In-conversation between Michael Crane, author of Correspondence Art: Source Book for the Network of International Postal Art Activity (1984) and PaP artists Liz Jones, Annabel Pettigrew, Harry Meadows, Gemma Gore, James Aldridge and Laura Eldret. Including an overview of the history of correspondence art and conversation exploring the methods, values and role that this form of art making may play in our current times of social distancing.
WATCH A RECORDING OF THIS EVENT
Correspondence Art: Source Book for the Network of International Postal Art Activity is a long out-of-print anthology by Michael Crane and Mary Stofflet, and is belived to be the authoritative work on correspondence art. It was compiled during the peak of correspondence art activity, with contributions from many of the medium’s major players. Contributors: Ken Friedman, Dick Higgins, Ulises Carrion, Judith A. Hoffberg, Marily Ekdahl Ravicz, Jean-Marc Poinsot, Thomas Cassidy, Milan Knizak, Klaus Groh, Kenneth Coutts-Smith, Richard Craven, A.M. Fine, Tomas Schmit, Thomas Albright, Anna Banana, Andrzej Partum, Stephan Kukowski, Robert Reehfeldt, Steve Hitchcock, Edgardo-Antonio Vigo, Geoffrey Cook, Gaglione 1940-2040, C.E. Loeffler, Ken Friedman, Georg M. Gugelberger, James Warren Felter, and Peter Frank.
Recommended reading: Reconsidering Mail Art by Michael Crane
Links to works mentioned/ shown during the event:
www.rayjohnsonestate.com
Vile and Anna Banana
Postal Art Event 1975–7
www.michael-crane.com
Event in partnership with ‘a space’ arts.
Michael Crane is a former Instructor in the Computer Science Department at Rogue Community College, Medford, Oregon, where he taught Digital Photography 2012-2018. He has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Design and Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and, a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Michael worked nearly 30 years as an art gallery director and curator. His program of exhibitions won the Colorado Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. An outreach program he created at the University of Colorado received a national award and was called a model for conducting rural outreach. Crane is passionate for helping people take better photos and continues making his own images for print and online. In 2016 he had a one-person show in Shimizu, Japan. Michael lives with his wife Christina, and they moved to St. Louis, MO in 2019.
PaP) People + Place ( PaP) is a forum for artists exploring ideas and modes of contemporary art-making that exist at the intersection of people and place, operating in the Southampton / New Forest area. During the Covid 19 crisis alongside online meet-ups PaP have established People + Place (mail) as an alternative mode of discussion and communication. Sharing distinct individual experiences, whilst exploring and perpetuating IRL aspects of this period of isolation and distancing. PaP is an artists’ peer network led by artist Laura Eldret, in partnership with MTP (More Than Ponies), and supported by ‘a space’ arts.