Wilton artist Ann Putnam is leaving her mark on the Monadnock Region. Or, at least, across it.
Putnam, 47, a library assistant and admissions worker at the MacDowell artists’ retreat in Peterborough, hand carves rubber stamps for a little-known pastime called letterboxing.
The activity, which involves hiding booklets in public places for others to find and mark with their own stamps, is among Putnam’s various artistic endeavors that earned her a Ruth and James Ewing Arts Award in Community Engagement this year.
Although letterboxing — which some compare to geocaching, another outdoor tracking game — dates to 19th-century England, it has since been modernized: Participants now look for the boxes using clues listed on an Internet…