About Rosemary's Collection

In 2025, a woman named Rosemary donated her lifelong postcard collection to an Edinburgh charity shop. Spanning decades, this collection contained postcards from as far back as the 19th century. They include years of correspondence between her and her loved ones, but also others' postcards from their collections. They belong to family members, friends, colleagues, strangers. She would even collect blank postcards, fascinated by the format itself. Looking through the cards, you'll find that some include notes to Rosemary offering them “for your collection,” and some even from Rosemary herself insisting PLEASE KEEP THIS POSTCARD. Each one is carefully labelled with a year and a number, and once catalogued, Rosemary would rarely return to them.

The moment we heard about this donation, we knew we had to have it. Not knowing what we would do with these postcards, we bought a fraction of them (a couple of small suitcases' worth!) and we were fortunate to meet Rosemary and hear about her collection in her own words. Each postcard tells a story – the choice of card, the choice of words… a holiday recap, a see-you-soon, a sincere thank you, a note-to-self. What's left unsaid is as interesting as what is said. Like Rosemary's collection, this project is itself a living work. We can't imagine a definitive end. We'll explore these stories one card at a time.

Onion Press is an Edinburgh-based comics collaboration between Sarah Lippett and Maria Stoian. This project will in time collaborate with other artists as well.

Many thanks to Cristian Stafie, who made this website. Cristian is a software engineer, bike nerd and 3D wizard without whom this project wouldn't be possible.

Submissions

Rosemary's Collection is open to submissions. We welcome pitches for artworks on the website in any medium (comics, illustration, prose, audio, photography, etc…). For any artworks we choose for print, Onion Press will split the copies 50/50 with the artist. We are currently unfunded – this is a community project and labour of love. Our aim is to eventually exhibit this collection in Edinburgh. To pitch, please email us a brief written description of what you would like to do and a link to samples of your work to onion.riso.press@gmail.com.