In the 1960s and ’70s, “mail art” was a trendy way to enhance a personal note with collages, photographs, and other art.  But after a decade or so, the trend largely faded away. On the Oregon Coast, two women have revived the art with a twist.  

Postcards to the Future asks, “What would you want to share with the future about your life today?” The project by Carol Shenk and Maria Sund invites people to answer that question via postcard with images and text addressing the past, their current lives, or their hopes and fears for the future.  The postcards will be exhibited from July 4-6 in the Don & Ann Davis Park gazebo in Newport, with a reception July 5. Afterward, the mail will become part of the Lincoln County Historical Society archives.

The deadline for postcards is July 1, but those hand delivered during the July show will be included in the exhibit.

The project grew out of the sense of a “general anxiety,” Shenk said. “There is so much change going on right now in the world and in our country, and the feeling of needing to use art to express that.”

For Sund, who immigrated from El Salvador to the U.S. during El Salvador’s political turmoil in the 1980s, the postcard project was inspired by a desire for people to speak up about the political situation in the U.S. today.

“We should be honest about how we feel,” said Sund, a U.S. citizen. “There are people who are not happy with this administration, and so they should say what bothers them. For me, this country has been so great, and for many people this has been such a wonderful country full of so many promises — if you work hard, you make it. Now, it’s not like that. It’s different.”

The project opened to participants in April. To date, the post office box in Newport has received about 100 postcards. They’ve come from Australia, Ireland, Alabama, Tennessee, Maine, Ohio, Seattle, and, of course, all over Oregon. Some feature art, others mostly words. One opens accordion-like and another has tabs like a set of file folders.  

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The most prominent theme is the environment, Shenk said. Others document loss or talk about hope for the future. Some address immigration, democracy, or express objections to the current administration.

“A golden egg painting by artist Irene Uhlemann from Ireland reads, ‘All that glitters is not gold,’” Shenk said. “I took that as a message to America from across the Atlantic. Marama Warren’s card from Australia about the decline of the Bogong moth is both beautiful and moving.”

Another, written on a postcard from the America Museum of Natural History in New York City, with a photo of its Tyrannosaurus rex fossil, asks, “… Is this museum still in existence? — OR extinct???”

While some notes offer reassurances — “It will be OK” — other messages “apologize to the future for what we’ve done to the Earth,” she said.

A former archivist of 25 years in the Seattle area, Shenk found today’s postcards mirror questions and anxieties she observed in the past, while the medium of mail art seems to free people to speak up and honestly.  

“Everyone is carrying something. The fact of writing to an imagined audience brings out a different kind of art from people. It’s less self-conscious about how it’s going to look; it’s more direct. This project is inviting people to say what they feel they need to say or express what is in the heart. I feel that has come through. It feels like people are really speaking and not just trying to make something pretty.”

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