I don't remember when I followed Mike E Schmee on Twitter. It was early on when I did, though. No idea how I even found him. His sense of humor and ability to improve my feed with whatever was on his mind was a refreshing alternative to the constant onslaught of The Brands® at the time. Back then, he was in Detroit. I thought he looked like Mike Birbiglia.
Fast forward a couple of years, and he started doing art. Seeing him move to Brooklyn and delve deeper into art was the coolest. He's in Denver now and continues to paint and post photos of his work online. I know next to nothing about Mike except for what little I've gleaned through Twitter and on his website, but it always seemed to me that Mike would probably be one of those fascinating people I would love to pepper with questions if I had the opportunity to do so in person.
One of my favorite things is how he collects old postcards and adds acrylic paint to them in interesting ways. The shapes and colors he chooses for each one is a mystery; that's a big part of their appeal. It's unexplained, and that’s how I like it. I love that it's left to interpretation. I've never told him this, but I like to zoom in and look at his paintings on Instagram because the way he photographs them accentuates the texture. They’re chewy and satisfying, releasing all these different visual flavors and stirring up a variety of emotions all at once.
Mike is humble about his art. In his 'About Me,' he describes himself as an artist in a way that reminds us that he is in the early stages of his art career despite the level of talent he’s already expressed. His words:
Starting out as an unserious, nor guided, therapeutic exercise, he has progressed to exploring how shapes, colors, textures, and words can be used to express internal, and often shared feelings of hopelessness, loneliness, love, loss, and humor.
Last month, Mike graciously offered to send me two of his postcards through the mail. I donated to the Freestore Food Bank per his request and received them in the mail yesterday.
They're so special because not only are they Mike's work, but they represent years of collaboration. The postcards were made by a photographer and a printing press long ago, Mike did the painting and pen work and added a stamp, and the USPS added their processing ink over top of all of it. It's this beautiful, vibrant patchwork of input from so many different places in such a small, flat form. They’re simultaneously a snapshot of history and contemporary art fused in an unnatural and extremely satisfying way.
Follow his work: