ZA-13823

I've got a new postcard, this time from Lydia from South Africa. It is a painting made by her eldest son, who is actually a dentist. Mountains at the back and covered by flowers. A very bright picture, it's a pleasure to get it, when it is raining outside :) And you may think it's like handmade - no, not at all. It is a normal postcard, on good paper. And I liked this unusual stamp :)

CA-129656

On Saturday I went to Dnipropetrovsk to see a concert of Garou, Canadian singer, mostly singing in French. He is one of my favourites. When I came back home, I received a postcard from Canada, with this nice map.

TW-204004

A new card came from the southern Taiwan, from Ivy. She sent a painting by Michael Sowa called 'Irrlaufer der Evolution' (I guess, in English it is something like "Mistake of evolution'.

Michael Sowa (born 1945) is a German artist and illustrator known for his whimsical, surreal and stunning paintings often featuring animals. His works are titled in English and German. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin for seven years, spent a brief time as an art teacher and then became a painter.

He gained new fans for his work on the 2001 film Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain where the art on the walls comes to life. He has done cover images for several well known magazines, most notably the November 2002 issue of The New Yorker. His art is readily available in poster, notecard/postcard and calendar format (published by Image Connection, USA).

 

DE-727592

 It's a card from Nuremberg, that I received yesterday. It is situated in Bavaria, in Germany. I knew it only like a town where the Nuremberg Trials took place, after the WWII. But it is also an old town, founded in the Middle Ages. Here, on the picture, is the Imperial Castle, dated approximately 1040.

Nuremberg for many people is still associated with its traditional gingerbread (Lebkuchen) products, sausages, and handmade toys.

Such companies as Siemens and MAN are based here.

Albrecht Durer was born in Nuremberg.

Nuremberg is the twin town of Kharkiv.

US-860868

On Friday I received this card from San Diego, California. It's a nice picture by American painter Jonathan Green. It's called Mustard Greens. I like this peaceful scene, the colours. That's why I looked in the Internet who this painter is.

Painter and Printmaker Jonathan Green was born in 1955, and raised in the small Gullah* community of Gardens Corner, located near the Sea Islands of South Carolina. He was raised by his grandmother in a matriarchal society that relied heavily on oral traditions.

Green paints the scenes and the people he knew as a child, pictures of what may be a vanishing way of life. His colorful paintings in acrylic and oil have helped to preserve the Gullah culture. His work ranges from scenes of everyday life, such as a girl walking a dog, a woman hanging out laundry, and men picking oysters, to special occasions such as a wedding or a christening. While Green paints the world in which he lived as a youth, his work also focuses on the problems of living in a multi-racial society today. 


Green now lives in Naples, Florida, in an area that he says is very similar to the South Carolina Lowcountry**.

And some links about him
Book in Google
http://www.usca.edu/aasc/greenjon.htm
http://www.gallerychuma.com/jgreen_bio.html

* Some 250,000 African-Americans known as Gullahs in South Carolina and Geeches in Georgia are clustered along the Atlantic Coast--from Jacksonville, N.C., to Jacksonville, Fla. The word Gullah probably came from Angola, home of some of the Africans brought to the region during slavery.
**The Low Country is a place of broad flatlands, marshes, numerous inlets, rivers and islands bordering the Atlantic--romantically called Sea Islands.
*** Photo - from Naples News http://www.naplesnews.com/photos/2009/jul/18/112751/

DE-721144

Yesterday I received the first card! It was from Aschersleben, Germany. It is the oldest town of Saxony-Anhalt, first mentioned in 753. The Latin name of the town's castle, Ascharia, provided the name of the House of Ascania, a dynasty of German rulers. During the WWII there was a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp. The fuselages for Junkers were produced here, and by the end of war they produced Heinkel. In 1946 most installations were transferred to Kiev (!).

The old buildings are very nice. It should be great to walk along such old streets, taking photos.

Another postcard reached its destination several days ago. It was Germany. So now I have two new traveling cards - to Belarus and Finland.

Start

Ten days ago I read in one of my friends' blogs about Postcrossing, and decided to participate as well. I got 5 addresses - China, the USA, Croatia, Germany and Russia, and next evening all five postcards were sent. For a start I chose nice views of Kiev. And yesterday the first one arrived to Croatia. I liked it most, and here it is.
It shows Kiev in the evening. The grey building to the left is the Administration of the President of Ukraine, but I'd like to tel few words about the building to the right. It is called the House with Chimeras, built in the beginning of 20th century by an architect Gorodetsky. He liked hunting a lot, so there you could see real and fantastic creatures. There are frogs, giraffes and hippos, together with mermaids.