Artist: Andres Amador

What if your art was washed away every morning with the coming of the tide?  What if your ritual was to spend 2 hours every morning creating something only for it to be gone by midday?  Would you still want to do it or would your creativity wane with the ephemeral nature of your work?

Mail art and Postcard exchange

Mail art is one of those things that I’ve always had an interest in but never had the opportunity to participate. Now I’m not saying that there wasn’t anything available to me - there are many lovely swaps and exchanges you can participate in -  the issue lies in my own reasons for wanting to receive and make mail art.  Something about mail art makes me think of the old and I feel lost art of pen pals. An exchange between people and with each exchange a small bond is formed until a friendship flourishes. So, I was waiting for that moment I knew it would be a great time to get involved. That moment came when Tammy from daisy yellow invited Leslie from comfortable shoes studios and I to a postcard exchanged. The moment she asked I knew I wanted to do it. I not only love both of their websites and personal artwork but more importantly they have similar ways of thinking when it comes to art and where we should focus our energy when it comes to the choppy waters of this online world.  The parameters of the exchange were simple.  We were to do postcards with perhaps a pattern or three color theme and send them out by January 31^st.  

I’m going  to talk about the two that were sent to me and then I’ll discuss a little about the ones I sent to them with links to their blogs so you can see it.

The first postcard I received was from Tammy.  She sent her postcard in an altered envelope. Inside was a beautiful card of various found and made papers that were stitched together and then circled with a gossamer bow. Also included were a lot of cool papers that were made by her and one of her signature mandalas on a paint chip card.

I received Less’ postcard a few days later.  Now Less has already gifted me more than one piece of art.  She is amazingly generous and unbelievably supportive and so I knew whatever she was going to send me I was going to love.  Leslie sent me one of her fantastic automatic drawings on watercolor paper.  I love this as it personifies who Less is right now at this moment. It’s like having a photograph of a moment in time. 

To both ladies I thank you. Let’s do that again!

Now as to my own postcards you’ll have to visit Less’ site (http://comfortableshoesstudio.com) and Tammy’s site (http://daisyellow.squarespace.com)) to see them but  I at least can talk about them a little bit.

I don’t really plan what I’m going to do ahead of time but there are certain themes that pop up in my art consistently and it was no different here.  I didn’t make the connection until I finished Leslie’s postcard. Both postcards have a watery deep theme to them.  Where as Tammy's card boasts a mermaid like portrait, Less' card has a pirate theme.  I wanted the cards to look like they could have been found in a trunk of some large ghostly ship at the bottom of the ocean floor.  Did I accomplish that?  You tell me.

In the end it was a lot of fun and I am sure to do it again. 

The Radiant Child

"I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life." - Jean-Michel Basquiat

"EARLY MOSES" - 1983

I am convinced were he alive, Jean-Michel Basquiat would have been enamored with the sudden surge of people creating art in their journals. Truly ahead of his time Jean-Michel combined words, color and bold imagery that hinted at a deeper meaning. Something to scratch at until it bled. In the movie, "Basquiat" there is a scene where he approaches Andy Warhol in a restaurant and asks him if he would like to by some, "ignorant" art. When questioned, he responded, (link) "you know, like stupid, like ridiculous crummy art." This made me laugh as on the surface it seems self-effacing but if you think about it, how freeing is it to already say to yourself, "I'm going to create crummy, ridiculous, stupid and ugly art."  The pressure is off, there is no expectation to create some masterpiece just the void left where true expression can bubble forth.

While I find the movie a little pretentious it still has its moments but if you really want a wonderful view into the man they called, "The Radiant Child"  I highly recommend you watch the documentary that was released about two years ago by the same name.  I found myself charmed and fascinated by an artist that I never truly paid attention to before.

"Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump" - 1982
 

So open your journal page, better yet, get some canvas, paper, board or piece of wood and create a journal page you can hang up on your wall.  In the end, your expression - your view of the world and your place in it - should be seen and felt even if the only person who sees and feels it is you.

"What is it about art anyway that we give it so much importance? Artists are respected by the poor because what they do is an honest way to get out of the slum using one's sheer self as the medium. The money earned, proof, pure and simple, of the value of that individual, the artist. The picture a mother's son does in jail hangs on her wall as proof that beauty is possible even in the most wretched. And this is a much different idea than fancier notion that art is a scam and a ripoff. But you can never explain to someone who uses God's gift to enslave, that you have used God's gift to be free." - Basquiat Movie