Erin May's Blog

I Love Blogging

2007-10-09T17:04:00.000-07:00

This is my Blog.
It is so pretty.
I Love this guy.

Call for Mail Art

2007-08-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

My "Imaginary Event " is a call for Mail Art. It suggests that the Exhibition will be comprised of submissions of Mail Art that have been sent to the curators. I do not go into much more detail on the poster, except to say where to look for more information. The title of the exhibition is "4 x 6."

Designing a logo...

2007-08-22T15:10:00.001-07:00

This was the final part of the assignment. I thought it should be at the top. Not that's I'm not proud of my logos... but I think I have some kinks to work out...
This image is supposed to look like postcards (or any mail), falling out of a box and onto the floor. I could see this becoming some mail-room clip-art some day. (by the way, I have no idea why all that white space shows up at the top... I had a much better use of space in the Illustrator document, but I'll need to figure out how to correct that later.)

This was the first logo I made. I tried to use postcard shapes in all of my logos. I really liked using the eraser tool in class, so I thought I would use it here. Also, I write with the mouse instead of using the font tool because I hand-write many of the postcards I send out, so I think my handwriting is important to the project.

In this logo I was trying to make it look more like a postcard, but the other concepts are the same.

This was actually the last logo I made, and my favorite. I wanted to go back to my original idea after I made the ones you will see next. I may even use this as a button on my website.

These look slightly more like credit cards than postcards... but whatever... I just wanted to try something different.

I used the postcards from the last one to make this logo. I tried to make it look like a map of the world... but I wasn't all too successful... This was the only time I used any of the "artsy" effects in illustrator, so that was pretty interesting.

Dance of the Postcard People

2007-08-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

My final Photoshop project. You don't have to say anything, I know I'm a genius. OK, go ahead and say it.
Joking aside... These images are my own. I drew the background in Photoshop using the basic drawing tools. The people are from postcards that people have sent to The Postcard Project. I scanned them and then used the tools in Photoshop to remove the people from each card. Then I placed them on the background and modified them each to show a little perpective... although I'm not sure perspective is my strongest artistic asset... In any case, the end result is suppoed to look like all these characters are in the same room. I also tried to make this approximately "postcard sized" so that maybe in the future I could use the image to send out on postcards (clever, eh?).

Background

2007-08-08T17:15:00.001-07:00

I used the same image. I'm lame like that. Actually it works nicely so you can see how I modified each image. You can check out my last entry to see the credits for the "foreground" but I found the stamp image on the PingMag website, on an entry written by someone calling themselves "Uleshka."

Life Perspective

2007-08-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

I would like to be able to tell you why this image now has more significance than when It was floating around on the web, unaltered... but I got nothing. I found this image here: http://www.thecontemporary.org/images/mailart_01.jpg , which is the website for the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center. I believe they had some kind of Mail Art exhibition.

It's Happening All Around You!!

2007-07-25T18:28:00.000-07:00

There are a ton of people writing about Mail Art on the web. Many sites are dedicated to postcard art in particular. I don't have a real website for my postcards, so if you look for The Postcard Project, you probably won't find me first (but I am out there somewhere).

If you're looking for information about Mail Art, here are a few places you might find useful:

Wikipedia, of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_art
This will give you a nice, concise run-down of the world of Mail Art. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, so it isn't always the most entertaining. This is the typical Wikipedia page:

Yeah, I know: snoozefest.
I'll save my favorite as far as "fun to read" for the end.

MailArt.org
http://www.mailart.org/
This site is great for finding mail art calls. It also has all sort of fun little facts and information about what mail art is and where you can find it.

Wilson Web
http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/shared/shared_main.jhtml?_requestid=46293
These are some articles that I found about Mail Art. You can search Wilson Web for whatever you want. The best way to get there is through the Moore College Library web page http://library.moore.edu and go to the Electronic Resources link. Basically this is a way of searching for all kinds of articles. Many of them will have the full articles right there online and ones that are not available might be available in the college library or in the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Post Secret
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
OK, so this is just some other blogger's spot, but it is really cool. You may have even seen their books at Borders. It's pretty big now.

I always find this entertaining and worth a look every few days. It is basically just a place where people can tell their secrets through mail art. A great idea.

The Postcard Project

2007-07-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

It started with a stamp and a dream...

The Postcard Project began in 2004. I was the postmaster for a small island community in Maine and let's just say I had a lot of free time. The islanders would trickle in to get their mail at about three per hour for eight hours a day. What better a place to keep up with your letter writing than in a post office? So I started writing postcards. I sent postcards every day. It started with sending to just a handful of people, but it seemed to increase daily. Now, after three years, I send to nearly 70 people across the United States, Europe and Asia. I don't send as often as in the beginning (stamps are effing expensive these days!), but I try to get postcards out every-other month or so. I also collect postcards that are sent to me and it is my intention to post them on this blog, along with information that I'd like to share pertaining to mail-art.

The Postcard Project isn't just to occupy my time. Believe it or not, I did get into it with a deeper meaning in mind as well. The Postcard Project is a Mail-Art project that I created to encourage the love of "real" mail. In this technical age it seems that many people forget about the simple pleasures and affection of receiving tangible mail. This project asks it receivers to "LOVE YOUR MAIL!" while promoting art that does not need to be purchased in a gallery and hung on your wall. Art can be fleeting! Art can be disposable! Art can be cherished! Art can be mail!