march mailer |1.1 | FLora Arrangement | L’Orangerie

Join the Curio Card Club!

A monthly snail mail art club exploring the peculiar, delightful, and ever-entangled relationship between nature and culture through visual and written storytelling. Each month, learn about a new out-of-the-ordinary way people have interacted with the natural world from the ancients to the modern day.

Join the Club for $12 CAD / month

+ postage for international destinations

What’s included:

A 4×6 postcard with art made for the current theme.
A written narrative about the art: what it’s about, what inspired it, how it relates to the theme, etc.
Suggestions for further reading, listening, or images to learn more about the month’s subject.
A drawing prompt to help connect the month’s topic to your own lived experience.
Early access to purchase the original artwork when the theme is complete (themes generally last for 6 to 12 months).

how it works:

Sign up any time this month to receive next month’s mailer.
The art and narrative are sent as stamped letter mail via Canada Post.
Send the post card to a friend or keep it for your own cabinet of curiosities (What’s that? See below).
Billed monthly on the same day you first subscribed
Or buy a pre-paid 6 month of 12 month subscription

Twenty rings of stone walls with an abstract plant at the center. Background: a volcano seeps lava and pink smoke.

Current Theme: Flora Arrangement

What happens to the orange trees at Versailles in winter? How did people in 14th century Japan cultivate such high quality wood? Where did artificial mint flavoring come from? What do Linden trees have to do with dancing? The answers to all these questions and more can be explained by the surprising, inventive, and marvelous ways people have arranged different plants.

This theme will have 12 post cards (March 2026 through February 2027).

Card Club Q+A

How does postage work?

Mailers to Canadian destinations have free postage.

For US destinations, $2 CAD is added to shipping for each mailer. If you subscribe to a 6 month pre-paid mailer shipping is $12 and for a 12 month subscription, shipping is $24.

All other international destinations add $4 CAD for shipping per mailer.

When are the postcards mailed?

Postcards are mailed by the second week of the month at the latest. Memberships are tallied on the last day of the month, postcards are ordered, then mailers are packed and shipped out.

When should I expect to receive the mailer this month?

Per Canada Post, expected letter mail deliver times are:

Within Canada: 4 business days

International: 7 business days

Can I track my order?

Mailers are sent via traditional letter post and don’t have a tracking number associated with them.

Can I buy a subscription as a gift?

Yes! 6 month and 12 month pre-paid subscriptions are available. On the product page there is a drop-down menu to select between subscription and pre-paid options. Please note, these subscriptions may span one or more themes depending on when the subscription and themes begin.

Can I buy a previous month’s mailer?

Yes, eventually! A mailer archive will be available in the shop once it’s up and running later this year.

Can I start in the middle of a theme?

Yes, each month has it’s own independent topic. The theme just gives some coherence to a collection of months.

How do I buy an original?

Everyone subscribed to the card club on the last month of a theme will receive an email with club member-only access to the shop for 48 hours before being opened to the public.

How do you pick what resources to suggest for further reading/listening? Is there any monetary benefit to you?

I found these resources through my wanderings of the internet: podcasts, blogs, research papers, lectures. I strive to provide quality, reputable, resources that I think would support an interesting discussion. There is no monetary benefit to me; if I ever partner with someone I’ll let you know.

I can’t draw. Is this card club for me?

Yes! The curio card club is for anyone curious about this fascinating nature-culture cyborg world we live in. The drawing prompts are invitations to take a moment to observe the world around you and reflect on how the moth’s topic relates to your own experience in a creative way. There are no rules or expectations—skill level, media, or otherwise—for how you respond to the prompt.

It’s been fun but I need to cancel my subscription. How do I do that?

Subscriptions can be cancelled at any time through the customer dashboard, which can be found in the header navigation menu under ‘Shop.’

An etching from 1599 of a cabinet of curiosities, in this case a room full of cabinets of shells, taxidermy, books, and other objects too small to identify. An alligator hangs from the ceiling. — One of the earliest known depictions of a cabinet of curiosities, 1599.

What is a Cabinet of Curiosities?

This card club is inspired by the cabinet of curiosities in the 1600s. Picture a room brimming with all manner of things—the marvelous, the exotic, the scientific. Assembled at a time before the invention of disciplinary categorization (yes, that had to be invented!), these private collections demonstrated their owners’ wealth, personal interests, and learnedness through the display of artifacts we would now describe as belonging to natural history, ethnography, archeology, geology, art, relics and other such themes. They would eventually evolve into the institution we know as the modern-day museum. I hope to capture and share that same spirit of delight, discovery, curiosity, and learning with you.

Building community through stories…and drawing

If you’re so inclined, start a book club with friends or family to discuss the art and further reading/listening suggestions! Replace doomscrolling with curiosity and connection.

There are lots of resources for running a book club online. Here are a few tips I’ve gathered from my own on-again-off-again reading group:

Be kind and open to hearing everyone’s thoughts. We all have different experiences and ways of relating to the information and may be trying to piece together a new idea in the moment. Ask clarifying questions to understand, not to put down.
Write down notes and questions you have or would like to pose to others while reading/listening. This makes jumping into the conversation so much easier especially if there is a gap in time between when you read and meet with your group.
Having a group leader for each meeting may be helpful. If at least one person has a few discussion questions prepared, that can keep things moving in spite of the chaos life may have brought between meetings.

and add some drawing to the mix!

Doodle while you read, draw your favorite thing you learned, add a timed 30 min drawing session to your reading group to intuitively capture thoughts and feelings. Use collage, charcoal, paint. There are so many ways to incorporate visual exploration and expression into the learning process. There is no right way to do it—make it suit your/your group’s creativity.