A Postcard A Day

Claressa Wilcox of Smiths Station, Alabama is making A Postcard A Day...


She explains...
I'm making a postcard every day for a year. I started on January 5th, and my sister teased me for not beginning with the new year. But now I'm nearly half-way through my year of postcards. I have used different mediums and found inspiration in places I certainly would not have expected, from things that make me laugh to things that make me angry, kids' cartoons to classic literature, exotic animals to my mom's glasses. I've learned a lot along the way: such as how to ride a bike, make a fantastic soup, draw with painting software, and cut kirigami.  I've also discovered things about myself, that I'm more motivated than I thought I was, that I'm more flexible, and that manila is my favorite paper.


Why did you decide to do this project? I wanted to test myself and push myself to really do something creative. I'm starting college in the fall, and I wanted to see if I had the discipline and maturity to take on (and keep on going) a project like this. To be honest, before I bought the Daily Creativity Journal, I'd heard of this kind of project before, but it never occurred to me that it was something I could do. I was inspired to start my own year-long, daily art project as I flipped through the Journal over the sales table at Barnes and Noble. That was over 130 days ago.




How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? It has become a regular part of my routine, even if that means staying up later than I'd planned three nights out of five. So far this is the longest single project I've ever worked on (except for school, of course), and I've been doing it so long that my day feels incomplete if I'm unable to make a card. It has also made me practice art daily and forced me to stretch my creative muscles in trying to think of new things to do every day. I can definitely see my art improving, even if that just means it's getting cleaner and more "professional". By making postcards my medium and theme, I intended to use this project to connect with my family and friends and even strangers. But so far I've been so busy making the cards that I haven't been sending any out!



See all of Claressa's postcards HERE.

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