The Power of a Postcard
When a message goes from hand to hand, and heart to heart
Women Writing Women! In our county we’re beginning our Democratic Party postcard program for the 2022 election by writing to women. It’s always exciting planning postcard kits for writers who are ready for the work it takes to make our values known to voters.
I’ve always loved postcards and personal mail, like many of you. After decades of high tech that has tried to “put the cap on the ink bottle”, a friend’s handwritten message is more valued than ever. I hope it’s just a rumor, that children aren’t learning cursive in school nowadays.
But a postcard is not always just a postcard. It can be a collage blithely going through the mail.
Today you couldn’t mail the postcard above with its strip of blue fabric hanging over the edge, but you could with the owl photo and a flat paper ball glued on it. But the stamp will be eight times as much, or 40¢!
Lenore Tawney was known for her large, free-form fiber work as well as for her drawings, assemblages and collages. To mail her postcard below you’d have to trim the edges and leave off the feather!
It’s spirit-lifting to send (and to receive) handmade, personal mail. It plants a seed of creativity that says, “Imagine this, and make it happen”.
Just for fun I spent 20 minutes with scissors going through a few newspapers, a news magazine and an old copy of The New York Review of Books.
FYI: USPS postcard sizes are: Minimum 5” length by 3½” height by .007” thickness; Maximum 9” length by 6” height by .016” thickness. If you think your finished card might be too thick, take it to the post office to have the clerk check it for you.
I’ll make mine as flat as I can. In case I decide to put the stamp and address on the picture side of the card, I’ll leave space for those in my design.
First I make a frame so it’s easier to plan the placement of the objects. I cut a 4” by 6” frame (measurements of the inside edges) out of black paper.
Out of white medium-heavy card stock, cut a 4” by 6” rectangle. Start cutting and arranging from your pile of clippings.
After you’re satisfied with the arrangement of pieces, and have glued them in place with a glue stick, you’re ready to glue the collage to the 4” by 6” piece of card stock.
I put my collage on top on the card and held it up to the light. I adjusted the collage to fit on the card as I wanted it, then firmly holding both pieces, I put them on the table with the collage face down. With a pencil I traced around the 4” by 6” card onto the back of the collage.
Then I glued the back of the collage a little beyond the penciled lines, set it down (glue side up), and pressed the card on it to fit inside the lines. I turned it over and gently smoothed out the creases while the glue was wet. You can also smooth it with a rubber brayer if you have one. Or a rolling pin.
After the glue set a few minutes, I trimmed the collage to fit the card. I got it off center a little bit, so I had to cut the card to about 5-7/8”.
Now it’s ready to write the address and add the stamp to this side of the card, and to write your message on the other side.
However, if you choose to write the address and message on the blank side of the card as I did, here’s an idea.
The artist Lenore Tawney saw the power in women’s creative lives. Her collages, fiber works and drawings were built on generations of amateur women’s traditional arts such as needlework. Through these arts, American women found ways to express themselves. They imagined better lives and environments, and created them. In 1919 they realized the right to vote.
This spring the pictures and messages on our Women Writing Women postcards will be about things that affect women and their families. We will write to them about how their votes in November can help create changes that will make their lives better.
We’re writing to them because women have powers we don’t always use.
I saved your newsletter so I could come back and respond when I had a few minutes. Tell me more about the Women Writing Women, what is it? I'm intrigued.