When we first got this assignment for this project and read the article that went along with it I found it very interesting. I had never heard of anything like it before and I was excited to work on it. I have always loved receiving mail, whether that be packages or letters. The concept of something easily destroyable being sent to you from a foreign place I found extremely appealing. I started playing around with the idea of utilizing old pieces of mail in the project. Essentially utilizing pieces of mail that once served a purpose and giving them new meaning and life. In the beginning, after deciding that I wanted to use used mail in my project I had to figure out where I would get all the pieces that I needed to create the project. Over spring break, I went to the Melrose Trading Post in LA and I was able to find a huge collection of vintage postcards. Some had writing on them and some didn’t. I tried to find postcards that had letters on them, that were sent through the mail at one point in time. Some of the postcards I ended up using in the project were posted in the 1920s which I find fascinating. When you think about it, it’s interesting to wonder how this particular postcard ended up here and not somewhere else, and how it’s still intact after all this time. I wanted to add something to what was already there which was the personal writing on the back. I choose to use colored pencils so that you could still see the postage and writing. I ran into an issue while drawing on the backs of the postcards which was that the colored pencil was a bit dull in color due to the type of paper that was used to make the postcards. It is this kind of glossy cardstock paper which is hard to attach pencil to because it has a waxy texture. I wanted to make sure that the art I was adding was visible and vibrant while still being able to see the writing. So, I added marker to all of the colored pencil drawings to add depth and also make sure that you are clearly able to see the drawing. I looked at specific pieces from H.R. Fricker, Anna Banana, and Amy Rice, as well as a piece from an art piece titled Post Secret where anyone can send in a postcard anonymously with their secrets and they are added to the collection and posted online. I took some inspiration for all of these artists, choosing for my mail art project to focus on landscape type colored pencil and marker drawings. I liked how each artist has their own style that is more or less followed in their mail art. I wanted to add a personal aspect to the cards, both from myself and from the original sender and receiver of the card. Overall, I had a really fun time with this project and I am interested in doing something similar in the future.
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