General Info:
I'm Kathy Alpert, founder and Creative Director of PostMark Press. I'm a writer, artist, publicist, and a student of history. I've also got the collecting gene, and have been accumulating ephemera for decades. My passion for vintage postcards, mid-century magazines, prints, photography, matchbooks, calendars, and other colorful pieces of the past, can be traced back to childhood days at my grandfather's farm in New Hampshire. Today, I'm fortunate to be the steward of thousands and thousands of carefully selected images now categorized and digitized. I founded PostMark Press in 2001 as a manufacturer and wholesaler of greeting cards. Our first cards included vintage images from old postcards and their original, handwritten messages. At its peak, the PostMark catalog included some 300 designs which were carried by hundreds of retailers across the U.S. Every year the Greeting Card Association honors creative excellence in the industry with the LOUIE Awards. This year PostMark Press was nominated for awards in multiple categories. The industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards, the LOUIE Awards are presented during the National Stationery Show, May 16 19, in New York City. The awards are named after the German lithographer, Louis Prang, who is credited with introducing color lithography to the U.S. card industry in 1861. Kathy Alpert recently worked with Alan Friedman of Great Arrow Graphics to develop and launch Card News, the newsletter of the Greeting Card Association. Dowload a copy of the newsletter in PDF format HERE. Kathy serves on the Board of Directors of the Greeting Card Association in addition to being a member of the Ephemera Society of America and the Photographic Historical Society of New England. Kathy Alpert was a guest on a special Valentine's Day 2005 edition of the Martha Stewart Living TV program. Kathy shared a variety of vintage Valentine postcards from her collection. Ms. Stewart was intrigued by the handwritten postcard messages. After the show, she gave Kathy a postcard of her home in Maine, the former summer residence of Edsel Ford. It was adapted from an early 20th century linen postcard.