Frank Warren, keeper of the country's secrets, is never alone. What started three years ago as an unknown community art project, has become one of the most popular blogs and cathartic outlets for anyone anywhere who has a secret.
At his Germantown home, Warren receives about 1,000 weekly PostSecrets -- anonymous cards that fuse confessionals with artwork. Of the 200,000 secrets he has read and saved, many appear in four PostSecret books and in exhibits -- Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum will display select PostSecrets through next year. Warren still religiously posts secrets on his ad-free Web site:
"I use my husband's money as an excuse to not live up to my potential. I almost wish it wasn't there."
"I'm a total idiot but I'm pretty sure God loves me."
"The only good thing about this job is that it made me realize I want to do something meaningful."
As always, Warren posts instructions for his secret-sharers: Be brief. Be legible. Be creative. And he still lists a suicide hot line, where he volunteers.
Warren is now helping create a PostSecret project in France. (Canada has its version.) Film, cable TV, animated secrets and video secrets are project offspring. But the heart of his art remains the postcards that keep arriving at his home address, which he has never kept secret: 13345 Copper Ridge Road, Germantown, MD 20874.
It's the house with the big mailbox.
TOP SECRET THEMES --I still see a lot of secrets about longing for intimacy -- which can also be seen as frustrations with a boyfriend or girlfriend, not wanting to be alone. I receive a surprising number of postcards having to do with issues of body image and eating disorders and, I might include, self-harm.
A number of spiritually based secrets I receive are from people concerned with the afterlife or with finding a purpose in this life. People are concerned that maybe they are just going through the motions.
LAW OF DIMINISHING ARTISTIC RETURN --I think there is a risk. From the beginning, I've tried to structure the project as being more than a hot Web site. I share secrets on the Web. I share them in book form. There are the art exhibitions. I travel to college campuses and speak about the secrets. I'm exploring film and cable TV opportunities to share these stories.
Someone e-mailed me a video PostSecret. It's amazing. It was on YouTube and nearly a half-million people watched it in about three days. It's one of most moving things I've ever seen.
