PostSecret sheds its skin

When I find a gift that I love giving, I tend to stick with it and use it for everyone.  Sometimes it’s making dinner for someone (when I’m broke), and sometimes it’s going out to do something fun (when I’m broke).  When I’m not so broke, I get this book:

It is one of my favorite books in the whole world.  What started out as an art project in Washington, D.C. four years ago has ballooned into a series of books, a Web site updated weekly, a slew of traveling art exhibits and something larger than the combined forces of those few things—a movement for honesty in our society, and honesty in ourselves.  When the PostSecret movement began, it involved thousands of blank postcards with return addresses and one simple instruction:  Create, using words and images of your choosing, a postcard that told a secret you’ve never told anyone else.  Send it back to the organizers, and relinquish your secret to the world.  Postcards were sent in anonymously, occasionally with haunting truths about abuse and pain, and sometimes with humorous takes on human behavior.  A few examples of each:

What I love about this project and books is that it gets people motivated to share something they wouldn’t normally feel comfortable sharing, and they’re doing it in creative and illustrative ways.  Some of the postcards above, as you can see, are heartbreaking and tragic, even haunting.  Some of them are humorous.  Either way, they are real and honest and homemade.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

So the point of this post, besides sharing these cool images from strangers around the country, is that the author and head of the PostSecret movement, Frank Warren, will be speaking at UB’s Center for the Arts on Thursday, Oct. 9.  Warren has spoken to audiences around the country to audiences about his ideas about trustworthiness, being candid, and taking the bold step to expose yourself.  A book signing will follow his talk, where surely many more secrets will be shed in the process.  In the meantime, check his blog every Sunday for updates, pick up his books and do some reading here and here into this intriguing project.

Posted by on 09/04 at 01:23 PM