved from the driver’s seat, smiled, pulled away.
“Just us?” George asked.
Emma’s eyes rolled slightly and smirked as she held up his binoculars. She’d already adjusted the strap. The green Audubon field guide was tucked under one arm, a new notebook in her other hand.
“Mom has to get ready for the party. Plus, she said it’s too cold.”
“Fair enough,” George smiled back and nodded toward the trailhead. “Binos up, move slowly, scan and listen. You go first.”
They walked the trail along the frozen river in tandem, as quietly and patiently as he had advised. Not looking for birds exactly, but for movement, for shapes that didn’t fit the pattern of branches and sky. Emma spotted the first cardinal.
“There,” she whispered.
George raised his older binoculars. He had kept them for Jennie on the rare occasion she wanted to come along.
“Tan body, red-orange bill, and a sort-of red crest,” Emma slowly described the bird.
“Good eye. Watch how she moves.”
The bird hopped branch to ground, ground to branch.
“How did you know it was female?” Emma asked.
“Colors and the song notes. Males are showier and louder. Females sing too. They’re just quieter about it.”
Emma opened her notebook.
Female cardinal. Frontenac State Park. New Year’s Day. Feeding on lower branches of sumac. Light song noted.
They found chickadees, a downy woodpecker, juncos, and stopped along the way to record and discuss each bird. Emma’s notes filled two pages. George watched her move through the stark and cold forest—confident, curious, at ease. Mai had been more careful at this age, tentative on the trails. Emma walked as though she belonged here. She did.
Driving her home, George said, “You’re a natural. Your mom was good, too. She could walk so slowly, make no noise at all.”
Emma smiled. “She says I get it from you.”
“Well, I got this for us,” George said as he pulled into the driveway.
He flashed his phone screen to reveal the app he had downloaded, the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds but online and searchable. Right on the front, the very first photo was a male and female pair of Northern Cardinals.
Emma’s eyes lit up. Quietly, she imagined how many they’d find all over Minnesota in the days and weeks and (hopefully) years ahead.
Back home, George leaned out of the window to pick up the mail before driving down the ice-packed drive. He tossed the stack on the seat. On top, a photo of an American Airlines plane. He knew who it was before he turned it over.
Flight delay. Thinking about you and Jennie. Can’t believe they’re both gone. —T
His younger brother, Tom, both of them widowers now. Their wives were gone within months of each other. At times, they both worried they would lose each other, too. Too much pain, way too much.
George had been waiting for Tom to call. He knew that constant work and distance was his way of coping, but how long was too long?
George looked at Tom’s card again, familiar but this time a sudden realization hit him. Tom sends postcards. He’d received at least a half a dozen over the years–all photos of old jets. George had never written back. Not once. He’d been waiting for the phone to ring. Now he remembered the little collection of airplanes in his desk drawer.
He sat down. Pulled a card from his own growing stack, a color photo of a trail like today’s but after the thaw. His message was short, with room for more later.
Got your card. Miss them every day. Miss talking to you. —George
He addressed it to Tom’s apartment in Phoenix, the one he’d moved to after Delia died, and rarely slept in. Stamped it. Put on his coat and walked back out to the mailbox, certain of what he’d been missing.
Nina found Mrs. Hanabusa arranging flowers in the common room—a small practical arrangement, simple stems in a shallow dish.
“For the holiday?” Nina asked.
“My own amusement.” Mrs. Hanabusa adjusted a branch. “Ikebana, flowers carry meaning. Not just pretty, it’s a message.”
“What does this one say?” Nina asked.
Mrs H pointed to the chrysanthemum. “This one means longevity, joy. Used in autumn arrangements and also at funerals. Pomegranate. Internal life, good luck, and natural cycles of life and death.”
Nina watched her work. The precise angles, the negative space.
Mrs. Hanabusa stood up and moved back to considered her creation. “New year. Endurance through winter. Joy waiting to flower. Life coming and going all the time.”
She looked at Nina. “What’s your story?”
Nina placed her postcard on the table and sat down. A cluster of saguaro against a bright blue sky, blank on the other side.
“I don’t know what to say to him,” Nina whispered.
“Ikebana, we don’t fill all the space. We leave room. Leave room,” said Mrs. Hanabusa with some emphasis this time.
Nina thought for a moment, and wrote:
Got your note. Like the saguaro, I’m still here. Hug? —N
Not forgiveness. Not resolution. Presence and a little humor, with some room. She added her father’s address in Phoenix. Stamped it and set it by her keys, knowing that it still might take days to put it in the mail.
The next morning, a third card from Nora arrived—black and white geometric patterns, stark and beautiful. An Inuit quilt made of duck knecks.
Mrs. Hanabusa was at the window again when Nina came in. Nina showed her the card. Mrs. H studied the design, then turned it over to read the back.
Found a noodle shop I love. Made friends at work. Some days are hard, some surprise me by how easily I could stay longer. —N
Mrs. Hanabusa looked up. “She signs just ‘N.’ Like you do.”
Nina blinked. She’d never noticed.
“My sister and I had our own shorthand, too. Still do.” Mrs. Hanabusa handed the card back carefully. “Secret code.”
Nina looked at the card again. The simple N. The years of friendship.
On her way home, she stopped at the blue mailbox on the corner. Pulled out the cactus card she’d written to her father to look at how she’d signed it. Just N.
She dropped it in the slot, heard it fall, and said a humble prayer. What else had she not noticed along the way?
A magic carpet takes us to a far away photo show, and a beach scene brings back old memories.
Nina found Mrs. Hanabusa in the common room sorting groceries into cloth bags. The postcard was still in Nina’s hand—a Navajo textile in geometric patterns, black and white against red wool.
“Let me help,” Nina said, taking two bags.
Mrs. Hanabusa glanced at the card. “From your friend? The one who went to Taipei?”
“She just arrived.” Nina turned the card over.
Made it. Everything moves faster here. First night was a photo exhibit on Mt Nunhu. Already miss the slow mornings. —N
Funny, Nina had received Nora’s text with images from the show that night, long before the postcard arrived in her mailbox here in Tucson.
They walked to Mrs. Hanabusa’s room. Nina set the bags on the small counter. Mrs. H studied the postcard, her finger tracing the pattern.
“My grandparents had one like this. Hung in their house on the flower farm.” She paused. “My grandmother found it at a trading post in the twenties. She said the geometry reminded her of Japanese family crests. Clean lines. She hung it in the room where they did arrangements.”
Mrs. H’s voice stayed quiet, remembering. “After the war, when we came back from the camps, the farm was gone. But a neighbor had saved some things. The rug was one of them. Grandmother cried when she saw it. I was small, maybe seven. I didn’t understand then what it meant to get something back.”
She opened a drawer, pulled out a small wooden box. Inside lay perhaps a dozen postcards, all showing Ikebana arrangements with low, horizontal compositions in shallow containers. Pink and red cosmos rising from a white porcelain vase. Allium gigantium’s perfect spheres balanced with small lantana blooms. A giant monstera leaf with a canna lily and a white chrysanthemum.
Mrs. Hanabusa handed Nina the stack of cards. She flipped through slowly, admiring each floral design.
“My sister sent these from Osaka. Our grandmother taught the traditional way. These are more like her arrangements, traditional but made new.”
Mrs. H pointed to the one with the iris. Nina looked closer. The composition was deliberate. Bold strokes against a spare background.
“Your friend will send you more postcards?”
“She promised,” Nina replied.
“Good,” Mrs. H smiled. “We get bored without friends.”
George had haunted thrift stores his whole life. Mostly he looked for tools—socket wrenches, levels, hand planes that still had their blades. Things he could use or restore.
Now he looked for postcards too.
The Goodwill in Red Wing had a basket of them near the register. Fifty cents each. He sorted through slowly. Tourist shots of the Badlands. A faded view of the State Capitol. Then he found a few good ones.
A real photo postcard showing Lake Pepin framed by trees, “Father of Waters” etched in careful script. The water stretched wide and calm, clouds massed above the bluffs.
A color card of Minneapolis Public Library, the old red brick building with its round tower and arched windows. George remembered when they torn it down in 1951.
A chrome card showing a white horse leaning over a fence, red barn and farmhouse in the background.
And then—George stopped. Sugar Loaf Mountain near Winona. A beach scene, families on the sand, kids on playground equipment, swimmers in the water. The mountain rising behind them.
He was transported to that very day. Their family had been right there, doing exactly that. The kids running between the beach and the playground. The particular blue of the water. How his wife had packed sandwiches that got sand in them and nobody cared.
George bought all four cards. Two dollars total. At home he examined them under the desk lamp before he got to thinking about each message.
He wrote to Emma:
Found this real photo from Lake Pepin. “Father of Waters” they called it. Your wanderlust comes honestly—this river goes all the way to the Gulf. Love, Grandpa
To Jack:
Get to the good old libraries while you can. This one is gone already! Love, Grandpa
To Lily:
See how the fence posts get smaller as they go back? That’s tricky to draw! Give it a try. Love, Grandpa
He paused at the fourth card, and let out a small sigh. Sugar Loaf Mountain, seems like another lifetime. Finally, he wrote:
This one is for you, kiddo. Reminds me of you and the guys and Mom. Fun times! Love, Dad
George added addresses and stamps. Put on his coat and walked to the mailbox, a short stretch of the legs that he now enjoyed. A chickadee called from the pine tree across the street—its clear two-note song cutting through the cold afternoon air.
Nina makes a long distance deal with a dear friend, and George finds a new use for old memories.
Nina arrived early at the coffee shop near campus in Tempe. The drive up from Tucson was faster than she expected. Nora slid into the booth at 9am sharp. “You’re glowing,” Nina said.
“Nerves.” Nora grinned. “Two years in Taipei, three weeks to learn Mandarin.”
They ordered. Nina nudged a package across the table. She’d wrapped the book of postcards the night before, Navajo Textiles, each page a detachable card with a different striking design. Almost too good to take apart.
Nora opened it and smiled. “These are perfect. They will remind me where I came from. And, we can keep them! I’ll send them back to you.”
She flipped through the cards. “My grandmother did this. Sent us postcards from every trip. Maybe that’s why I love to travel.”
“I want to hear all about it,” Nina said. “Something to look forward to in the mailbox.”
“Deal.”
They talked until Nora had to leave for meetings. Nina hugged her friend outside, watched her disappear into the parking garage. On the drive back to Tucson, she thought about when she might travel again. Someday.
In Minnesota, George came across a box of old stationery while cleaning out a drawer in the office. He’d been ignoring this stuff too long, but it had to be done. He was surprised to find a bunch of notecards and envelopes, postcards from their own travels, even some stamps. Jennie must have tucked them away years ago, then forgotten.
He shuffled through the stack, smiled, and thought about their grandchildren.
Emma, sixteen, newly licensed, texting him sunset photos. Jack, thirteen, reading everything, and his own library growing. Lily, nine, from whom he routinely received animal drawings in manila envelopes.
He wrote to Emma first:
Found this sunset and thought of you – keep your eyes on the horizon! Love, Grandpa
Then, to Jack:
You can find a library in every place. Hope you go some day, and your collection grows. Love, Grandpa
Finally, to Lily, though his hand was aching:
For my favorite artist: a cat to inspire your next drawing. Keep sending pictures. Love, Grandpa
He addressed the cards and peeled the Forever stamps from their yellowed backing. The afternoon sun was glinting off the glassy surface of the snow as George walked down the drive and out to the mailbox. These should get there before Christmas, he thought. Next he’d knock the icicles off the eves over the porch steps, then make dinner.
Sifting through the stacks this season, in search of levity and brevity.
Oh dear, a trove of kitschy postcard sets has appeared in The Posted Past studio. Careful opening boxes around here. I’ve been sorting and stocking the store this month, getting ready for the holidays.
Most of these vintage finds make thoughtful gifts for nature seekers, travelers, and art lovers. Some make for big belly laughs, too. Quit your job for two minutes and follow me.
Graphic novelist Paul Hornschemeier gives us thirty So-So Heroes, like Amalgamonster and Biggeespeare, in a nicely packaged postcard set. Bound to scare your friends, a little.
This next collection by fine artist and designer Rex Ray feels like a festive fondue party in a retro-future living room. Witty banter, wry smiles, and wood grain. Get your sweater sets.
I am Yours from Seattle-based artist Joe Park comes with a neatly-placed curatorial note from Robin Held and a lovely literary sketch by Jen Graves.
“You have seen these folks before–even if you don’t know where”
The collection does feel like finding a tiny gallery all to yourself, and a weird world of bears and bunnies. Worth the trip!
Stay Tuned by Nathan Fox is a visual romp through the artist’s fantastical funhouse. Eye-frying colors and psyche-stained scenes will make you feel like you woke up on the other side of a paranormal universe.
Anything pre-Y2K is officially vintage now. Not funny, I know. These Golden 50s throwback designs make it even worse. You’ll be thanking your lucky leg-warmers we made it out ok, mostly.
Over the past few weeks, a rare photo postcard album has revealed places, property, and people, along with our own ideas about what we see. We’ve gone from unmarked wilderness, to building structures and social life, to faces and a few names.
We look back at them, and they return the gaze. Their stories blend with our own memories and imagination. They begin to feel like someone’s ancestors, though the particulars remain elusive.
Rochester in Rearview
In 1877, photography required glass plates, wet chemicals, heavy equipment, and specialized knowledge. George Eastman, a frustrated bank clerk from a poor family in Rochester, taught himself the process in his mother’s kitchen.
A decade later, Eastman had invented a simple camera pre-loaded with film for 100 exposures. By 1903, the Eastman Kodak Company released the 3A Folding Pocket Camera with 3¼ × 5½ inch film—exactly postcard size and pre-printed on the reverse. Local photographers and home enthusiasts could contact-print the negative directly onto postcard paper. No enlarger needed, and simplified processing equipment and chemicals.
Rochester became an ecosystem. Bausch & Lomb made the lenses. Kodak manufactured the cameras, bought the film company, and controlled the processing. Customers shipped the entire camera unit back to the factory, and received prints and a pre-loaded camera in return. “You press the button, we do the rest.” Factory workers were the first to witness an era of American life, as images of farms, houses, banks, theatre, and towns and their inhabitants poured in.
A quiet man, Eastman watched this unfold from the center, as his invention changed history and rippled through culture. By 1920, millions of Americans owned cameras. Eastman left a simple note when he ended his own life at 77 and in degenerative pain, “To my friends: My work is done. Why wait? GE”.
What We See
The studio portraits above show painted backdrops—ornamental arches, garden trellises. The lighting is controlled. Poses held steady. Technical quality consistent. These were made by professionals charging by the sitting.
The outdoor snapshots show real places—porches, orchards, dirt roads. Natural lighting, sometimes harsh. Composition varies from confident to awkward. These came from camera owners of varying skill. The irregularities in frame and exposure suggest they were developed at home, too.
What We Don’t See
Despite the pre-printed paper and earnest intent, real photo postcards were rarely sent as such. A few have difficult script, cryptic addresses, faded cancellations, and worn stamps.
“Hello Fanni. Miss Fanni Moore, Panhuska, Okla.”
The remaining relics haven’t been labeled, addressed, or mailed. Most backs are blank, and they were often collected in photo albums. The manufacturing marks may have been quite incidental.
What’s missing from nearly all: names. Very few clues to subjects, locations, dates. The people who made these photographs knew who everyone was. They didn’t need labels. Or, perhaps they were accompanied by letters and mailed in envelopes for privacy and protection.
A century later, the faces remain potent but anonymous. We guess at relationships from physical similarity, from who stands near whom. Sometimes we’re right. Sometimes, we can’t believe our eyes.
Spaces in Between
The 3A Folding Pocket Kodak cost $20-30, equivalent to $600-900 today. An expensive hobby, but accessible to prosperous farmers, small business owners, middle-class families. Film cost about 50 cents per roll.
The investment meant something, whether it was the equipment or the studio session. People photographed what mattered—children, homes, gatherings. The images document their priorities, and their time passing.
Real People, Real Limits
These are real people who lived, worked, loved, died. Someone cared enough to preserve their images. They matter still, in part, because they mattered to someone before.
But our analysis stops here. We can describe what we see—the composition, the technical choices, the historical context. We can note patterns across the collection. We can explain how the technology worked and who had access.
The work of naming and placing, in particular, belongs to families searching their own histories, connecting faces to stories passed down, matching photographs to genealogical records. Those searches have their own purposes, their own meanings.
We are collectors examining patterns, not descendants reclaiming ancestors. Though, it is tempting.
Tricky, sticky stories arise at the sight of buildings in the landscape. Evidence (or absence) of us along the way.
As landscapes, last week’s real photo postcards (RPPC) asked for nothing. Trees, frozen roads, animals burrowing in snow—they floated free of context. We could easily appreciate them without knowing where they might be.
Buildings are different. A structure says someone decided, planned, risked, and accomplished. They hauled materials, drove nails, painted trim. Buildings demand explanation in ways that hills might easily demure.
Reading postcards slowly reveals patterns. The undivided back means pre-1907. The real photo process suggests a local photographer, or maybe an itinerant professional documenting a place too remote to the reach of commercial postcard companies. Paper stock, indicia, stamps and cancellation, faded handwriting and previous labeling, even image placement and crop—these technical details narrow the place possibilities.
But they don’t yet answer another question: Who are Robert and Paul?
Tell Robert the dog lying down is mine and the one standing up is Paul dog
What We Might Know
A two-story house with a generous porch is carefully centered in one photograph. Mature trees in the foreground. Curtains hang in the windows. Someone lived here and wanted to show their pride. Or, was it for sale?
The architectural details offer more clues. Clapboard siding, stone or brick foundation, decorative porch elements—not fancy, but intentional. It seems to be in a neighborhood with sidewalks. In an era between 1900-1920, somewhere in the Midwest or West judging by lot size. Also, a fire hydrant.
The windmill in another image dates itself. Windmills were an important utility and industry, and that style had a particular era. The house beneath it—elaborate Queen Anne with corner turret, ornamental shingles, and ornate columns—speaks to aspiration. Someone had big plans. This is visible evidence. When and where becomes roughly recognizable.
But, the people who stood on that porch remain absent and enigmatic. Who were they? What is happening here? A creative tension is mounting between the realm of evidence and the pull of story.
Sensing Stories
Two women stand in front of McMann Boarding House wearing identical striped dresses. The building is simple—board and batten, minimal trim, the kind of structure that goes up first and fast in a growing place.
The photograph has a vertical tear, the exposure is bad, and time has degraded it. But the sign remains legible: McMann Boarding House. Finally, a name.
Who was McMann? Who are these women? Employees? Vacationers? The photo is both casual and deliberately staged. What might the matching dresses mean? Pride? Subjugation?
Reading their faces, we fill in the narrative, almost immediately and sometimes inescapably. Relationships, motivations, futures take shape unbidden. This is exactly what we both invited and warned of last week—making it up. Always dangerous, sometimes worthwhile.
The impulse to story is nearly irresistible. A name on a building. Two women in matching dresses. The space around the postcard lights up. Are these their stories, or our own, or a magical projection that folds time?
When the Past Chats Back
Shuffling the stack, several cards in this collection start speaking to one another. Same photographic quality. Same paper stock. Similar landscape—flat, spare, newly broken. And most telling: similar structures in states of becoming.
Laid out together, the pattern emerges. Houses with stone foundations and wraparound porches. An elaborate Queen Anne with a windmill. McMann Boarding House with its two women in matching stripes. A lunch room with an immaculately vernacular grand porch. Best-dressed proprietors standing proud. A girl and her horse, bare buildings behind her. A picnic under the canopy of a large tree.
Also, a massive plume of black smoke billowing skyward, an oil derrick to the left, eight or nine men grinning toward the camera. The photograph stops everything cold. They struck liquid gold. A triumph worth documenting. Fine lines of the plumes etching through the darkest black.
These eleven images are a cluster from the same story—a town emerging around oil. Homesteaders and entrepreneurs arriving in a place that may have been open prairie five years earlier. Building homes, businesses, infrastructure for both industrial productivity and social life. Documenting the process with real photo postcards, for themselves or to send East. Their message: we have arrived safely and are in luck.
From Here to Now
This is a founding, the moment a place began and the stakes changed. These aren’t isolated buildings anymore and oddly they seem less like photos, too. We know there is a community taking shape and the evidentiary questions multiply. Who were they, by name? What brought them here? Did this place survive or vanish?
And harder, deeper, more consequential questions: Who lived here before? What animals and habitats were displaced? What did the derricks do? For them, and also to us.
Boom town logic. Extraction economy. Infrastructure dependencies and family injuries inherited. Cultural degradation, and environmental costs still being paid. This isn’t quaint history. This is the beginning of something we’re grappling with today.
Suddenly our imaginative stories contract and we now seek facts. The boarding house proprietor’s daily life can be imagined, but not separated from a place built on oil speculation. The architectural ambition of that Queen Anne deserves appreciation, but it went up in a town that might have lasted ten years or a hundred, depending on the wells. The buildings aren’t innocent, and we are implicated.
More in Store
Another stack of postcards might be related to this cluster—similar age, similar style, possibly the same region, likely at later dates. And then a few unrelated ones, probably European based on the architecture.
Not every fragment connects or resolves. Some buildings will remain singular, their stories unrecoverable. Churches and homes, beautiful structures, carefully photographed. Loved locally today as a memory or a ruin, perhaps.
Not everything needs a narrative. Some images can just be enigmatic. Evidence of care, of craftsmanship, of a moment someone thought worth preserving. These evocative details lead to fiction, which makes its own case for history and the preservation of minute detail.
But this cluster won’t let go. They connect to another stack, and soon we’ll know more. Next week we’ll meet the people themselves, looking back at us.
Did you know? October 1 is World Postcard Day! The celebration started in 2019, based on the grand old global pastime of simply staying in touch.
World Postcard Day was designated by Postcrossing as the first of October starting in 2019, including a new postcard design each year. We share a simple mission to keep postcards circulating, and their way of doing it is elegant and efficient. A wonderful illustrated history of the postcard is available to enjoy, as well. To celebrate the day, I’ll be requesting my first address and then happily duty-bound to get a postcard in the mail quickly. Maybe you will, too!
Featured Postcard~ MatToon Memories
Another mention of Mattoon, Illinois. This time, it is 1912, with a typical friendly update, winter weather commiserations, and gifts exchanged.
Dear Carrie, How is this for winter? I’m good and tired of it. Tell the folks I got a basket last Wed that tickled me mightily. Tell Stella, I will redeem my promise this week if this weather continues. I’ll look them up this P.M. & send at once. I’ve been too busy to do anything extra. Hope U are better. I weigh 154 and you will have to hurry or I’ll be way ahead of U. Mayme, March 11.
Front of the card: A delicate bouquet bursts from a pink gathered vase. Pink hyacinths and white lily of the valley dominate the arrangement. The flowers cascade naturally, their stems tied with fabric and matching bow. The text “A Note to you” appears in a blue decorative font at bottom right. Embossed rosettes frame the card in an ornate lace-like border.
Back details: Handwritten script fills the left side. A one-cent green Benjamin Franklin stamp sits in the upper right corner. The postmark reads “Mattoon, IL” with partial date visible, March 11, 1912, and a flag cancellation. The address shows “Mrs. Carrie Fulmer, St. Mary’s, Ind.”
Condition: The card shows minimal wear—crisp embossing, slight foxing, faded cancellation marks, minor corner softening. Colors remain vibrant. No tears or creases mar either side, though there is a minor cancellation mark on the front upper right. Very good condition for its age.
Rarity: This embossed, die-cut postcard represents German lithography’s golden age. Publishers used chromolithography to achieve the rich colors. The deep embossing required specialized presses. Early 1900s embossed postcards survive in quantity, but this example’s condition elevates its value. The Mattoon, IL postmark and readable message add historical context. Not museum-rare, but better than average.
Appeal: Collectors of Victorian and Edwardian ephemera may treasure this piece. Design enthusiasts might enjoy the embossed example. Genealogists ought to enjoy our meanderings through Mattoon and Mayme and Carrie’s perspectives. Botanical art lovers appreciate the detailed floral illustration and coded meanings. Stamp collectors note the Franklin one-cent issue and period-specific cancellations. Vintage greeting card dealers would display this prominently.
Would anyone cut it up to make an art card? Oh, the creative tension between past and future!
If you are nearby, come visit our very first postcard display at Tempe Yarn & Fiber. Grateful for the chance to get them out in the world. New designs and online sales coming soon!
Our very first art card online gallery show in September 2025, featuring the liminal landscapes of Larry L’Ecuyer.
This watercolor postcard depicts a tranquil lakeside landscape rendered in soft, muted tones. The composition is divided into three distinct layers: the foreground features delicate tall grasses and reeds painted in warm golden and green hues that sway gently along the water’s edge. The middle ground shows a calm, reflective lake rendered in pale blue and gray washes that mirror the sky above. The background reveals a range of mountains painted in subtle purple and blue tones that fade into the misty distance.
Larry L’Ecuyer, the artist, has used the watercolor medium’s natural transparency to create atmospheric depth, with colors bleeding gently into one another. The overall mood is peaceful and contemplative, capturing the quiet beauty of a lakeside morning or evening.
Flip the card over and a quiet story unfolds. An adult son’s note to his mother in anticipation of a cool summer getaway.
Landscapes, by Larry L’Ecuyer
As I curated this show of my brother’s painted postcards, I found three facts about the artist that help to put this small selection of his work in context. One, Larry loves long distance bike rides. Two, he has always doodled. Three, sometimes he paints when he can’t sleep.
I suspect watercolor landscapes are a welcome choice for an outdoorsman. Beauty on the road whizzes by at miles per hour. Fish moving below the surface are mesmerizing in the moment. A chance to reflect comes later, with enough time to figure out light, color, and form in that same solo flow he finds on a bike or in a kayak.
Both the humor and graphic techniques of doodling show up in Larry’s houses, trees, and cacti, which almost always hint at a face, gesture, or mood. On the back, his notes to our parents include the puns and word play that are part of our family culture.
Larry’s art cards started arriving in Dad’s mailbox when discomfort and displacement were real worries for our elderly father. These painted palettes delivered smiles instead. We have learned a thousand times again that life’s difficulties (including insomnia) must be met with simple joys. He sends cards to Mom, too, and who knows all the other mailboxes he graces.
Larry’s cards are painted, mailed, and delivered to individual people, and they ripple out in countless ways. This Posted Past show is inspired by the reminder: Art has a sneaky way of getting right to you.
The Posted Past 