What Can a Postcard Do?

2004 - present

For twenty years, I’ve been investigating the form and use of postcards. I am nowhere near understanding why—though I’m pretty sure the postcard is humankind’s most democratic object.

I started a blog in 2010 called Postcardese, which I still update occasionally, and for several years wrote columns in Stamp & Coin Mart magazine and Picture Postcard Monthly.

One thing led to another.

In 2011, I contributed to a documentary on the history of the postcard. Please note the mirror ball collection in the clip below. Not mine, I often claim.

In 2014, I published Come Home at Once: a compendium of postcard messages sent between 1902 and 1914—what is known as the ‘golden age’ of postcards.

In 2021, I was a co-curator of the UK Postal Museum’s exhibition Wish You Were Here: 151 Years of the British Postcard.

Most recently, I was a guest essayist and contributing collector to the West Vancouver Art Museum’s 2022 show Léon Coupey: My Dearest Kate.