Postcards are celebrated at latest Firehouse Art Center exhibit

An artifact of America’s pen-to-paper past is getting its due during a month-long celebration at Longmont’s Firehouse Art Center, 667 Fourth Avenue.

About 100 postcards line the walls of the South Gallery of the Firehouse Art Center as part of l Inverted Syntax’s curated postcard project, which began in 2018. “Art of the Postcard - We All Artists” features scanned images of the front and back of postcards submitted by readers of Inverted Syntax, a local literary and arts magazine.

Some are standard postcards purchased by the artists who use them as a canvas for their thoughts, said Firehouse Art Center Executive Director Elaine Waterman. Others were created solely by the artists who used the limited borders of postcards to create genuine fine art, Waterman said.

Some of the postcards express whimsy, others sadness and downright anger. One pictures a woman carrying a suitcase, stomping away from the “magical” Land of Oz.

She says she is leaving the emerald city with its “junkie scarecrows, its creepy lions with rapist paws, and its mechanical men who march in subway parades. I’m grabbin’ the next greyhound and headin’ west somewhere far away from this forsaken fantasy.”

Another writer laments that her postcard to her mom arrived too late. “Dear Mom, I knew you’d get a kick out of this postcard! You died before I could send it though. I love you. I miss you,” 

Each writer and artist shows great discipline and creativity to express their most intimate thoughts in only two or three sentences, Waterman said. “This truly is art.”

Which runs counter to the standard perception, that postcards are just cheesy and cheap reminders of a family vacation or an overnight stint at a small town motel, Waterman said. 

Postcards are a true medium much like an oil portrait or short story and can be used by those who never considered themselves creative, said Nawal Nader-French, one of the founders of Inverted Syntax.

“While the arts can be an intimidating space for non-artists and non-writers, we feel the postcard changes that by expanding on the definition of what it means to be a writer and artist,” Nader-French said in a news release.

The Art of the Postcard” is a call to everyone to create and participate in an often overlooked medium, Nader-French said. She likens the postcard’s small format to a text message rather than an email.

Waterman said the exhibit brings back the day when people actually put their thoughts to paper and expressed themselves in a more personal way. “It is something that I hope comes back in some way… maybe this exhibit will do just that,” she said.

 “The Art of the Postcard: We Are All Artists” opened Friday and runs through March 6. For more information, go to www.firehouseart.org or [email protected]. Or call 303-651-2787.