PostSecret

PostSecret is an ongoing community project created by Frank Warren, in which people mail secrets anonymously on a handmade postcard. There is no restrictions on the content of the secret; only that it must be completely truthful and must never been spoken before. Entries range from admissions of sexual misconduct and criminal activity to confessions of secret desires, embarrassing habits, hopes and dreams. Some these secrets are posted on the PostSecret website (updated every Sunday) or used for exhibitions or PostSecret's books. It was launched in 2005.

 

The books are compilations of submitted secrets, including some which were never posted on the website. Warren has stated that he includes a secret of his own in each book. But his "secret" is not anonymous like most. To date five books have been published:

-PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives (2005)

-My Secret: A PostSecret Book (2006)

-The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book (2007)

-A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book (2007)

-Confessions on Life, Death, & God (2009).

 

This is one of the first mail projects I have discovered trough Internet. But I have recently found the twin versions of PostSecret in different countries and languages: PostSecretFrance, PostSecret auf Deutsch (Germany), PostSecretPT (Portugal), Post Hemligheter (Sweden), etc. However, I am not sure if these sites are "official" nor regularly updated.

You can sent your secret to:

PostSecret

13345 Copper Ridge Road

Germantown, MD 20874

USA

Do You Send Postcards When You Travel?

Sent by Mercé (Sri Lanka).
Postcard showing the temple of Lankathilake.

I send a lot of postcards when I travel. Do you do the same? It is a good excuse to visit the post offices, to ask about stamps, to know how the post works in different countries... Does it sound silly?

I usually say that every postcard is considered a gift. It is true. But, of course, there are some favourites. And among these, the postcards that my friends send to me during the trips. People having good time and thinking of friends? It is really thoughtful! Mercé (and her boyfriend) sent this postcard since the city of Nuwara Eliya. They went there to visit the tea plantations. This makes me jealous, of course! The whole trip makes me jealous, but especially this part, you know.

And in the post office they discovered a postcard of Beruwela lighthouse. As Mercé knows I'm crazy about lighthouses, she sent this postcard too. 2 for 1!

I can dream the rest of the year with the summer postcards...

Matsu

Sent by Yi-Ning (Taiwan).
Rubber stamp on the reverse of a postcard. It features Matsu (or Mazu), Chines goddess of the sea who is said to protect fishermen and sailors.

Postmuse's Mail Box

Sent by Bonnie Jeanne (the United States).
Postcard made of a picture of her mail box.
I received this postcard long time ago, as a thank you for a Postcrossing postcard.

By the way, yesterday Postmuse published my first contribution to her Orphaned Postcard Project.

Removal

Sent to Laura (the United Kingdom).
Letter with stickers relative to the removal.

Moving

Sent to Heleen (the Netherlands). 

Also published here.

I like a lot postcards with planes. I see them sometimes in the Postcrossing site, and I have received some of them myself. But this is the only one I have obtained during a flight... and it was not in a plane of this company (what I was really surprised for!).

-----

I am moving this week. Not just a removal from an street to another, but from my country to another country. And not in such a comfortable flight! I am excited and, at the same time I am a little worried. 

One of my concerns (not the biggest, of course) is about snail mail. There is a service to redirect the correspondence. I have hired it for six months, just to be sure that I will not lost any letter or postcard. As I have not any address, they will forward the mail to a safe address here. That means that I will receive these letters with certain delay, but at least... On the other hand: what about my new country? I am not sure if the post company will work as I am used to. I am also wondering how my mail box will be.

Are You a Mail Artist?

I am just reblogging this anounce published by Creative Correspondents:

 

Are you a mail artist?
I’m looking to interview a mail artist for an upcoming article to be featured on a mixed media website. If you’re interested, send an email to creativecorrespondents at gmail dot com along with a link to your blog or website. If you don’t have a website, please include a couple of pics of your work. Please re-blog! Thanks!

Australian Post Office

Sent by Claire (Australia).
Maximum card featuring a typical post office, issued to commemorate 200 years of Australian post.

Belgian Beers

Sent by Theo and Tino (Belgium).
Big and small version of a postcard, sent by different people (from different cities) within months.

Oranje snackmix

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).
Postcard made of a cardboard food packaging.
It contained special orange food for the UEFA European Football Championship (June - July 2012). The Netherlands national football team is also called Oranje. You know that football is light years far from my mind and I have not the slightest idea about this sport. But if I did have to choose a team, the orange one could be a nice choice (because of the colour, of course!).

Do More of What Makes You Happy

Sent to Chi (Taiwan).
Big envelope with a collage made of press cuttings and stickers.
Maybe it looks better with the stamps (even if the picture is not good; sorry: I have a new camera and I am not able to control it yet!):

Getting Mail from Pakistan

This is one of the postcards my friend Mercé sent me last summer from Pakistan. I consider it being a mail adventure, because it took ages to arrive. It is why I am using it to wish you عيد مبارك this year! Actually, my friend sent another postcard, but sadly it never reached my mail box... :(
I'm afraid it is not easy to receive mail from Pakistan.

Gold Post Boxes

There are five days since the London Olympic Games have finished. So now we can admire the result of the peculiar initiative of Royal Mail: the Gold Post Boxes!

Australia Post was the first postal service to issue gold medal stamps to mark home team Olympic victories in 2000. Hellenic Post did the same in 2004. But Royal Mail went further when decided that some of the famous red post boxes would turn gold to celebrate every GB teams gold medal win during the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. The UK is believed to be the first country to paint post boxes to celebrate gold medal wins. The gold post boxes are located in the home towns of the gold medallists. 

This is the first occasion in modern times when Royal Mail has changed the colour of its post boxes. The first post boxes where painted green, to blend in with the landscape. However, to make them more visible, bright red was chosen instead. It took ten years to repaint all post boxes! Red has been the standard colour for UK boxes from 1874 (with few exceptions). Here you have a map of all the gold post boxes. I would like seeing them live!

San Francisco

Sent by Eutrapèlia (the United States).

She doesn't live in the States any more, but managed to sent this postcard during a trip in the last weeks. I like a lot the tramways. They reminder me one beloved city, which probably has nothing to do with San Francisco except for the yellow cable cars.

When I travel, I find a lot of fun searching for the right postcard for every friend. And sometimes I wonder why people choose a postcard. In this case, Eutrapèlia did not realise that Alcatraz Island lighthouse can be seen in the distance. But that makes this postcard a double favourite, for the tram and the lighthouses!

Eat More Fruits

Eat more fruits... to be healthier!

Sent to Heleen (the Netherlands).

Collage made with labels of different fruits (idem for the non-postage stamps).
Also published here, where you can learn a lot about fruit sticks. I did not thing in this blog when I made the collage, but of course eating fruits is related to avoid the doctor!

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag

Sent to Eva (Germany).

Collage made from press cutting and rubber stamp. The rubber stamp with the envelope is the one carved by me. Sent as birthday card (with certain delay...). This is the transparent envelope (with handmade confetti!):

Charles Dickens on Stamps

Sent by Laura (the United Kingdom).
Letter with Charles Dickens stamps.
But she has sent more stamps featuring characters from The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist:

Brieven aan de Toekomst

Brieven aan de Toekomst (Letters to the Future) is not a current project: it took place fourteen years ago (but I've got this stamp now!). It was a national campaign to encourage people to write a letter speaking about their life in a day: 15 May 1998. The initiative was taken by the three major institutions that deal with Dutch culture: the Nederlands Centrum voor Volkscultuur (Utrecht), the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum (Arnhem) and the Meertens Instituut (Amsterdam).

The purpose of this correspondence was the construction of a large national archive that describes daily lives of Dutch people. So scientists of the future can consult the archive to study how were eating, clothing, festivals, rituals, joys and sorrows, relationships with family, friends and colleagues, religion, sexuality... at the end of the millennium. 

Over 52,000 letters arrived in response to this campaign. The collection is now at the Meertens Institute, stored in acid-free envelopes and boxes. The general public can consult a selection of letters.

The letters  arrived in different forms: handwriting, typed, e-mail, tape-recorded, registered on floppy disks or shaped into beautiful drawings. Sometimes the senders included small objects like a eraser or a toothbrush, that could disappear in the next years. The letters were sent by all kind of people between 8 and 98 years old (but most came from the age group 45-75). There are also collective letters created by school groups, and about four hundred Dutch people who live outside the Netherlands participated in the project.

They spoke about everything: what was eaten, what clothes were wore, how warm it was, what they undertook with friends, what happened that day in the schoolyard... Also personal and emotional events are described, with festivities such weddings, birthdays in stark contrast with funerals, and incest experience and an unpleasant memory of loneliness.

Marlowe Theatre

Sent by Laura (the UK).
Handmade postcard about Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. We like a lot the idea of pre-order ice creams...! ;)

Central Sussex College

Sent by Laura (the UK).
Handmade postcard about Central Sussex College. 

Buying Postcards

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).
Illustration by Fiep Westendorp (1916-2004), one of my favourite artists. (By the way: you can see here the postcards of Fiep that I've got). 

I like this kind of postcards : postcards with people buying postcards. It's a genre in itself! It reminder me this other card I've recently sent from Liverpool to my friend Chi Ho, who lives in Taiwan:

Letter

Sent by Laura (the UK).
Letter.

I Decided

«I resolved to lose twenty-five pounds of fat and to write her a letter of love and praises, that I might improve her time on the earth with the devotion of another human being.»

Patrick deWitt

(The Sisters Brothers)

We Love Real

We love Real has been created by Royal Mail. Why? Because, as they say:

The word post has been stolen. At Real it's our aim to take it back. When you 'post' to your network, you should really do just that. With an envelope. And a stamp. Real is the world's physical network letting members keep their updates in the world they inhabit and love.

And how? Well, they lend you a plot to post your real mail. It's as simple as that!

By Phil Campbell

By Allistair Hall

Real is located in London, at 1-2 Royal Opera Arcade, London, SW1Y 4UY. When the members post their items and updates, they come there. For real. Anyone can visit the space and explore the network.

  

Take a look! Or, if you can... get involved!

Update: Also Heleen has recently written about that. See here. 

Stamp Snail

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).
Rubber stamp bought in Moosmade. I just love it!

Escargot

Sent by Sue (Australia).

Drawn snails on the back of a matched postcard:

By the way, postcards with snails are among my favourites!