Wacky Wednesday #94: Postcards

Fifty three postcards. That’s how many I’m wearing today. I often save things as potential art supplies, but these postcards are ones I’ve saved for sentimental purposes.

It has been almost a whole year since my last Wacky Wednesday (51 weeks!). A year ago I began teaching art on Wednesdays, so costumes had to wait. But I will get to 100 WW (at some point). And I will try very hard not to wait another 51 weeks until my next Wacky Wednesday. 

Today’s costume is a trip down Memory Lane because half of these postcards were sent to me over the years. Some of these postcards were not mailed but were given to me as gifts, or ones I bought as souvenirs. Some date back twenty five years! Why have I kept them? Good question. I’ve been looking through boxes of old postcards and letters sent to me in my teens and twenties, before email was mainstream. Back then, letters and postcards kept me connected to friends and family. Keeping these tokens of friendship made sense to me. (In truth, part of me wishes I hadn’t kept as much. After all, it means I have to sort it now. But another part of me knows that the sentimental side of my personality is part of what makes me…ME.)

In my stash there are postcards dating back to the nineties. Some of my closest friends from my teens, Maia, Allison, Jenna and Spencer, sent me lots of postcards and letters back in the day. My parents and sister always sent them while on vacation. My friend Ritwik sent me postcards regularly while he lived in Europe. In this collection, I have postcards from thirteen different countries. I love seeing the variety. Some people choose scenic postcards. Others choose funny ones. Personally, I don’t like the ones that have “MIAMI” in 90-point font on top of the photo. You can barely see the photo! But no matter the photo, receiving a postcard is fun. A postcard is a quick, inexpensive way to say “Hi.” Like today’s texts. But while I like digital messages, it takes extra effort to write a postcard, stamp it and find a mailbox. Postcards are rectangular paper hugs.

From Spencer in 1993, as the postmark shows.

From Dad, 1997.

From my roommate Melissa, in 1995, from South America.

1993. My friend Harold.

From Dad, 1996.

Total cost: fifty five cents in hot glue sticks. 

I glued and sewed the postcards to some scrap fabric I made into a shirt. (Sewing meant I could take off the postcards later.) The fabric and thread were already in my sewing stash, and everything else is made from supplies already on hand. Repurposing. Frugal fun!

Looking at these postcards is like paging through an old photo album. Postcards reveal so much more than the photo on the front. They are a snapshot of a time and place, the stages my friends were in when they wrote them, and the stages I was in when I received them. It is fun to appreciate the unusual stamps, and it brings back happy memories to see my friends’ individual handwriting styles. Texting and email eliminate handwriting, and they are easy to read, yes. But handwriting is more personal. 

By one account, the first postcard ever sent was by an English writer in 1848. Other reports credit the first postcard to Austria (186(9) or France (1870). Postcards were developed as a more affordable means of communication because they required less postage than a letter. Of course, space was limited so you had to restrict your message to only a few sentences. Maybe postcards are the predecessor to the current trend of “tweeting,” in which you are limited to 280 characters. (Until last fall, Twitter limited the length of tweets to only 140 characters.) I appreciate the challenge of conveying an idea with only a few words, but I do not tweet. I am from the More Is More School of Words.

Although I do not send or receive as many postcards as I once did, I accept that digital communication is the new black. So to speak.

I will recycle a lot of my old letters once I look through them further. And the postcards are being repurposed in this costume. So don’t call Hoarders Anonymous. Yet.

Initial sketch of my idea.

I hope this costume made you smile. Perhaps it reminded you of postcards you once sent or received. Or of the days when the mailbox might contain a surprise hello from a friend. They capture a moment and a peek into a friendship. Yes, I’m a borderline hoarder, but it’s really warmed my heart to look through these memories from long ago.

Now, does anyone have any 35 cent stamps?