This year long project takes its title from an envelope I found in my parents home in 1998. Among the keepsakes was a wedding album filled with invitations, matchbook covers, receipts and shopping lists from 1957.  

When Sally (age 22) met Sophie (age 22). Susan (not 22) is in between.

When Sophie met Gloria Steinem at the New York Women's Foundation breakfast, May 8, 2014. Go Girls. PS. Sam, my son, also met Gloria one day when we crossed paths on Lexington Avenue. Go Boys and Girls.

susan sawyers

Susan Sawyers is an advocate for the arts in education. She is also a multimedia storyteller and inaugural member of International Center of Photography‘s full-time New Media Narratives program. Her current project involves unraveling a letter from 1957 and family secrets in an analogue turned digital world. A graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Grinnell College, she was a former director and curator of Los Angeles’ Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation,  an assistant vice president at Christie’s and more recently, producer of Bloomberg Radio’s Bloomberg EDU. Her work has appeared in  The New York TimesUSA TodayThe Huffington PostThe Hechinger Report and New York Social Diary. She lives with her husband not far from Central Park. She knows she’s lucky.

#Letterproject

Blending analogue and digital, the #letterproject explores the tension between doing what is expected, and what is desired. A letter from 1957 -- handwritten by a 22-year-old woman to her unborn daughter -- reveals a secret. Participants are invited to record and share a message to their 22-year-old self, awakening and embodying their present-day values and intentions. #itsabouttime #letterproject

 "I wonder, and will do so when you are my age and when your daughter is my age - I'll wonder 'what if...'"  

The writer was my mother. To my daughter when she wonders  is a story of doing what you desire versus what you think others expect of you and what it is to be alive in an analogue turned digital world.