With Love

Banners of Resistance 2025 Collage 10.5 x 14.8cm

I’ve joined a postcard project. It makes me feel like I am doing something towards helping families in Palestine. Taking action in a small positive way to add my artistic voice to the millions of people who oppose what is happening in Gaza.

Participating in postcard projects was one of the first activities I did on my journey as a visual artist. They were a form of art that was accessible, portable, inexpensive and non-threatening which linked me in with a wider international arts network.

I started with a locally run postcard project where I collaged a map of the street where I lived. It helped me find my place in a new environment having just moved to northern NSW from rural Victoria. This started a whole other project of stitching daily collages which I did for a year and then exhibited.

I went on to join the international mail art project called A Book About Death in 2011, two years later bringing an Australian iteration of this to the Tweed Regional Gallery near where I live. In 2018 I began my #91 day collage postcard project when I was travelling overseas. These documented all the amazing places we travelled to and spent time in over the three month period. I look back on those works and marvel at my persistence!.

Making postcard size artworks suits me. I don’t feel under any pressure to produce something big and the compositional structure falls into place easily. I am able to use up bits of old prints or try out new collage techniques. Even on such a small scale they can be bold with text and narrative.

For this particular postcard project I wanted each of the five pieces to connect on a heart level with the viewer. The first piece I made fell into shape quickly as soon as I found a piece of paper from a bakery saying ‘baked with love’. The two words ‘ with love’ became my refrain as I put all of my love and compassion into the artworks.

Out of the five postcards I made, my favourite is ‘Banners of Resistance’, a postcard full of colour, joy and hope. It is an offshoot from the larger work I made last month about joyful connections. I want to think of these banners flying all around the world, bringing hope to the starving families in Palestine.

I am grateful to artists like Hannah Lewis who has organised ‘The Postcard Project – Finding Hope’ to generate funds for PARA, Palestine Australia Relief and Action. Taking part in a project like this gives me strength when compassion fatigue threatens to render me powerless in the face of such an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

The postcards will be exhibited first in Abbotsford Convent then in two other venues in Melbourne. Buyers can purchase postcards for a minimum of $50 each. With over 100 artists taking part creating multiple postcards each, it promises to raise much needed funds and create hope where none seems possible. I believe in art activism!

With Love 2025 Collage 10.5 x 14.8cm