Project: Reclaiming the Post Office

From 2005 through 2008, I made and sent postcards to 35 people across the country. From silly to personal, below are a few of my favorites from the project.

   

September 2005:

We found the water by accident. It flowed sweetly through the high desert, over pieces of quartz and our toes.

September 2005

November 2005 November 2005

January 2006: Begin the story in a bar.

This postcard included an excerpt from Umberto Eco's book Focoult's Pendulum.

January 2006

February 2006

February 2006

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra. Then it suddenly flips over, pinning you underneath. At night the ice weasels come.

--Matt Groening

March 2006 March 2006
May 2006 May 2006

June 2006:

This postcard combined with July 2006 is titled Meet Me at the Jetty. It culminated in a group of 15 postcard recipients meeting at the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake.

June 2006
July 2006 July 2006
August 2006 August 2006
October 2006 October 2006
November 2006 November 2006

December 2006:

This postcard included an excerpt from Wallace Stegner's The Spectator Bird.

December 2006

Homesickness is a great teacher. It taught me, during an endless rainy fall, that I came from the arid lands, and liked where I came from. I was used to a dry clarity and sharpness in the air. I was used to the horizons that either lifted into jagged ranges or rimmed the geometrical circle of the flat world. I was used to seeing a long way. I was used to earth colors -tan, rusty red, toned white- and the endless green of Iowa offended me. I was used to a sun that came up over mountains and went down behind other mountains. I missed the color and smell of sage-brush, and the sight of bare ground.

January 2007:

This postcard included an excerpt from A Confederacy of Dunces.

January 2007

February 2007:

This postcard was delivered in a red envelope with this Bon Jovi lyric: "Shot through the heart and you're to blame. You give love a bad name." It functions as a "pop-up" card.

February 2007
March 2007 March 2007
December 2007

Dad makes this every year, and Grandmother's lettuce plate is always reserved for it. I'm not sure why Dad feels the need to make the red jello star with pineapple -nobody eats it though we all anticipate it. But it occurs to me that it is a precisely calculated feet of engineering -the gelification point where the star holds its shape but still slides from the mold in one single wobbly masterpiece, plus the melting point must be considered.

February 2008 February 2008