I began collecting black and white postcards about 8 years ago,
and
over the years I developed a few 'rules' that the collected
items had
to follow. The postcards must have a white border (I have one
black-border exception, but it's just a cool postcard), the
pictorial
composition cannot be posed in an obvious way (like, for
instance, a
cat wearing a party hat with a kazoo hanging out of its mouth),
I
must obtain them in groups of equal horizontal and vertical
formats
(2 up 2 sideways), and no free postcards (like the kinds you
get at
bookstores or coffe shops).
Once the collection became established my friends and family
starting
sending me postcards with the growing collection in mind. Some
postcards, therefore, are have writing on the back, and some of
the
senders even allude to 'putting this up on The Wall.' The back
of
the postcards are, in some cases, as interesting as the front;
at the
least they provide the title, photographer, and date of the
photograph. For this reason, I thought it essential to display
both
the front and back of each postcard, so that the collection
could be
fully understood. The postcards are magnetized to steel
strips that
are hung from the ceiling to show both sides of the postcards
simultaneously. The position of the postcards in the gallery
space
may distinguish the postcards as an artpiece rather than as my
boring
collection.
