LETTERS FROM AFAR

Souvenirs of the wounded by Hugh Shirley

Those who have spent time in boarding school will know how important receiving post is when living far from family and home. Every lunch time we would all congregate in the quad while a prefect read out the names of those with post. I will never forget that feeling of euphoria when my name was read out. It was wonderful to receive one letter but two, three or four would make me feel quite giddy. Some of the girls received thick bundles of envelopes tied up with string and others would wait for days or weeks without receiving any mail at all.


I found this image on Tumblr.

My mom was always very good about sending a few letters a week. Some envelopes were thick with cuttings from newspapers and magazines, pressed flowers, snippets about the goings-on at the farm, jokes and anything she thought would cheer me up. I was not a happy boarder!


Out of Context by Janet Jones. See Janet's website here.

Valentine's day at boarding school was an important occasion which we all looked forward to because the prefects intercepted the post and actually opened and read the cards out in front of the school. Some of the messages were rather steamy and others were extremely soppy which would have us all rolling around on the floor with laughter. 

Kathryn Frund. See more of Kathryn's work here.

Cecil Touchon. See more of Cecil's work here.

Love Letter series by Crystal Neubauer. Read about the series at Crystal's blog, here.

"The series is built around a stack of love letters found stashed inside a wall in my mothers childhood home.

All of the letters are written to Gerald "Jerry" from his sweetheart Mary, as he travels around the state in the late 1920s looking for work. In the end Mary breaks Gerald's heart by telling him she can never be the kind of girl he needs her to be for marriage.

Background is comprised of original pages of love letters, which have been sampled by the mice and ravaged by time. Other elements include texts, cloth, objects and photographs relevant to that time. " - Crystal Neubauer

Photo mosaic of a carving I did for someone living far from home. See my website here.