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PRESS RELEASE. From Erin Tormey of Make It Main Street (and the Farmers’ Market), August, 2025.
Make It Main Street, in collaboration with Coastal Literary Arts Movement and the Half Moon Bay History Association announces a lively and uniqueimaginative project — Postcards to the Future- which launches during the upcoming Make It Main Street event on Thursday, September 4, 2025.
Postcards to the Future is a community-sourced “Mail-Art” project that invites people to express themselves through writing and art sent through the mail. Postcards to the Future asks people to consider a specific question: “What do you want to share with the future about your life today?” The project gives people of our community a conduit to share and memorialize where they are today, the changes or challenges they are facing, and communicate their thoughts and lived experience with this
present by creating and sending a Postcard to the Future. Anyone can participate simply by creating a postcard and sending it in.
Contributors might speak with their older selves, or write to their future great-great-grandchildren, or more generally to a future America, humanity in general, or a message to the planet. People can share something about their daily lives, loves, they can address challenges, hopes, and confront fears around anything they want, including the economy, politics, or the environment.
Starting this week, several free arts workshops will be offered to inspire spontaneous creativity and participation. The launch is happening at the upcoming Make It Main Street event on Thursday, September 4, from 3-7pm. Workshop participants will be supplied with postcard blanks, paints, stamps, inks, and collage materials and guidance by local artists.
Inspired instruction in mixed media and collage will be offered by such local artistic luminaries as Susan Carkeek. “In a time in History when time itself has become weaponized, both politically, technologically and socially…just keeping up takes most of our time, attention and energy” says Carkeek. “Taking the time to reflect on what we want and need for ourselves and our communities of the future seems to me to be radically sane and meaningful. I am really looking forward to seeing my community’s thoughts and aspirations in the end installation.”
“There is so much change whirling around us,” said Erin Tormey, one of the event organizers.“ Even though we are all living through these wild times together, each one of us is essentially on our own, doing what we can to manage the chaos, mitigate the damage and trying make sense of it all. Working and creating art together,” she said, “is a pathway that can help convey how we feel.”
The project culminates at the Half Moon Bay History Museum with an Opening Reception scheduled for the evening of Thursday, October 30th, 2025.
That event, includes an opportunity for some to Go To Jail (go directly to the Old Jail) and create a postcard during the event. At the close of the exhibit, the collection of postcards will be donated to the archives of the Half Moon Bay History Association. “The exhibition will become a kind of a time capsule, documenting our community’s reflections on our times for future generations to experience, much like an oral history project, but conveyed through artwork and language,” Tormey said.
Postcards can be up to 5″x7″, and must be postmarked by October 10th, 2025 to be included in the exhibit. Both sides of the postcards will be displayed and included in the exhibit, and in the online gallery. Postcards can be anonymous, and multiple submissions are welcome. Participation is free.
“The hope is to have a broad array of viewpoints and experiences reflected in the exhibition. The opportunity to participate is open to anyone. Organizers will exclude postcards containing hate speech, but the intent is to be open to the many voices, perspectives and ways to convey a message.
“We imagine this project to be an inclusive, creative and welcoming way for people to express themselves,” Tormey said, “and to connect with each other through a collective work of art and a combination of images and language.”
Postcards to the Future was inspired by a similar project instigated by the Coastal Arts Guild in Newport, Oregon. If all goes to plan, the next iteration will find its way to the residents of Gig Harbor, Washington.
Postcard templates and instructions can be found at www.makeitmainstreethmb.org and at www.CoastaLit.org.
Mail your completed postcards by no later than October 10th, 2025 to:
Postcards to the Future
C/O Coastal Literary Arts Movement
PO Box 3557
Half Moon Bay, CA. 94019
Event Timeline
- Thursday, September 4 – First public postcard-making event & outreach at Make It Main Street
- Saturday, September 20 &/or 27 – Postcard-making event & outreach at the Coastside Farmers’ Market
- TBD (Saturdays) – Postcard-making kits and outreach at The Jail (details coming soon)
- Thursday, October 2 – Final postcard-making event & outreach at Make It Main Street
- Friday, October 10 – Postcards due (must be submitted or timestamped by this date)
- Thursday, October 30 – Exhibit Opening Reception, 3–7 PM
Guests can “Go to Jail” to make a postcard during the event!
About the Exhibit
The exhibit will be hosted at the Coastside History Museum (505 Johnston Street, Half Moon Bay). Together we’ll celebrate our community’s creativity and preserve these visions for future generations.
Author: mdrag
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