An Interview with Maria Lanas and Nicole Stott of the Space for Art Foundation.

Postcards to Space. You’ve heard of postcards from faraway places, but have your heard of a postcard in space? Frank Roche’s guests for E38, Maria Lanas and Nicole Stott, have. Together, they have used the power of art and launched it into space.

Maria founded Projekt Posctard in Kastav, Croatia in 2014. More than 1500 children have had the opportunity to create art and share their postcard art stories.

And Nicole, who has experienced two spaceflights and 104 days living and working in space on both the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS), founded the Space for Art Foundation, and has partnered with Maria on the Postcards to Space initiative.

The Postcards to Space video has been shared with the crew of the ISS and will be premiered here on Earth on Nov 20, 2018 during the celebration of the UNICEF World Children’s Day events.

Maria Lanas of Projekt Postcard and Space for Art Foundation

Nicole Stott of the Space for Art Foundation

You heard the word Unity several times in the show. We live in a connected world.

A sample of postcards created by children that were beamed to the ISS.

Halley’s Comet by Ann Rusnak

Mark Routh, author of Mark’s Postcard Chat and columnist at Picture Postcard Monthly, joins me to talk about a host of topics. We lead with a discussion of collecting Disney postcards, with a particular emphasis on Disney WonderGround Gallery and the art of Jasmine Becket-Griffith. We also talk about different approaches to postcard collecting, getting signatures on postcards, and about the work of acclaimed postcard artists Rick Geary and Ann Rusnak.

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Music in the episode is Japanese Prog by Rushus and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

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Snow Princess by Jasmine Becket-Griffith

In this episode, I talk about the numbers of incoming and outgoing postcards so far at Postcardist World Headquarters. I also talk about terrific postcard designers and sellers including:

Chloë McHenry at Parcel Tongue Paper Co.

Sara McNally at Constellation & Co.

Erick Sahler

Camilla D’Erico

Jasmine Becket-Griffith

Max and Co. Post

Pomegranate

and many others.

This week host Frank Roche talks to postcard dealer Susan Lane of Passionate about Postcards.

Susan has been a postcard collector and dealer for more than 20 years. And I had a chance to talk to her at the Garden State Postcard Club Annual Show this past weekend. You’ll hear the buzz of 40-plus dealers and interested collectors in the background.

Topics:

• How Susan became a postcard dealer
• Price considerations for collectible cards
• What first-time postcard show attendees should know
• Postcard artists and signed postcards
• The most expensive postcard Susan held in her hands

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Music in the episode is Japanese Prog by Rushus and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Get The Postcardist Podcast for free: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn

Frank talks to Omar Khan, author of Paper Jewels: Postcards from the Raj.

In this episode, Omar discusses his highly acclaimed book tour that started in India, his research for Paper Jewels, and how he got started collecting postcards years ago with a single postcard.

The Paper Jewels “exhibition features 361 postcards from Omar Khan’s collection and the Alkazi Collection of Photography, numerous blow-ups of old postcards (19) as well as relevant old photographs (19), postcard albums (8), videos (4) and other associated materials. It is the first ever comprehensive exhibition of vintage Indian postcards, in the city where much of the early innovation in postcard art and printing during the early years of the medium took place. It covers the period from 1892 through 1947.”

You can find Paper Jewels here. And you can buy the book on Amazon in the U.S. here. And for bonus videos where Omar Khan talks about postcard design and printing, you can watch videos here, here and here.

Also, Omar will be talking at several events in the UK, and one in the US in the coming couple of months. Details for these and all tour events can be found at the Paper Jewels events page by clicking here.

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Music in the episode is Japanese Prog by Rushus and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Get The Postcardist Podcast for free: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn

Sara McNally, the Snail Mail Superstar, was recently granted her great-grandfather’s postcard collection. So we talk about that and what it was like the first time she saw it. And how that thread from him runs through her, with the Snail Mail Superstar work as well as owning the fabulous Seattle-based letterpress stationary company, Constellation & Co.

This fast-paced show covers postcards, typewriters, letter press printers. And it’s all done with a smile.

You can find Snail Mail Superstar on YouTube here.

And here’s where Sara talks about the postcards from her great-grandfather.

And here’s where you can purchase the postcards we talked about on the show.

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Music in the episode is Japanese Prog by Rushus and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Get The Postcardist Podcast for free: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn

I had the good fortune to talk with Dr. Stephen Hughes from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, SOAS, University of London. He and Emily Stevenson curated an exhibit of postcards in an exhibit titled, From Madras to Bangalore: Picture Postcards as Urban History of Colonial India. Here’s what the exhibit is:

This exhibition covers a selection of picture postcards from the Indian cities of Chennai and Bengaluru between 1900 and the 1930s; then known as Madras and Bangalore. They were the two most important colonial cities in British south India.  By pairing these together, this exhibition tells a tale of how these two cities, although separated by 215 miles, were linked through a set of common representational and material practices. The exhibit explores how postcard practices imagined, figured and performed a colonial encounter by depicting cities’ monuments, street, people and places.

In the early decades of the 20th century, postcards were at the height of their popularity.  They were an innovative and affordable form of communicating.  It has been estimated that in Britain alone approximately six billion postcards passed through the postal system between 1902 and 1910.

You can follow the exhibit on Instagram: soaspostcard

The exhibit is open until 23 September, Tuesday-Sunday 10:30am to 5:00 PM, Thursdays late opening till 8pm.

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Music in the episode is Japanese Prog by Rushus and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Get The Postcardist Podcast for free: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn

Which came first, the stamp or the postcard? In this episode, host Frank Roche interviews stamp collector and paper artist, Russ Romano, who creates postcard experiences by creating postcard/stamp intersections.

So much ground is covered in this show. Russ rode a train across the United States and sent postcards to a penpal in Spain. He’s journaled every single day since he was 10. And he has a system to design postcard experiences.

Shows and people we refer to in this episode:

Chloe McHenry (@ParcelTongue) in E11: Mail Art

Kitty in E28: Postcards from the Edge

Lillian Karabaic in E27: Postcards from the Trans-Siberian Railway 

Also, check out Russ’s IGTV feeds. You can find his profile here.

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Music in the episode is Japanese Prog by Rushus and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Get The Postcardist Podcast for free: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn

Frank Roche is joined by illustrator Jack McKean, whose Instagram site Postcards to My Brother, documents his quotidian activities with drawings on postcards. Jack talks about his inspiration for the project, how he’s kept going daily for more than a year and a half, and where he gets creative energy.

The key question in this episode: How do you define the front and back of a postcard? It’s not an existential question. If you’re an illustrator and draw on the “back,” does that make the back the front?

In this episode, I continue my talk with Kitty, the creator and curator of Postcards from the Edge, an Instagram community built on a simple idea: send-receive-connect. And, of course, they do it with postcards. In this episode, we we talk about the possibility of a postcard meetup; visiting Mexico City; and the photographers Jen Dagley, 3Z Moon, and Rachel Nyssen.

Kitty built huge IG communities that feature curated content, including UrbanRomantix and ArkiRomatix. And now she’s doing the same at Postcards from the Edge, along with her collaborators Gitti, Jess, Elaine and Josh, all of whom are terrific photographers and creatives, as well as being super interactive administrators of PftE. (And now, there’s a Postcards from the Edge group on Facebook.)

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Music in the episode is Japanese Prog by Rushus and is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Get The Postcardist Podcast for free: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn