As wonderful as it is to get e-mail from anywhere in the world in seconds, there are some of us who still treasure an actual piece of paper that someone else has made marks on. These pages show postcards that a dozen members of the Carving Consortium mailing list made to swap with each other. All these cards feature at least one image from a stamp carved by the artist from an eraser or eraser-like printmaking material. Each participant made six cards and will get six cards back.

Here's the original call for the project:

SWAP: Proposal: Secrets of Art History

SWAP NAME: Secrets of Art History, 6 for 6 postcard swap

ITEMS: send six postcards, up to 6 x 4-1/4 inches, get six postcards back

DETAILS: What piece of art hasn't made it into the big history books but deserves to be better known? It could be something at a museum that speaks to you (maybe from an underrepresented culture or tradition or medium), an architectural detail from a building in your neighborhood, a vase in a Chinese restaurant, some local folk art, or whatever you feel is worth a long look.

Sketch it (if you can find a picture of it, it's not secret enough! but I won't check up on you) carve a stamp of it, and show us. Include a few words of description -- handwritten or computer-printed is fine -- and where it comes from and when it was made, but you don't have to say where it is now.

Well, judge for yourself how it worked. I'm really pleased at the response. One participant wrote,

I got my secrets on postcards yesterday and I've been speechless with amazement at the variety of art in our environment. Thanks, everyone--for the buildings, the building parts, the bicycle mailboxes, the tattoo designs, and the primitive art that you carved to show us the art I guess I haven't noticed before.