Wednesday 25 August 2010

Image from the archive

Well I forgot my camera again today so no images of the lovely new archive.  So, as a quick post I thought I'd share this striking image from a 1984 aerogramme sent to Lindsay Anderson.  It is promoting the 1984 US Olympics (as you can see!) and there are quite a few of these in the collection, sent by different people.  I really like all the bright colours and the design and I think it would be so nice to receive a letter dressed up like that.  I was talking to someone last night about the lost art of letter writing - well actually not quite so lost, I don't think, as I know that me and my friends often write letters to each other, send cards, postcards and Cd's etc.  There is really something so wonderful about receiving a letter that is quite different than online communication. I know people still use the post for communicating but only as one of many forms of communication and this is what is so exciting nowadays- the myriad of ways in which people can speak to each other. 



Now I'm off back to the archives store to carry on with organising all the boxes in the Lindsay Anderson Archive - it's very satisfying to see it all in its new home! 

3 comments:

  1. Lovely find! Letter writing definitely holds more value these days in the tenacity to hold onto it - like vinyl fans. It's just a better quality way of sending your love, thoughts and news through to someone you care about. I often try to draw on the letters and envelopes I send, plus most of the time make my own greetings cards to folk. Always a pleasure to send, and hopefully to receive. :)

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  2. Do you mean 'hold on to it' in the sense of preserving it, or holding onto it in the literal sense of something to hold on to? I would say both are true anyway, of letters and of vinyl. With both there is obviously the primary love of the content but also the love of the form it takes.
    There are quite a few artists correspondence with Anderson in the Archive and they often drew on the letters and envelopes as you describe - it's nice to imagine the pleasure he would have got from this correspondence in the same way that I do now when I'm cataloguing it.

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  3. What a lovely letter design. With most of our post being bills and adverts, getting something special that's been written just for you means a lot. You can't beat it!

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