During the first week of May, National Postcard Week occurs to celebrate the art of writing letters to friends. NC’s visual arts (VA) teacher, Karrie Arana, planned a special project for her students. Instead of talking about the history and background of National Postcard Week, she decided to turn it into a creative project. Arana’s VA Composition class created designs for their own postcards, filled with artwork and messages, and exchanged them with students from Palmer Middle School. The idea not only celebrated Postcard Week but also connected the younger and older students through art.
National Postcard Week began as a way for people to socialize through handwritten messages and showcase pieces of art. Before the Internet, postcards existed as a unique way of keeping in touch with family and friends. Over time, postcards became artistic and personal, and today, people collect them as a hobby. This rich history contributed to Arana’s planning for the students’ assignment, wanting to include a project of creativity for the students during the postcard exchange.
“[Participating in this project] was really fun just because we haven’t really done an assignment like this before, and it was just all new impressions. I feel like this was really cool because the [Palmer middle schoolers] are already in VA comp, and it was just really cool to experience us writing back. It was different since we were not working with paints anymore but a scratchboard type of concept,” junior Lola Stone said.
By participating in this project, Arana brought the students’ attention to Postcard Week. Younger generations commonly do not know this week exists, but the assignment helped reveal the value in exploring unfamiliar subjects. Sharing these postcards with art and messages seems simple, but it creates involvement and a possibility to push the students out of their comfort zone by interacting with the other students through each of their artworks. These students learned that art does not necessarily mean a canvas with paint, but it is composed of the perfect project for introducing new elements to art.
Arana and Palmer Middle School teacher Nicole Gaut planned this assignment intending to bring a new project to the curriculum. They both believed that connecting to their classes could aid students in growing and thinking differently about their art. Arana wanted her students to think above and beyond with these postcards and focus on creating art that speaks to others. Together, they hoped this exchange would help students see the postcards’ power and personality.
“With incorporating the project with our feeder school, we [Ms Guant and I] wanted to encourage students to continue on into the fine arts regardless of the discipline. So we always try to collaborate with the students who are going to be coming up to the high school level. They were so excited! [When they were introduced to the project] This is the first time we’re doing something like this and I definitely think that it’s something we’ll do annually,” Arana said.
