Butterflies and Postcards

I have a passion or Magpie tendencies to make collections out of all sorts of nostalgic vintage bits and bobs. Here I have a photo of a few of my vintage postcards. I keep them in a large retro suitcase and I think over the years I have collected hundreds. Initially being the visual artist I am it would be the picture on the front of the P.C that may have been the attraction. my number one love being flowers in any format, closely followed by animals and lastly quirky pics of us homo sapiens. On the written side this opens up quite another love. The actual written word, the brief stories that are revealed to me, some are romantic others just wishing a happy birthday or Xmas and occasionally the card that bears very important news, joyful or sad. Each one in their own right are captivating. so apart from the written message I then look at the written P.C as a stunning little gem of an artwork in it's entirety. The calligraphy, everyone unique. Even the shade of the faded ink or paper, smudges, scribbles and colourful postage stamps with ink stamps revealing their date of being sent is...all incidental art to me.

                                          Title of this collage; Sending you all my love

Taking these PCs lovely as they are I like to explore one of my favourite artistic endeavors which involves assemblage or re-assemblage. I liken the written text on the PCs to the fleeting nature of the flight of butterflies. Words touching down briefly and then flying off into the mystery of the universe. How can we capture these words and make them into a precious composition...to be admired like the rare groupings of captured butterflies we often see now in musty museum collections.
I started by scanning the original PCs so I didn't ruin them which would be very sad. Then using a template I traced out three different sizes of butterflies using one PC for each of them. That way I felt they would look like individual species of butterflies. I love the way I can see little fragments of words written in such lovely handwriting. the second butterfly carries the address of where it was going to fly too and at its very heart is the little warmth of colour with the stamp. The cutting and placement is somewhat fiddly but so rewarding. In a box frame I can enjoy the collage/assemblage until it finds a new home.
 

                                         Title of this collage: Dear Heart........
                                    
                                         A close up...all those lovely little words and xxxxx

Being new to blogging and all things slightly techie like placement of photos,text and the odd spelling mistake...I do apologise....I will get the hang of it ...my dear friend Ellen Giggenbach will definitely give me another lesson...Bless her and bless you for reading this blog!
Onwards and upwards!