Fat Collage Journal

 

Greetings

In 2021, when I decided to downsize and sell the family home of 29 years, it took a lot of work.  I methodically went through all of the items accumulated over those years.  The closets, the attic, the crawlspace, garage and storage shed and even the backyard were filled to the brim.  It took me a year to sort through it all while my new house was being built.  I took numerous loads to the local dump and many others to the donation centers. In the midst of this struggle for organization, I found every greeting card and/or written letter we had ever received.  Back in the days of long-distance phone calls, mostly in the 1980’s when I lived in South Carolina, I received numerous hand-written letters from my family in TN.  There were several large tubs of these letters and rubber banded bundles of cards: birthdays, graduation, anniversary, get-well, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Baby shower, Mother’s Day etc.  Every special occasion was represented amongst the cards.  These cards dated all the way back from before we were married.  I found cards from when I was a child and when I graduated from high school and college.  I found handmade cards from my sons and computer-generated cards that became popular in the 1990’s.  I found postcards from my husband that he had sent me when he was away on IBM business.  I cherish all of these but knew I could not keep them all.  I went through each card individually and decided whether to keep it, throw it out or simply cut out the images on the cards that were so beautiful.  This activity occurred at nighttime when I was watching tv and took me a week or so.  I read letters from the 1980’s detailing the goings on in the lives of my family members.  My Mam-maw Langston was especially diligent in writing to me. I reminisced.  I kept a specific sampling of letters and cards and reluctantly threw out the rest.  I had literally a lifetime of greetings.  These cards extended well wishes to all five people: my husband, me and our three sons.  Why is it so hard to toss greeting cards?  At the end of this activity, I had a shoebox full of images carefully cut out of the fronts of the cards that weren’t kept whole.  Additionally, the tubs were reduced down to only a couple of small boxes of cards and letters kept intact.

I was inspired recently by a young lady on Instagram to make a collage journal out of these images I had collected.  This book is a culmination of the pieces of cards I kept.  It makes me happy to look at this “fat book” of memorabilia.  I mixed and matched the sentiments so many people had graciously sent to us over the years and created artwork.  This is the story behind the making of this collage book.  It is special.  Never discount the impact of a handwritten letter or greeting card.

Tammy Harvey  2/09/2024