Monday. For many it's the first day back at work after Christmas and New Year.
We check the mail box : fourteen envelopes, happily none are bills.
It's a pleasing sight and prospect. A good number, for sure, but far from the one-day record. That goes to QLD artist friend Bob, a regular correspondent for around 35 years. 49 on one day is his record. There's no photo of that, but here's one of 33 on another day.
Back to today's 14 envelopes. One large one has a hand drawn Official Stamp and no sender's name.
What a ripper! It's from Nick the Postie : a self portrait with his Australia Post motorbike helmet, leaving behind a dog and diving Spring magpie.
click image to enlarge
We do appreciate our posties, their pre-dawn starts, their trials by weather, their responsibility and good care. (Some months ago, Jeff told me that Nick had told him that for two consecutive days he had no mail to deliver here. Jeff said, they had even considered sending some themselves. Fortunately, on the third day the drought brought and the mail came through again. Top spirit, that!)Since we've mentioned Jeff, here's his 2014 Christmas stencil card. Another beaut.
The card that Nick refers to on his portrait was this one, below, showing a French country-postie on his saddle-packed velo approaching the challenge of a farmhouse dog.
click image to enlarge
Nick the Postie and Greg the Postie, who also dropped-in a drawing just before Christmas...
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something...
LOGOS/HA HA
In tribute to all posties post-Hermes and Mercury, who have stamped sorted and delivered the extra-ordinary volume and variety of correspondence between peoples, we have strung this year's cards across a made-in-China oil-on-canvas re-imaging (it too, sent and received through the mail) of an 1888 Vincent van Gogh portrait of his friend and final postman, Joseph Roulin.
Van Gogh and Joseph Roulin met and became good friends and drinking companions. Van Gogh compared Roulin to Socrates on many occasions; while Roulin was not the most attractive man, van Gogh found him to be "such a good soul and so wise and so full of feeling and so trustful." Strictly by appearance, Roulin reminded van Gogh of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky - the same broad forehead, broad nose, and shape of the beard. Roulin saw van Gogh through the good and the most difficult times, corresponding with his brother, Theo following his rift with Gauguin and being at his side during and following the hospital stay in Arles.
Van Gogh and Joseph Roulin met and became good friends and drinking companions. Van Gogh compared Roulin to Socrates on many occasions; while Roulin was not the most attractive man, van Gogh found him to be "such a good soul and so wise and so full of feeling and so trustful." Strictly by appearance, Roulin reminded van Gogh of Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky - the same broad forehead, broad nose, and shape of the beard. Roulin saw van Gogh through the good and the most difficult times, corresponding with his brother, Theo following his rift with Gauguin and being at his side during and following the hospital stay in Arles.
