the benevolent postcard society.

All these societies! Unfortunately this one is not open for joining and I am not a member, but I like the concept very much.

I stumbled across this by doing what I usually do -- clicking from one blog to another until, sometimes, I've lost my trail. But today I was paying attention, and it was on this blog: The Wife of an Artist, that I found the button for The Benevolent Postcard Society, as well as a lovely group of photos from San Francisco's own Dahlia Dell in Golden Gate Park.

According to the BPS blog, it is:

A postcard exchange and art project in one, the aim of the Benevolent Postcard Society is to bring a smile to its members through the random exchange of postcards from September 2009 to September 2010. At the beginning of each month, members send a cheerful, amusing, inspiring, pretty or quirky postcard to each other — either handmade or readymade. At the end of the year, all the postcards exchanged will be collected and published as a book, the final result of a year's sharing of good karma through random acts of kindness.

Which is pretty cool. As the postcards arrive to their various destinations, the recipients are taking photos of the cards and posting them to a flickr photostream. Some of the pictures from Flickr:






The concept here is easily adapted to one's own life. I don't think of sending postcards often, especially when I'm not traveling, but in today's climate of "staycations" ... why not?

The last post card I sent was this one (photo taken by Richard Avedon, and currently on exhibit at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art):


The image is so striking - her expression, her dress! - and it made me think of my cousin, who loves Marilyn, and who just bought and moved into her first house. If that's not a good reason to send a post card, I don't know what is. I imagine her post cards, like mine, might end up on the refrigerator.