Finding Whittier at the Vintage Paper Fair

I paid 33¢ for this old postcard at the Vintage Paper Fair in San Francisco this month. The birch bark trompe l’oeil is what caught my eye.  I had not even paid attention to the subject – the photo shows the birthplace of John Greenleaf Whittier in Haverhill, Massachusetts.  I knew very little about the 19^th Century poet and abolitionist. You can learn more here.  Although, Whittier has been a presence nearly all my life.  A large volume of poetry sat on the shelves in the house I grew up in and the book.  Eventually the book made its way to my home in San Francisco.  It is stuffed full of treasures (see below) and was part of the inspiration for my ongoing Hide Art in a Book Project.  Now it’s time for this postcard to be slipped into the book and placed back on the shelf for someone else to find.

Summer Beach Bags

Doesn’t everyone need a beach bag with images of vintage Cape Cod postcards to start the summer?  Through June 5, all of the items with my artwork available from Society 6 come with free worldwide shipping if you use this link.

Fresh from the Printers

This afternoon a friend and I hopped in a zipcar and headed over to Berkeley.  My new book, Helen’s Postcards, was ready at the printers.   Now arrangements are being made to ship and distribute copies (the print run is sold out).  If you would like a copy, but did not have a chance to pre-order one, you can still purchase a print-on-demand copy when you visit helenspostcards.com

Postcard Aloha

Postcard Aloha, mixed media on board, 8”x10”

As always, July has been a mostly foggy and cool month in San Francisco, but I have been going to the “beach” at least in terms of my artwork.  Working on some commissioned pieces that have me cutting up old summery postcards.  The piece shown above is available as a print as well on various phone, laptop cases, etc. from Society 6. 

The Larkin Story – a Preview

This is one of the more unusual postcards that I have added to my collection.  It is a folding postcard that would be sealed and addressed on the outside.  This one was mailed in 1913 after a visit to the Larkin Soap Company.  The Buffalo-based company is largely forgotten today, but, in it’s day, the Larkin Soap Company was a well known company for soap, dry goods other groceries and household products, even furniture.  Adjacent to the factory was a state-of-the-art company headquarters designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  A little more history is at this link. 

The Larkin Soap Company also plays a major role in the upcoming book Helen’s Postcards.  Helen worked at the factory in 1915 packing and fulfilling orders of soap and men’s shaving kits.  She and her coworkers would slip in little pieces of paper with their names and addresses on them.  Imagine instead of finding a piece of paper that read Inspected by #17, you found a young lady’s address!  This lead to a number of pen pals and plenty of postcards arriving in her mailbox from all over the country.  One of her coworkers eventually met her husband this way.

Details from these stories and plenty of the postcards will be included in Helen’s Postcards.  To guarantee you receive a copy of the book, be sure to support the Kickstarter project and preorder a book before February 28th.