As a kid the only thing that I used to enjoy doing the most was collage making. Well, I used just tear off sheets and make random stuff, trying to prove that even I had an artist in me. Pretty stupid, I know but it was the easiest thing to do rather than drawing or sculpturing. But after seeing Erin's collages I learnt that collage making is no child's play.

Erin Case is a collage artist from Midland, Michigan who makes mind blowing collages. Erin who wants to become an educator in the future, is currently pursuing her bachelor degree in Fine Arts. She loves art, acting and film making, singing, photography and is into organizing and hosting events throughout Michigan.

Erin also paints and draws but her main focus is on collage making and honestly speaking she's the best in that. She's into both hand-made and digital collage making. Read on to know more about Erin and her mind-blowing collages in our exclusive interview with her.


1. Hi Erin, please introduce yourself to our reader.

Hello Reader. I’m Erin, nice to meet you. I come from Midland, Michigan, world headquarters of the DOW Chemical Company. It’s quiet and stinky here. I’m about to turn thirty, which is kinda freaking me out because I’m a single college junior without dental insurance.

2. What prompted you to become an artist? Were you always the artistically inclined type of person? What art forms do you enjoy doing?

Well, I grew up with artist parents; a professional graphic designer mom and a musician and doodler extraordinaire dad. I think being an artist is just in my nature. I’ve always been creative, but it took me a long time to find what I wanted to do with my creativity, what vehicle best suited me. When I was a little little kid I wanted to be an opera singer. Ha, it drove my parents nuts. Later in my childhood I strove to be a writer. As a teen I just wanted to play music, then later I was an aspiring fashion designer. It wasn’t until pretty recently that I found my place with visual art.

There aren’t many forms of art that I don’t enjoy doing. I’ve dabbled in pretty much everything. My favorite is collage, of course, but I also love acting/film making, singing, photography, and sculpture. I’ll probably always keep expanding and exploring potential creative outlets.

Roommates

Thanks! Yeah, there’s definitely a concept behind each work. I think part of what sets me apart from many other collage artists is that I do conceptualize before I begin a piece. I don’t flip through an old magazine waiting for something to say “use me”; I have a clear idea of what I intend to express and of the composition in my mind’s eye from the moment I pick up my Exacto. Sometimes it takes me eons to complete a collage because I can’t find the pieces that I need in my hoard of source materials, and a hoard it is!

Most of the photographs that are in my public portfolios are collaborations with Andrew Tamlyn (whom I’ll talk about more in a minute). We have a lot of fun conceptualizing and executing shoots. We’ve done quite a few collabs, the best known being the Haircut series.

4. Your Haircut series is so unique and innovative. What prompted you to come up with it and would you throw some light on the techniques and softwares you used for creating the images?

The Haircut Series is a collaborative effort, with my good friend and housemate, Andrew Tamlyn. We spend a lot of time together and do loads of creating together. Over the Summer he went on this month long road trip with his family, out west. It was the longest period of time we had gone without working on something together, ever. So there I was, spending my Summer vacation sitting at home being totally jealous of Andrew’s adventures, thinking about giving myself a cool new haircut (as I tend to do when I’m feeling uninspired, don’t ask me why). As I’m browsing the web, looking for inspiration for a new doo, Andrew starts posting these insane Instagram photos (from his cell phone) to his Facebook page. It happened pretty instantly, I stopped thinking about cutting my hair and knew instead that I needed to visually relate Andrew’s absence with this lack of daily inspiration that existed without him around and my being compelled to cut hair. So I very quickly did Haircut 1 and Haircut 2 in Photoshop. I very simply did a couple “layers” of Andrew’s landscape and of the hairstyle photo. I just used the quick-select tool to select the fleshy parts and remove them, did a little fine tuning in positioning, and walah. I wanted the finished result to mirror the instantaneous nature of both Instagram and of the inspiration. Over the next couple weeks, Andrew kept posting more and more photos of his travels and I kept collaging with them. It ended up being this super cool way that we stayed artistically connected while he was gone. The entire series is going to be in the upcoming, all collaboration issue of the Chicago-based literary magazine, Red Lightbulbs. Andrew and I have each had our solo works in the magazine in the past, but there is just something about artistic collaboration that creates the most unique output. I’m really looking forward to the 9th Issue, which should be coming out Mid-October.