Mail Art–12 in ’23: Color
Each month you will create a 4×6 postcard (using cardstock) that focuses on one color.
Then email Linda Zwick (lindazwick55@yahoo.com) with your address before the third Saturday of the month. She will email you the name and address of your recipient the next week.
You have the entire month to work on your card. Please mail it to your mail art recipient by the end of the month. (For example, if you sign up in December for the January mail art, please mail your card by the end of January.)
Also email a photograph of your card to BAG (santafebag@gmail.com). These images will be used on social media, the BAG website, and occasional BAG slideshows. If you would prefer not to have your card exhibited in any of these venues, please just skip sending in an image.
Anything Goes! Adventures in Art: Famous Artists
Create a piece of art, any size, shape, and with whatever materials you choose.
There is no assigned exchange involved in this project, so send to anyone you like or keep for yourself.
Please photograph and email an image of your creation to BAG (santafebag@gmail.com) by the end of the next month. As with Mail Art, your image may be used on social media, the BAG website, and for a Zoom presentation. Emailing an image serves as your permission for BAG to use this photo of your art.
BAG President Linda Zwick has given us a challenge. Create a piece of art of any kind (no limitations on size or structure), send to friends and family if you like, and send a photo to santafebag@gmail.com (for posting on the website and social media, and inclusion in a likely future slideshow at a BAG membership meeting). The themes are just suggestions; create whatever suits your fancy!
Click the links below to see examples of the artists’ work.
January
January 28 is Jackson Pollock’s birth anniversary. Experiment with poured paint and spatter!
February
In February 2022, Cuban-born artist Carmen Herrera died at age 106, having worked in relative anonymity until age 89. Experiment with abstract geometric shapes.
March
In March 1891, Georges Seurat died at the age of 31. Following his lead, experiment with techniques he devised: chromoluminarism and pointillism, or use Conte crayon to draw on rough surfaced paper.
April
Lyubov Popova was a Russian avant-garde artist. This month, try your hand at Suprematist art, that is, focus on pure artistic feeling rather than on visual depiction of objects.
May
Barbara Kruger is a contemporary artist most well known for her collage style consisting of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions. Suggestion: create a collage of an image overlaid with text.
June
M.C. Escher was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. As noted in Wikipedia, “his work features mathematical objects and operations including impossible objects, explorations of infinity…truncated and stellated polyhedra, hyberolic geometry, and tessellations.” Suggestion: create an exploration of infinity or mathematical objects.
July
Chuck Close was a visual artist, photographer, painter, and printmaker who made many abstract portraits of himself and others. He is known for many styles of artwork, including tapestry portraits and portraits made of many miniature photographs. Suggestion: play with a portrait or self-portrait with a unique design.
August
We all, I bet, know of Andy Warhol, who was a leading figure in the pop art movement. Suggestion: step away from fine art and experiment with imagery from popular culture, that is, focus on a mundane image from an ironic view.
September
Alma Thomas became known for “exuberant, colorful abstract paintings” (per Wikipedia). She had a long career teaching art and did not become a professional artist until about age 68. About this time, she developed a style of pointillism using dramatic contrasts of colors in a mosaic style; most of her works have circular, horizonal, or vertical patterns. Suggestion: experiment with contrasting colors in mosaic configurations.
October
John Dwyer McLaughlin was an abstract painter and a pioneer in minimalism and “hard edge” painting, in which abrupt changes occur between color areas that are often of unvarying shades. This style of paining is related to color field painting (see December challenge). Suggestion: create an image of bold shapes and strong colors.
November
Margarete Bagshaw was born in November 1964. She died (an untimely death) in 2015. She was a member of Santa Clara Pueblo; her grandmother Pablita Velarde and her mother Helen Hardin were both famous New Mexico artists. Bagshaw was a modernist artist and many of Bagshaw’s paintings incorporate designs based on the Fibonacci sequence, a mathematical formula that’s called “nature’s secret code” or “nature’s universal rule” (an example being the shape of the nautilus shell). Experiment with harmonious components in a piece.
December
Helen Frankenthaler was an American abstract expressionist painter. Per Wikipedia, “her style is notable on its emphasis on spontaneity.” In 1960, the term “color field painting” was used to describe her work. According to Wikipedia, Frankenthaler often painted on unprimed canvas with oil paints heavily diluted with turpentine, a technique she termed “soak stain.” Suggestion: create an image based on “color field” design, using large areas of color and hues similar in tone or intensity.
This book showcases a collection of mail art postcards from members of the Santa Fe Book Arts Group. It is a visual fiesta, a diverse exploration of art that illustrates the range of talent within the BAG membership, keeping alive the mail art tradition.
