"The Desk"

THE DESK

Nancy Herman

6" x 8"

oil on canvas board

There was a time, not so very long ago, when the only way you could reach a friend was to write a letter.  No telephones, no computers, no email or FAX machines existed.  So, the desk with its paper and writing instruments at the ready, was your communication station.  In order to write a letter to a friend you had to dig deep inside and think about what had happened recently, say within the month, and reflect on how you felt about that.  Letter writing was a time of contemplation, and receiving a letter — those wonderful fat, hand addressed envelopes, was a real occasion.   The whole procedure had an esthetic component, from the hand writing, the choice of words, the stationary, to the stamp chosen for the envelope.The mailman was the trusted carrier of the most personal words from person to person over time.  We were a diferent species, I think, when we were letter writers.