But first, a note from Caroline Byrne explaining her side of things.

In early 2009, Nancy Dwyer contacted me about a possible project. She wanted to work with styrofoam packaging material, and the pieces she showed me were mostly strange rectangular shapes, the negative spaces left over from computer equipment.  Nancy was interested in my fiber and textile sensibilities, and thought I could add something to her project. She wanted to write up a proposal for the Human = Landscape exhibition at Burlington City Arts. Possibly we would make furniture. Nancy was into furniture.

This sounded fun enough? but what if I couldn't deliver? Then....

2 hours later, while on a walk in the woods, a rolled up piece of paper-like material fell from the sky and landed on my head. It contained the first of several letters from Anla, a 12 year old girl living on a boat in Lake Champlain.

The letters were dated 2248.

I was:

A. Completely blown away that someone from the future was actually contacting me.

I was familiar with wormholes of course, and being a fiber expert, I could see that all fabric, including the space-time fabric we live in, was susceptible to rips and tears. But it was still shocking.

B. Impressed that Nancy had been “feeling” the future. The Styrofoam blocks (or simply “Shapes” as they call them in the future) are indeed highly aesthetic objects to the people of 2248.  AND they were primarily used in furniture.

And C. Confident that we had something substantial for the BCA show.

She wrote many letters (and continues to write them), and I managed to communicate with her a bit. In exchange for her help recreating her family's home furnishings, I offered to publish her letters in our time, in a blog.  I put the letters in reverse order so the furniture would be near the top. You will have to scroll to the very bottom to see Anla's first letters. She seemed very excited (assuming exclamation points will still have the same meaning that they do now). I’m omitting her detailed instructions for each piece because they are overly long and tedious. I am including everything else. I hope you enjoy the future as much as I did.

Sincerely, Caroline Byrne

PS. I am throwing in a plug for my artwork while I am here http://carolinebyrne.com