3M Post-it® Notes: Art Imitates Life

Fashionable Notes

Post-it® Note Travels By Air To help celebrate the 20th anniversary of Post-it® Notes, fashion designer Ilze Vitolina created an impressive line of avant-garde evening wear fashioned from Post-it® Notes. To create the clothing, the notes were placed on a durable plastic, and plastic strips were used as fasteners. Each dress was named for the color palette of the notes from which it was made. Pictured here are the Neon and Ultra dresses. In all, Vitolina created eleven dresses - including a wedding dress - as well as several hats and a bridal bouquet. The dresses were modeled at a 2000 fashion show sponsored by 3M Latvia.

Wall Sized Art

Post-it® Note ON Moving Truck Put 60,000 Post-it® Notes together and what do you get? Art, of course! Alaskan artist Melynda Schwier-Gierard uses intricately folded Post-it® Notes to create wall-sized works of art. Using 30 different types of folds, she folds each 1-1/2 by 2-inch note an average of four times before placing it onto one of her panels.

Imagination Captured

Post-it® Note Stcuk At Sea When 3M Greece invited six artists, including four painters, a sculptor and a painter/engraver, to experiment with creating art from Post-it Notes, the artists rose to the challenge with fantastic results. Art Fry's invention inspires art-lovers everywhere. They helped the everyday communications tool transcend its utilitarian role to become a thing of beauty.

One Big Cat

Post-it® Note Makes it through the Mail After receiving a prestigious residency at the American Academy in Rome, Vanalyne Green, an artist from Chicago, found her muse amid the famous cats of Rome. Her 28 x 28 foot portrait of a cat named Juno attracted plenty of attention at the Academy's annual art show for 2002 — even stopping traffic as people got out of their cars to take a better look at the giant feline. Vanalyne used 50,000 Post-it® Notes for her creation, which was inspired by the thousands of once-royal cats who still make their homes in Rome. In 2002, the city showed its appreciation for the cats by declaring them part of the city's patrimony and celebrating with a one-day event.

By choosing a cat as the subject of her work, Vanalyne hoped to attract publicity and support for the organizations that protect and feed the colonies of feral cats protected by Roman law. Torre Argentina is one of the more ambitious of these organizations. Established in the place where Caesar met his end, this cat shelter gives new life to cats with the help of volunteers and tourists. Here, visitors can give their time and money to help care for the cats — or they can adopt one to bring home.

Now back home in Chicago, Vanalyne is a professor in the Department of Film, Video and New Media at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She was assisted in the creation of Juno by technical consultants Marc Bowditch and Vale Bruck and by studio assistants Julie Allen, Sara Magenheimer, Megan McNamee and Esmeralda Ward.