Silly

This outline drawing is fun because in Oct of 2010 Jessica was just learning about silly bandz!  Having worked in an elementary school, I had known about the bandz craze for quite a while.  They are really fun! Apparently someone came to Ghana and brought silly bandz in the shape of Sherlock Holmes and Micheal Jackson.  I remember a lot of the time I needed the kids to tell me what their band was supposed to be as some don't jump out at you right away...I'm not sure I would have guessed those two.  Jessica saw some kids on her walk one Sunday and decided to draw up some silly bandz of her own!

Mickey!

Lynn's little dogs have been featured on a few postcards. This is a drawing of Mickey from a picture taken while visiting Lake Michigan. Apparently, he was so excited that he was flying around checking everything out. I totally relate with Mickey. When I hit the beach at home, I cannot help but jump around either. How could we not be thrilled? Who could resist this:

Tamale Tree

This is a dot portrait from a photo Jessica took in Tamale.  Sometimes she posts photos of her neighborhood and office which help me to imagine her daily life in Ghana.  Still finding dot drawing therapeutic , Jessica wrote about making time to be creative helped her to add something more than just "de-stressing" to her life.  It was a time for a whole other way of being and thinking.  She sits down two times during a month to utilize postcards as a way of getting in touch with a different part of her life.  My process is more doing batches of postcards at a time, sometimes 4 or more in a day.  It's interesting to me to read about her process and compare it to mine because both of us use these postcards to make time to do art because art is an integral part of our lives. 

Camels

This card reminds me of one Jessica drew at the very beginning of this project, almost three years ago. Then she was visiting Cairo while living in DC. These camels were inspired by a airline magazine (again). Jessica was feeling inspired by the arrival of new staff people and had a wonderful group of summer interns who had just departed. It was nice to hear her upbeat about people and know she was getting some balance in her life in Ghana.  She even noticed that her use of colored pencils showed how much better she was feeling of late!

Finding time to stitch

Ghana has great fabric. Knowing Lynn was sewing, I remember asking Lynn if I should send her some so that she could keep stitching. She laughed at me. Apparently, fabric was not a constraint, but making time to sew was. About a month later I received this postcard from her. Proof that she had fabric and plans. Lynn, were you able to make these plans happen?

Postcards from hell, 2011

Typically you get postcards from warm sunny places with palm trees, coconut drinks and umbrellas. The cards are signs of affection and an easy way for your faraway friends to show off. Very rarely do you get a postcard from the armpits of this world. Too much is brewing there; who has the time or inclination to write? And if they did, how would they fit all they had witnessed and felt on the back of a 3x5 card?

A recent Foreign Policy photo series by Elizabeth Dickerson Postcards from Hell, 2011 takes a stab at this. The combination of striking pictures with short narratives make the series seem postcard-like in an ironic way. Worth a glance, since it is unlikely you are going to find these in a mailbox near you.

Stockpiles and Seasons

While I stock pile sketches for inspiration, Jessica sometimes stock piles her cards and sends 6-10 at a time.  I get bunches at a time and then catch up with what she wrote on each one.  Unlike me, she doesn't write them all at once!

This card has a summery image of a starfish but really Jessica drew it in the fall.  She wrote about missing seasons in Ghana, and how the Indian summer and leaves changing color were some of her thoughts of autumn. Oddly enough with all her talk of the fall, Jessica spent hers in South Africa where it was actually spring.  She wrote about feeling like a new beginning was happening with the blooms and the energy. It is fall now, again, and for me back to school always makes me feel a renewal.  What about you, do you think of fall as starting again (new things like supplies and new faces, kind of like when you were a kid with back to school) or is it just spring that makes you feel energized and like starting fresh (maybe cleaning and waking up after a long winter)?