Which one is real? The Dorian you see...or the one in the frame?
Flea markets, antique stores, estate sales, and forgotten drawers in old writing desks are full of these miniature letters accompanied with colored pictures. My first postcard was wooden, from a primitive arts and crafts center. Hummingbirds were delicately cut and blackened in the wood grain, along with curving trumpet flowers.
The ones you see above are a mixture of gifts from friends on various trips (the zany one is from a Norman Rockwell art exhibit), which have spent years pinned to message boards or sticky-taped to dorm room walls...
Included above, Stork Island and the Shores of Galveston
Several of those we feature on the blog are from a vintage lot purchased at a flea market. The lot dates from the '40's and '50's era, with technicolor-ish scenes of U.S. landmarks (like "oranges and snow in the California mountains"). Three seperate stories unfold on the back of these vintage cards, with notes scribbled on the back and old-fashioned pink and green stamps (and equally old-fashioned postmarks across them).
One set of colorful U.S. attractions features the cross-country road trip made by a family en route to visit their uncle. Another set of cards chronicles a married couple's tour of medical clinics in search of treatment for a debilitating disease. A few others are simple notes mailed from home, remarking on the weather, the birds in the backyard, or a recent conversation.
(Above, Penguins and the Manhattan Skyline, circa 1987)
Whether kept in boxes or tucked in books as markers, a good postcard is always worth keeping ...
Three heads with mouths stitched shut...two worn skeleton keys...and a few rusty wire spiders dangling from each end....
Nothing says Home, sweet home, like shrunken heads strung across the mantle...
Hester may have earned her "A" (hand-stitched to the front of her somber Puritanical garb), but it's serious little Pearl's pale figure that I find creepy...more like a ghost than a child.
The unfinished manuscript has been "completed" by several authors, both great and clever, but the speculation regarding Dickens' real ending continues on. Was Edwin Drood murdered? If so, who killed him? And where did they conceal his body?
By far, the concept of the gloomy church crypts overseen by grim Durdles, the masoleums locked away with their mouldering bodies and carved inscriptions, remains the most popular place of concealment for Drood's body.
Poor Edwin Drood
Buried in the grave.
Look upon the stone
But none can find his name
...and the model evolved into the little guys you see below (on auction this week, actually). Seed bead eyes, raggedy muslin bandages, more cuteness that chillingly fearful.
There's more evolution to come with future designs ... maybe mummies will emerge from the animal kingdom next....
