Mail Your Little Heart Out

Mailroom dropped off my stack of Robert Blake cards this morning... some of the address labels were starting to peel because of the humidity, so I am affixing new ones and taking them to the post office. I'm thru sending things thru my mailroom. For starters I sent the Blake cards on friday. Why did it take until today for them to bring them back (thats unacceptable... and I let them know it too). Secondly Barker has informed me that most of my correspondences to him (some 75%) have not had their stamps hand canceled which is the the entire purpose of mailing them in the first place. Stupid mail room... I'm never using you idiots again. Going have to use the lunch hour every day to hit the post office. So for everyone who has asked me where are the Blakes... well they are being sent today.
—
Just recieved 2 new books that I've been waiting on for a while today. Dieter Roth: Books + Multiples which is one of three large retropective books put out by the Dieter Roth Foundation (it was the last one I needed) the other two volumes are Graphic Works and Unique Pieces. The other book I recieved today is Ray Johnson: I Am So Sad Today which features page after page of his hand typed letters (full size) and other various correspondences. This book is more about his writings than his paintings, even though it does have a healthy share of color plates in the back. Can't wait to dig into these books.
—
Finished up a set of 5 new cards for Barker tonight. They are nasty, nasty, nasty. Also worked on the Zimmerman correspondences... they are going to be really cool... I think that tomm. night I'll be able to finish up a few of them and be able to send them out end of this week and the following. Zimmerman sent me a really cool set of balsa wood postcards a day ago... they are really awsome. I was just upset that she sent all 4 on the same day. I think the messaging would have been more impactful if I had to wait on it. Anyways, I was really excited when I pulled them out of my box.... they totally rock.
Talked with Barker tonight, he clarified the concept of his gallery series for me — Under the Influence. Yup I knew it was something like that. They are gonna rock.
Figured out how the 'Frosted Flake' correspondences will work. I'm going to attach with string the following components.

- Plastic Spoon
- Carton of Milk (small school size)
- Plastic Bowl
- Baggie of Frosted Flakes

I'm not sure how the hell I'm going to send this monstrosity yet, but I'll figure it out this weekend. It will be rancid as all hell... I can't wait. Ohh yeah Barker also reminded me that the theme for this gallery show is “Cards From Beyond The Edge”... as Barker said... 'Man they don't know what they are getting themselves into.'.... and how!

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 23, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 24 (postcard)
KANKA - Variant 01 (postcard)

BARKER - Your New Love (stuffed envelope)
KANKA - Your New Love (stuffed envelope)
NEWMAN - Your New Love (stuffed envelope)
WEISS - Your New Love (stuffed envelope)
YORK - Your New Love (stuffed envelope)

BARKER - Robert Blake (postcard)
DROZD - Robert Blake (postcard) INTERNATIONAL
KANKA - Robert Blake (postcard)
KANKOVÁ - Robert Blake (postcard) INTERNATIONAL
KUTZBACH - Robert Blake (postcard)
NEWMAN - Robert Blake (postcard)
SKOREPA - Robert Blake (postcard)
VINSON - Robert Blake (postcard)
WEISS - Robert Blake (postcard)
YORK - Robert Blake (postcard)

Killer Correspondence

Talked with Barker last night... his correspondences are having something to do with excess/indulgence or something like that. I'll have to reclairify that here after I talk with him again, don't want to mis-state him. But what he is doing is multiples of the work or creating 2 identical correspondences, which I think is really clever. One he is sending to the gallery and the other to me. I'm really excited to see what he does - the materials he is using and especially what he writes. His stuff is always so so good.
I'm not able to work on my gallery cards tonight... I just can't get in the zone. So instead I'm going to organize my future mailings and see what kind of postage and address label I need to create for them.
—
Ended up creating a set of 3 'Variant' correspondences for Kanka tonight... I think he'll like them. Also started to do 2 more cards for the gallery show on the backs of tiny Frosted Flake boxes. however i'm still not sure what the hook will be with these. If i can't tie them in i'll mail them to someone else.

No Work - Work From Home

Felt like crap today... my eyes are killing me so i stayed home. Was up all night because I couldn't sleep, so I slept in late today - 2PM. Finished making all of the 'Sesame Street' correspondences, but only the base level of them. I went out to grab a bite to eat with Kanka around 7PM and figured out the solution to these correspondences. Since part of these cards features cut and reassembled coloring book pages I'm going to attach a crayon via a string to each card. I'm not sure if these will make it throught the postal system, but thats the fun of it all isn't it. One of four things will probably happen:

1. The correspondence will arrive unscathed
2. The crayons string will be severed and only the card will arrive
3. The entire corresspondence - crayon included - will be placed into a bag (this has happened before)
4. Nothing will arrive at all

I'm excited about these possibilities... I think the theme of my cards is starting to show itself... complication, chance & challenge. All of these correspondences are going to be trouble... I'd be extremely pleased if nothing showed up, because then that would be the work. That would rock. I'm definitly going to try and do the baged air correspondences. Initially I had a dilema as to whether place postage on the outside of the bag or on the inside card. Now the answer is evident. It has to be on the inside. This again will complicate things. Heres what could happen:

1. The correspondence will arrive untscathed with hand canceled on the outside of the bag
2. The correspondence will arrive untscathed with no hand cancelation
3. The bag will be popped, discarded and only the card will arrive hand canceled
4. The bag will be popped and placed with the card into a bag
4. Nothing will arrive at all

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the white coke sign correspondences.

New Correspondence for Gallery Show

Ended up drinking at the Earl with the Vinsons till about 2AM last night. It was really good seeing them again... plan on it more often. As usual the Vinsons were chock-full of great stories. I wrote several things down, but looking back at them this morning, nothing really seems to strike me as something I want to attempt for this show. I grabbed a bunch of old Sesame Street childrens books from my archives and started shreading them and reassembling them onto 30 — 4"x7" cards. I'm going to try and get both sides totally covered and then see how I want to proceed from there.
I pulled out an old plastic coke sign Kanka had handed me a few years back from R.A. Millers yard. Kanka said here make something out of this... well I am finally. Cut the thin banner into 7 — 5"x8" cards. These things are filthy... going to put a coat of clear spraypaint onto them to seal in the dirty goodness. not sure what I'm going to do to them yet, but these will be another set of cards to send to the show. I'm also toying with the idea of sending them some postcards that are in sealed bags filled with air. The same kinda thing you see used in packaging now-a-days. Have to figure out a good system of making these though.
Not going to bug Barker today because I know he too is busily cranking out postcards as well. I'll call him this next week to see how he is doing. I don't think I'm going to be able to get cards out this coming week. I'm gonna plan to finish the bulk of the cards during the week and begin mailing them in mass monday the 28th.

Postcard Mania – Out With Vinsons

Spent most of the morning working on postcards for a gallery show Barker and I are entering out of Dallas. Show opens May 14... yeah road trip. Barker figured we had a window of 30 days to mail materials to the show before dealine. So that basiclly means one correspondence a day monday — saturday for 5 weeks. I started pulling out materials this morning and spread them all over my floor... but I'm at a lose for what to do.
Mr. Vinson wrote me this morning... he recieved the 'Love Foiled' mass correspondence today and was the first to reply. As a reward, as I had planned he will recieve the original painted comic. Yeah for him. I'm going to go out for drinks with them later tonight... should be really fun. I haven't seen the Vinsons in a while. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with some good ideas for this gallery show. I'm sure something will hit me later tonight.

Mail-Mail-Mail (New European Correspondences)

Very Excited... today I send mail off to my new european correspondences, both live in Prague, Czech Republic. Postage for Europe is $1 for postcards. I'm interested to see, how they react and see what I will get in return. Both contacts were given to me by Kanka... he assures me that i will defiantly get something back from Drozds, he's done correspondence and mail art before.
Hung out at Kankas loft last night and was able to pump out about 40 postcards. Finished a brilliant set for my main correspondent and postal lover Barker. Then got some postcards started for my new european correspondences... I'm really excited how these are going to turn out. Should have them completed by the weekend.
I will post a revised correspondence list later today.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 18, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 23 (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 10 (drawing)

BARKER - Love Foiled (postcard)
BEASLEY - Love Foiled (postcard)
BEDARD - Love Foiled (postcard)
BRAINERD-STOUT - Love Foiled (postcard)
BUTTREY - Love Foiled (postcard)
COTELIA - Love Foiled (postcard)
DROZD - Love Foiled (postcard) INTERNATIONAL
DURAN - Love Foiled (postcard)
GALASSO - Love Foiled (postcard)
HARL - Love Foiled (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Love Foiled (postcard)
KANKA - Love Foiled (postcard)
KANKOVÁ - Love Foiled (postcard) INTERNATIONAL
KIDWELL - Love Foiled (postcard)
KUTZBACH - Love Foiled (postcard)
LINTON - Love Foiled (postcard)
MEJIA - Love Foiled (postcard)
NEWMAN - Love Foiled (postcard)
OLIVE - Love Foiled (postcard)
PEARSON - Love Foiled (postcard)
REYNOLDS - Love Foiled (postcard)
SCHAEFER - Love Foiled (postcard)
SCHRIER - Love Foiled (postcard)
SHERRILL - Love Foiled (postcard)
SKOREPA - Love Foiled (postcard)
SMITH - Love Foiled (postcard)
STANFORD - Love Foiled (postcard)
STATTS - Love Foiled (postcard)
STEEGER - Love Foiled (postcard)
STOUT - Love Foiled (postcard)
SYLVESTER - Love Foiled (postcard)
TAYLOR - Love Foiled (postcard)
VINSON - Love Foiled (postcard)
WEISS - Love Foiled (postcard)
WINDOM - Love Foiled (postcard)
YORK - Love Foiled (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN - Love Foiled (postcard)

Green Mean Day... Where's My Guiness and Scotch

Started reading Hermann Hesse's 'Steppenwolf' last night around midnight and found myself at page 184 a few hours later had to finally put it down so i could get some semblance of sleep. I think I'll have it finished in the next day... what a great book. Kanka gave it to me for my birthday. After I finish it I'm going to start reading the Marc Eliot's new bio book on my hero Cary Grant... I'm really excited about this one. I've been struggling to do a few sets of work on grant but just can't find the right footing to start it. Hopefully this will help. Also picked up along with my new Cary grant book, Patrick McGilligan's 'Alfred Hitchcock : A Life in Darkness and Light'.... should also be a good read (Hitch is the greatest director of all time.. we should clone him).
Also just finished reading John Gribbin's 'In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics And Reality' and am going to move on to another work of his called 'Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries'. I really like Gribbin's books, he has a way of dealing with extremely complex ideas in a matter-of-fact kind'a way. There is a hell of a lot of math involved with these books... so I'm having to teach myself algebra, geometry, calculus, and trigonometry (should have paid more attention in high school). This is all working out extremely well for me though. I have been trapped working on the '100 Small Works' series 'Hot, Young, and Eager on 25¢ a Day' for well over a year now. Concepts from quantum theory as well as several sets of number theories I've been working with, are all being utilized in these works are finally starting to make sense and a chaotic pattern is finally beginning to take shape. Just as I had hoped for. It'll be another year before I finish the works due to their intense detail... plus i have to make a trip to Vegas with them to put on the final touches.
Plan on going over to Kanka's tonight to have a Patties Day drink... no bars far me. To many wacko Jacko's around... plus days like these are as my father always says 'amateur night'... I'd have to agree.
—
Just created a small set of postcards to mail to a select few... Robert Blake victory correspondences. I'm really happy with them... hope all who recieve one enjoy. I'll be mailing them tomm.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 17, 2005

BARKER - Omitted Jughead 22 (postcard)
BARKER - Burgerhead 05 (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 09 (drawing)

Shi'etee Wednesday

No postcards from Barker today, but I did recieve a new postcard from Kanka... good stuff — white spider on blue background. I was totally caught off gaurd when i p[ulled it out of the mail box. Kanka came over around 7pm to watch the Ray Johnson documentary (that he didn't get to see yet) and see the new South Park.... god damn hippies. We kept laffing our asses of during the Johnson documentary every time Norman Solomon was being interviewed. That man has the strangest interviewing style and the best dead pan look ever... very creepy. After Kanka left I worked on a new set of correspondences for Barker. A little something old/something new kinda deal. I have been holding off on these ones because I wasn't sure how to approach them, but last night I decided to dive head first right into them.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 16, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 21 (postcard)
BARKER - Burgerhead 04 (postcard)

Robert Blake Look What You've Done

Still can’t get a damn thing to post on this site outside of my headlines which makes it look like I haven’t written a damn thing. I think tomorrow they are gonna release the Blake verdict... I got hint of it off of some web blog out there. Man if they convict him that will be fucked up — especially considering how much of a fucked up bitch his wife was. She was a total scumbag. I support you Robert.
Forgot again today to bring my mailings with me... another late night of reading. Lots of reading and research.
—
Worked on some of Barkers postcards earlier this evening and made some headway earlier today on the Kanková cards. Since I was so facinated with Jackson yesterday i decided to send her a nice set of Jacko cards. They are gonna be really cool... but I'm sure she'll be like what the hell are these all about. Gonna get back and do a few more cards for Barker and then hit the books again.

Michael Jackson Look What You've Done

Looks like Jackson is going to get off... again. Opps did I say get off... ha.
Neglected to bring mailings with me this morning... had a late start this morning and a later night. Stayed up till 4 finishing up a book on physics and diving into several articles in the latest Modern Painters. Hirst is on the cover... I'd love to take a trip up to NYC and see his new paintings at the Gagosian. I was really surprised to see he went to painting until i read an interview where he explained his theory of paining.
______

Interviewer: But why, in 2005, go back to oil paint? What makes this old technology worth using now?

Hirst: I decided recently that, in a way, all painting is sculpture. I've just bought a John Currin, and looking at it, I decided that layer of paint on the surface is just the same as an object in the room. You know - the deliciousness of it, the thing that makes you love the painting, is a physical thing, the building up of layers. You want to eat it...

Interviewer: The thickness of the paint also makes it optically different from a photographic print. The light passes through it and comes back.

Hirst: It's odd, especially oil paint. Crazy stuff. When we were painting the blood on those blood images I wanted the paint to pour a bit: when there's a connection between the material and the object you're representing, it's believable. Whereas if it's just like a photograph, it seems not to work.
______

No wonder so many people hate him... he's a genius. People are always saying he's no better than Jeff Koons. Just another salesman and sellout. Fuck that noise. Outside of never meeting the man, I've read almost every interview ever published on the guy and own several of his gallery catalogues and artists books. The man knows what he's talking about and beyond that, he knows what he wants and how to do it. How many modern day artists can say that. Beside Koons is a hack. SNORE

911

The website I publish this blog thru is really screwed up today. It doesn't want to publish my posts... so like before I'm haveing to type these damn things somewhere else and wait till this site gets fixed to post them. GRRRR
Hung out at Kankas new place again today and utilized his huge front porch to go crazy with the Super 77. Built out something like 30 more correspondene for Barker. Starting to mix things up now... I suspect he's tired of getting the same thing everyday even though there is an interesting plot unfolding with the 'Omitted jughead' set. However I'll be pulling the plug on thos very soon. 25 will be the last 'Omitted' for a good while... have a stack of materials to send him about one foot tall and several other interesting tid-bits on the way. Barker is really close to getting to 100 correspondence sent to me... he's in the 80's right now. I think he'll hit the 100 spot before the end of the month. We need to figure out a smart way of showing stuff at HOW Conference... plus start deveoping leads for the show we'll do.
Kanka provided me with 2 addresses to correspond with from the Czech Republic _ his sister Kanková and a friend of his Drozds. I'm going to have to come up with some clever things to mail these folks. Postcard postage overseas is $1 — so I better make them good.

What Ae You Doin'... I Don't Steal Pocketbooks

Nothing to interesting to report today. I slept in really really late 4:00pm and then piddled around a cleaned house and reordered my studio space. Worked on some more correspondences for differnt people. Almost wrapped up with a small set of correspondences for Newman which i think he'll really enjoy. Also put in some work for some new shit for Kanka.

I Don't Have No Pocketbook

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 11, 2005
—————
BARKER - Burgerhead 03 (postcard)

Get Off Me

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 10, 2005
—————
BARKER - Burgerhead 02 (postcard)

Tear Off the Top

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 09, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 20 (postcard)
BARKER - Burgerhead 01 (postcard)

Building Tommorrow Today and Other Nonsense

Hung out at Kanka's last night and glued together about 50 new postcards for Barker. Kanka made fun of me... he said something like 'You disgust me... you make like 50 things in no time.. you are crazy production line. Your own factory.' Something like that. He had a irritated look on his face... so we had another drink.

Got a nice raise in salary at work today..
Boo-ya-casha — HARD WORK + PATIENCE = MONEY.

Have Barkers new postcards all layed out on the floor... gonna start diggin into them tonight. Lots of pretty colors I'm thinking... err maybe just Liquitex Acrylic: Brilliant Blue. Also printed the final component for the mass Valentines correspoindences this afternoon. I spent a few minutes reformating them. THEY WILL FINALLY GO OUT THIS WEEK... I think however I will get them postmarked on the Monday the 14th... just for laffs. February is my month sucka'.
Time to get to work... more to come. — 6:45PM

Found a brilliant transition from red to blue via the editors office and a sonnet to a tiger lily! Really I did... HA! I love chaos... it always works if you look for it. Barkers 'Omitted Jugheads' are now 25 strong. Yippie for omittion for omittions sake. — 12:34AM

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 08, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 19 (postcard)

Flat Tires and Suits Don't Mix Well

03.07.05:23.22

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 07, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 18 (postcard)

Sundays and Sundays

Painted more Barker correspondences today. More 'Omitted Jugheads' but now with a fun twist. A little bit of warmth to them. I have a theory that if - what is produced by my art is a reflection of my life... then what I place into the art should equaly influence the life it's supposed to imitate. Right...? Hmmmm...? I think it's just a project to see if by putting the idea of women and sex into my art, will they suddenly appear... if not to fullfill the works power then to facilitate the works continued theory and practice... a little theory of all things and pussy perhaps. — and hmmm....


03.06.05:23.12

Dreamy

dreamy

adj 1: dreamy in mood or nature; "a woolgathering moment" [syn: moony, woolgathering] 2: lacking spirit or liveliness; "a lackadaisical attempt"; "a languid mood"; "a languid wave of the hand"; "a hot languorous afternoon" [syn: lackadaisical, languid, languorous]

What's A Cleveland Steamer?

It's a cheeseburger. Saved by the path.

Big Thursday

KANON-BARKER-SCHAEFER (EXQUISITE CORPSE)


MISS MARCH / MISS NOVEMBER 02 — ARTISTS PROOF

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH, 3 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 17 (type)
BARKER - Kanon-Barker-Schaefer (exquisite corpse)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 02 — Artists Proof (envelope)

Barkers Exquisite Corpse

FACE EXPERIMENT 02
—
Found 'Coca-Cola Classic with Lime' today..... it's new (we in Atlanta get all of Coke's little experiments before anyone else). Drinkin' this 'lime devil water' to death. Got an exquisite corpse from Barker via Kanon today. Going to get started on it and send it out in the morning.


CORPSE SIDE A — KANON | KANON | BARKER


CORPSE SIDE B — SCHAEFER | SCHAEFER | BARKER

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 2, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 16 (postcard)

Month 3

FACE EXPERIMENT 01
—
MAILING TRANSFERRAL
MARCH 1, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 15 (postcard)

Late Night Flight

3:09 AM...

Flagstaff, Arizona IV

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 27, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 14 (postcard)
BARKER - Other Peoples Words: Silver Indians 02 (postcard)
BARKER - Fred Flintstone A (postcard)
BARKER - Fred Flintstone B (postcard)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 16 (postcard)
NEWMAN - Elvis Sightings (wood postcard)
NEWMAN - Twinky the Kid A (postcard)
NEWMAN - Twinky the Kid B (postcard)
NEWMAN - Twinky the Kid C (postcard)
NEWMAN - Twinky the Kid D (postcard)

BARKER - Things From Town of Flagstaff-AZ 02 (stuffed envelope)
NEWMAN - Things From Town of Flagstaff-AZ 01 (stuffed envelope)


FRED FLINTSTON A & B


ELVIS SIGHTING

Flagstaff, Arizona III

Woke up early again, grabbed some breakfast in the hotel lobby and headed to our 2nd photo shoot (ice rink again). Afterwards we decided we walk around the downtown area again and find a place to eat. Found a really cool little shop that sold all sorts of good stuff. Alternative/junkmans Daughter type place. Purchaced several more postcards and some colored b/w photographs 90¢ each. Also bought a ton of little button with all sorts of randon things on them (heart diagram, dance steps diagram, pigtailed little girl, Niagra Falls map, Micheal J. Fox, DEVIL in red, and a few more for friends). The real gem from this store was a wonderful book about sending mail to dead people. Yeah really cool... of course i feel the premise is total bullshit, but granted it still a clever idea and a beautiful book ($20). The ‘Flagstaff punk rock girl’ at the stores counter turned us onto a great local brewery for lunch. Really good beer and snacks. Purchaced a jug of their Dobblenag beer (double strong) to drink at the hotel.
Eat some pizza in the hotel lobby. Made a ton of postcards tonight. I'm going to send them all out in the morning... even though it's sunday. I displayed some of the post cards near the hotel fire place so as to help them dry and cause people walking by to look at them. One couple came by and sat right next to them so I asked if they'd like to add something to the cards I was doing for Newman. The girl wrote a line of text and the guy draw a toe with six toes. I told both to doo the exact same thing on each card... the toes look really funny... he totally drew it the same way each time.
Kanka and I later wandered through some party in a ball room where there were sopisticated people gambeling. I started calling out for Chrissy and even asked a few people if they had seen Chrissy... but no one replied... ohh... and I was wearing my coboy hat too. Stole a blue marker from a table and came upstairs to my room.

Flagstaff, Arizona II

Got up early and went to our first of 2 photoshoots which ended at noon. My feet got really cold... we were on a ice skating rink for about 3 hours. Left the shoot and walked the downtown Flagstaff area untill we found a bar where we thought we could get a Guniess and a glass of Scotch. Went into an interesting Irish Pub (as usuall when traveling) and ordered a pint of Guiness. Kanka asked the waitress what kinds of single malts they had, to which she replied ok a single malt. We kind of looked at her funnny because she began to write single malt on the ticket... Kanka said “No... single malt scotch.” The waitress said she would find out. At the bar she asked the mexican bartender what single malts they had to which he picked up a bottle of J&B and said we have this. Kanka and I looked at each other, smiled, and then Kanka walked up to the bar and pointed to the large selection of single malt scotches on the top row above the J&B and instructed the mexican that J&B was not a single malt. Finally got drinks and food. I proceeded to make a piece of art on 2 one dollar bills to hang on the bars walls which were litered with thousands of bills crudly written on by local frat jerks and the everyday traveler. The bills were strategicly color black and silver and each had an american flag 37¢ stamp placed over washingtons face. I then taped the 2 bills together bottom to bottom. Kanak colored a dollar bill all black but left Washingtons head floatin in space. After the meal I got a stapel gun and placed them on the wall next to where we sat.

Dollar Bills:
L 91154423 S
I 03958929 A


FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA

We headed abck to the hotel and them made our way 1 hour north in search of the Grand Canyon (a.k.a. Big Hole). We left Flagstaffs 6,500 feet elevation and reached 8,046 feet at on point during the trip. Again another huge climite shift as we went from 45°F with a light snow flurry to 30°F and snow everywhere and then to 58°F with clear blue skies. We stopped off on the way there for several photo ops (Fred Flintstone). Before we got to the canyon we decided to grab a beer to bring to drink while we sat at the canyon edge. Heiniken $3.99 a bottle!!! Pricey shit... damn tourist trap gas stations. Kanka told the guy that they were really to pricey and the guy said “Hey I’m giving you a free bag”, to which Kanka replied “Ohh wow will you autograph that too then.” Really confused the guy. Made it to the Big Hole ($10.00 seven day pass) and took several pictures of us on the edge — MISSION #1. We had our pricey beers while we drove from viewing point to viewing point — MISSION #2. We pissed over the edge into the canyon —MISSION #3. The canyon rocked... ha ha. Glad we got out to it. Stopped at a little Indian trading post, Kanka wanted to purchace an authentic peace pipe. i purchaced several postcards (paper, wood, copper plate) and also bought a sweet leather cowboy hat. Finally found one to fit my big skull. We drove back and dealt with the same changing climates again. On the way up I commented that some of the snow drifts on the side of the rode where so deep you’d fall waist deep in them. Kanka stopped the car when we got back to the 8,046 feet sign to take a picture 27°F this round. He took a few steps toward the sign and feel knee deep into the drift, with each footstep shouting FUCK!! FUCK!! He got his photograph but he also got a nice hot foot.
Made it back to the hotel and went down tothe lobby bar for a drink. Decided we didn’t want to go out so we had sushi at the bar and more drinks (tons of wasabi). I worked on some different postcards for Barker. I created a set made from overhead shots of Flagstaff and affixed a cut out of Fred Flintstone. I got tired of using my hair gel to glue things together so I dumped wax from the candles on the tables to fix them to the cards.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 25, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 13(postcard)
BARKER - Other Peoples Words: Silver Indians 01 (postcard)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 15 (postcard)

Flagstaff, Arizona I

Flew out to Phoenix, Arizona today with Kanka for another job related photoshooot (Special Olymics in Flagstaff). Nice long 4 hour flight. I decided I’d switch seats at the gate so I could sit with Kanka — bad idea — 4 hour flight between Kanka and the fattest woman I’ve seen in a while. Befopre the flight Kanka commented that prehaps you’ll get to sit next to apretty brunette. Dead wrong. After the flight was over I declared that it would be the only bad part of the entire trip. We grabbed our rental car and hit I-17 to Flagstaff. We stopped the car after we enter an area that was coated with cacti... hundreds of them. I don’t remeber seeing realm cactus up cloase and personal like this so we were extrremely pleaded to have the chance to get up close. Kanak shoot photographs of the landscape while I feared rattlesnake bite.
Went from desert to snow covered highway in less than an hour... crazy state. Checked into the hotel and went to eat mexican at Casa Bonita... I stole the menu cover for Kanka because Casa Bonita was a place from a South Park episode. Had a few beers and some Patron and Don Julio. Got back to the hotel and just completed a postcard for Barker.

The Day Before Tommorrow

Get My Mail On

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 22, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 12(postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 08 (drawing/collage)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 14 (postcard)


OMITTED JUGHEAD 12


LEFT FOOT 08

Another Government Holiday

Back into the grind again today... lots of travel and hotel booking... yes!! Couldn't send any mail today because of the governement holiday ohh well. Worked on a few correspondences for barker today as well as the 'Girls Valentines'. They are looking really really good. Thats it... pretty boring day. I did recieve my Ray Johnson stuff today though. Must have come last week. How to Draw a Bunny (DVD) - Ray Johnson: Correspondence (hardback book)

Kansas City, Missouri III

Flying back to Atlanta today. Woke up and had breakfast in the lobby with the boys. Packed our shit and hit the road for the airport. Had lunch inside airport and a beer... micro-brew. Got back to Atlanta and put my little boy on my hand cart as we walked back to the Kanka's car — D-61 not C-21. Alot of strage looks from people. Got back to the house and introduced the little boy to his new home. Had a few martinis and chilled with Kanka for a bit. We fly out again this next thurday for Flagstaff. Yeah... we like security!

Kansas City, Missouri II

Woke up and forced my self to eat breakfast. No one else joined me. Eventually we packed up our shit and heaed to lunch at Houstons. Wasn't really hungry after breakfast so boxed my food to go. Went to that days photoshoot. Warehouse full of junk and such. I rescued a little boy doll from a dumpster and made sure he made it to the car for eventual travel back to Atlanta. We got back to the hotel and whle waiting for the elevator a little girl say my little boy doll and gave the blankest most frightened expression I'd ever seen. Kanka saw her too and said she'd probably be mentally scared for life because of my little boy — we laffed. Went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for dinner and had a nice big meal. Left Ruth's and decided to find another bar to drink at. Stopped in a Barnes & Nobles and purchased 4 new art books - Richard Prince: Photography/Painting - Themes & Movements: Conceptual Art - Pop Art - Ringo Stars: Postcards From the Boys. Good stuff. Ended up back at the irish Pub and had just a few Guinesses. Keeping to my pledge from earlier that day, that I wouldn't have a drink tonight until I had a drink. Another bad cover band played... but there were tons of hot girls... WOW. Kanak and i went back to hotel early. Schrier went out with his friend for a while longer.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 19, 2005
—————
BARKER - Other Peoples Words: White Elks 02 (postcard)

Kansas City, Missouri I

Woke up really early and ate breakfast in the lobby of the hotel. Kanka wondered how he was supposed to eat so early in the morning... I had to agree. Schrier ate 2 plates however. We headed into the bad parts of Kansas City for our only photoshoot that day and they returned back to the hotel. Decided we'd grab a drink and went back to the Irish Pub and had a few guiness. Then Schrier thought we'd head down the street to another bar and have a few drinks there and then go eat dinner. Well... we never made it to dinner... but we did enjoy many games of pool and some delicious Don Julio. They didn't have Patron but I assured the group that it was just as good. Schrier bailed out early, leaving Kanka and I alone to drink more. We left that bar, because of crazy blonde girls who were harrassing us. We ran into Schriers friend on the way out and went with him back to the Irish Pub. PACKED TO THE GILLS... and more shitty cover bands playing. Kanka and I ordered a guiness and a scotch. Crazy blonde girls showed up there as well. Kanka spilled his Guiness, I put my down (away from my stomach) and we both had about 2 sips of our scotch before we headed back to the hotel.

Denver, Colorado II

Woke up early this morning. We shoot at 3 locations across the Denver area. Went to a cool tavern for lunch. they had what looked like fossilized dinosaurs in rock, but the fossils were actually metal screws and bolts. Very cool stuff... they also had some interesting crosses made out of metal too. Had a really good club sandwich on homemade flat bread. Was kinda pissed because I couldn't bring my doggie bag with me. Got to the airport early so we had a few drinks at the 'Cowboy Bar' at Denver International (the guiness was horrible — can). Boarded another airplane destined for Kansas City and arrived just before sundown. Schrier went to sleep as Kanka and I dropped our shit in our rooms and wandered the downtown untill we found a nice little Irish Pub — alot like Fado's. Guiness and double scotch. There was a cover band playing on the stage there. They sucked really bad and we considered throwing things at them, but didn't.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 17, 2005
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BARKER - Other Peoples Words: White Elks 01 (postcard)

Denver, Colorado I

Flew into Denver this morning with Kanka and Schrier for a photo shoot for work. The flight was a bit long... ohh well can't complain I have many more to come. Drove to Boulder to eat dinner and drink, then walked around the city afterwards. Got back to the hotel and had a few drinks (scotch) and I made a postcard for Barker.

Valentine Correspondence UPDATE

Well I have run out of time working on these Valentine Correspondences. I was not able to mail any of them yesterday. I'm going to continue to work on them, but they probably won't be mailed for a week or so. I have a lot of traveling coming up in the next 2 weeks. It's going to be difficult to get correspondences out the door. Ohh well there are many other things that need to be done as well. I'll try to send out a few postcards while I'm on the road.

Birthday Blues - Valentine Melancholy

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 14, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 11(postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 07 (drawing/collage)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 12 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 11 (postcard)

Cranking Away

Got up early this morning and started working again in the kitchen. Still working on these special valentine correspondences for the girls. It's taking about 4 coats of acrylic paint to really get these colors to pop. Doing a nice little stripe pattern on each that relates to the contents. Originally I was going to do each one the same — same color pattern scheme. But I have decided that while each will have the same pattern each will vary in how the colors are ordered. This will give them a more personalized unique flare. I worked on the painting of these until about 3pm, had dinner with the folks and then hit the road for Atlanta at about 5. I got back around 7 and did some general stuff around the house, but plan on getting back to these girl correspondences shortly.

I watched a really great documentary last night called 'Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time'. It was really great. I've read a few things about Andy in the past and have always been interested in his work, but with this film you really get to see him in his element. The entire film follows him around as he creates his work - he's an environmental sculptor. Really fascinating philosophy about the world and his art. Check it out.

Barker, you're right.... you know your shit brother. Didn't mean to make it sound like you didn't.

Home Again - Home Again - Jiggidy Jig

So today I drove up to my parents house to spend the weekend... err really one day. Got in about noon and helped my father build a lean-to in the back yard for storing firewood under. Took us a while to realize that even though it was level it had to be unlevel to look correct to the naked eye. Long story short we got it done. I spent the rest of the day in their kitchen working on correspondences and trying to explain postal rates to my mother. She was convinced that I wasn't using enough stamps on a particular set of Valentine correspondences so to make her happy I added another stamp to the envelopes. Barker is correct however... most times we are using too much postage... or at least myself.

I almost completed the first set of five special valentine correspondences for boys. I think the people I'm sending them to will get a real kick out of them. Even had my mother help out out with a few parts of it. She hand-lettered the little interior envelopes in red ink — looked great. Later in the day I started work on the second set of five special valentine correspondences for girls. Each of these is hand painted and is taking a lot of time. My father asked why I just didn't spray paint them so I could get done quicker. I explained to him that sometimes in art the method in which you work is as or more important than the efficiency behind the making of the object. The time you put into your work and the process of making the object is also a part of the work, it becomes ingrained into the work. Whether anyone notices or not the process is very important to how the artist works. I told him about Tom Friedmans work titled '1,000 Hours', which is a piece of blank white paper that Friedman supposedly stared at for 1,000 hours. I explained that he could have just hung a blank sheet of paper on the wall and said he stared at it for 1,000 hours and no one would know the difference... but the artist would. It would annul his working method if he lied about how it was made. Sometimes you just can not cut corners. I think he understood.

These 2 sets of special valentine correspondences are taking a little longer than I expected so I don't believe they will be completed in time to mail on the 14th. However, I'm going to complete them anyways and mail them as soon as I can. I figure it will be wednesday before I can send them. Ohh well, better late than never. Again, can't cheat the process.

Friday

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 11, 2005
—————
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 06 (drawing/collage)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 11 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 10 (postcard)

Ants.... Ants Everywhere

Ants... a long trail of ants. This is what I discovered upon entering my house today after work. And what did they want? Goldfish... yeah Goldfish. I don't know why. Perhaps they were using them to construct a giant monument in honor of these tastey crackers. We'll never know, because a immediately vacuumed them up and took them in their new vacuum cleaner bag home to the dumpster.

Speaking of vacuum cleaner bags, Zimmerman was quite disappointed with the wonderful box she received from me. 'Heart to Heart Day Alteration AE' was a lovely little green box that contained a used vacuum cleaner bag. It's a key piece in the entire body of that work. I worked on it form July 20 - December 31, 2004. Zimmerman said she was expecting something really special when she unwrapped and opened the box (just like I felt when I received her hairball box). Another word for revenge is trots... it means shit. That's what you get I suppose. But I must reiterate the fact that 'Heart to Heart Day Alteration AE' is an important work. If not for the fact that it's a part of a larger body, for the fact that it is a Retroconsumerism piece. That alone makes it a precious piece to own, seeing as I've done only a few true Retroconsumeristic pieces thus far outside of the 2004 Fluoride Set. She should feel special... it fits in with other uncompleted Retroconsumerism works from the 'Events & Artifacts' series. I'm actually kinda sad to see it go. Ohh well, maybe one day she'll understand it once she receives the other 4 works. But i assured her that she would start receiving other correspondence pieces that aren't as complex to comprehend. Sherrill told me that Barker and her feared that Zimmerman might tear open the vacuum cleaner bag thinking their was something hidden within it. I thought that was totally hilarious.

After I took care of the ant situation Kanka stopped over and we had a few drinks. We sat around and watched some movies I had received from NETFLIX — Director's Series, Vol. 1 - The Work of Director Spike Jonze & Director's Series, Vol. 1 - The Work of Director Michel Gordry. Really great stuff... was really surprised to see how many of my favorite videos were done by Gordry. The guys a genius... simple as that.

Spent the night cutting out the back sides of the mass mailer Valentines i'm sending out this week. However i fear i will not be able to send them out until this saturday. So I think some will arrive on V-Day for some people and some will arrive the day after. Not that big a deal to me... If I were smart (now that i think of it this is a better idea) I should send them on the 14th so they have a 14th post mark on them. I'm gonna do them that way instead... it'll give me a little more time to make them look better too.


HEART TO HEART DAY ALTERATION AE

Back to Normal... For Now

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 9, 2005
—————
BARKER - More Than Three Occasions 04 (letter)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 05 (drawing/collage)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 10 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 09 (postcard)

Rabid Responces

Still not feeling very well today. Just came back from work early.. from which I arrived at late. Go figure. Having trouble eating food still too. Went out for soup with Kanka before our 1PM meeting.. thought I'd be able to eat something. Lost cause.

Heard several people respond back today through e-mail and phone, that they recieved their 'Rabid' correspondences. A lot of confussed people. Great!! I gave them no logical explanation... only that they should watch their mailbox closely and things would start to make sense eventually.

Water... Juice... Pills... Sleep

Sick Again.. This is Ludicrous!!

OK ... This will be short. I'm sick again... worse than last week. Body feels like it's been broken all over. Cold as ice but sweeting bullets. Ohh and did I mention the non-stop vomit. Yeah I'm really enjoying the ones when there is nothing to give to the bowl. Feels great!

Water... Juice... Pills... Sleep

Feeling Like Hell.. What Is This

Woke up this morning feeling like death had passed over me in the middle of the night again!! Left Sherrills for home to sleep when she took Barker back to the airport. I'm going to sleep.

Barkers Here? What the F@*%!!!

Barker showed up yesterday night. I guess he flew in just for fun and drinks... which we had a few. Was extremely suprised to learn that Barker didn't know who Ray Johnson was and had never seen 'How To Draw A Bunny'. I fugured he would have betten me to it. Ohh well the gag will be slightly on him now... if he ever refers back to some of my old mailings I'm sure he be suprised to see all the little Johnson clues that have been in quite a few. We ended up staying the night a Sherrills and watch the film and had some drink.

Today I woke up early ande painted the front sides of 15 correspondences — Kutzbach, Reynolds, Schaefer, York. Just basic white paint pieces. We went on a city tour of galleries and such. Didn't see anything that was of major interest. Barker was interested in getting photos of grafitti so we toured around for stuff like that and then went back to Sherrills for the evening.
I completed a set of 5 correspondences for Newman that are interesting but I'm going to have to develope more. They just are as worked as I'd like them to be. Again, dealing with themes that he's interested in now... only the images are cropped and blown out of porporton so much that it's hard to read what they originally were — outside of a set of large colored pixels. Ha —

Biggest Correspondence Day Yet!!!

Today is a big big day. Sending out a total of 30 correspondences - 5 unique and a set of 25 mass mailers. I'm pretty excited to see if everyone gets theirs and what the response will be from people who aren't expecting to receive the new mass mailings. Can't wait to see if anyone replies. Also today I am sending the fifth component in the Zimmerman 'Heart to Heart Day Alteration's. This one is a nice little package... err box to be more accurate.

While I was cataloging all of the 'Rabid' correspondences, I was surprised how all the different words generated for each card had some sort of meaning for each person. All the words used are related to the worked rabid in some fashion or another. Each set of words were placed in a random-ordered fashion, but as chaos has it patterns and similarities always emerge. For example - Newman has 'Rabid: hydrophobic/mad-dog' now while hydrophobic meaning lacking affinity for water may not apply to him, the term mad-dog fits him perfectly because of the 'Lost Dog' series of art works he has produced. Also - Kutzbach 'Rabid: hot/made' fits very well with his new rock-n-roll lead singer lifestyle. Hot meaning very popular or successful and made meaning successful or assured of success... perhaps I'm a fortune teller of sorts who knows. But I just find it interesting that the randomly choosen words fit so well with so many people.

Now the most interesting aspect of this first mass mailing is the Olive situation. Olive is a guy I went to college with for a short period of time... I think only the first semester freshman year. He then transferred to UMASS (home of Frank Black). All I have is an address in Connecticut that I've had around for about 8 years now. I don't know if he or any of his relatives are currently at this address, so it will be interesting to see what happens with that correspondence and future ones — whether it reaches its intended target audience and if it generates any response. We shall see... we shall see.

UPDATE: Just took mail to the post office and the guy behind the counter was giving me all sorts of flack over the Zimmerman package for several reason. First, for it's lack of a return address to which i informed him - "I never put return address. If it gets lost that's your problem." Second, for the label I put on it which states CAUTION RETROCONSUMERISTIC MATERIAL. He told me that was suspicious and could cause problems. To which i replied - "Look.. I could write SEVERED HAND on the thing... your still gonna mail it reguardless." Third, when he questioned me about the contents of the package, I explained to him what Retroconsumerism was and told him what was inside. To which he replied - "Why in the world would you want to mail something like that?" I laffed. Forth, after he had taped it and stickered it I told him I had to take a photo of it... which after explaining to him that I did Mail Art and had to document everything in case they lost it, he informed me again that I should put a return address on it and then reluctantly let me take a photo of it on the floor.


HEART TO HEART DAY ALTERATION AE

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 4, 2005
—————
BARKER - More Than Three Occasions 03 (letter)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 04 (drawing/collage)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 09 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 08 (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN - Heart to Heart Day Alteration AE (package)

BARKER - Rabid: extremist/revolutionary (postcard)
BUTTREY - Rabid: fanatical/raging (postcard)
COTELIA - Rabid: fervent/radical (postcard)
DURAN - Rabid: flipped/poisoned (postcard)
GLASSO - Rabid: frantic/overboard (postcard)
HARL - Rabid: freaked out/obsessed (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Rabid: frenetic/nutty (postcard)
KANKA - Rabid: frenzied/narrow-minded (postcard)
KIDWELL - Rabid: furious/maniacal (postcard)
KUTZBACH - Rabid: hot/made (postcard)
NEWMAN - Rabid: hydrophobic/mad-dog (postcard)
OLIVE - Rabid: infuriated/mad (postcard)
PEARSON - Rabid: insane/keen (postcard)
REYNOLDS - Rabid: intemperate/irrational (postcard)
SCHAEFER - Rabid: berserk/zealous (postcard)
SHERRILL - Rabid: bigoted/wild (postcard)
SKOREPA - Rabid: bitten/virulent (postcard)
SMITH - Rabid: bugged/violent (postcard)
STATTS - Rabid: corybantic/ultraist (postcard)
SYLVESTER - Rabid: crazed/ultra (postcard)
VINSON - Rabid: crazy/stoned (postcard)
WEISS - Rabid: delirious/steamed up (postcard)
WHITLOCK - Rabid: deranged/smoking (postcard)
YORK - Rabid: enthusiastic/sizzling (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN - Rabid: extreme/sick (postcard)

First Missing In Action

Well it finally happened, I received word from Weiss today that he never received 'Miss March / Miss November 02', probably the keystone to that whole series of correspondences. We are hoping it will turn up but I'm very doubtful at this point. I told him that at the end of this set I'd mail him a color copy of the originals just so he could have it. So I'm a little depressed... that was my favorite correspondence in the entire series. It's also the first time ever that a piece has been lost (stolen) while in transit and I've been mailing stuff for about 4 years now. First with Newman, then with Barker and now this year with the correspondence list. I've had works of art stolen before so I'm not stunned, but this just goes to show why all of these correspondences need to be documented and cataloged before they are entered into the system. So here it is for all to see.



MISS MARCH / MISS NOVEMBER 02

Tonight I will scan and catalog the first mass mailer works 'Rabid'. They will be going out tomm. I'll also continue production on the 'Valentine' mass mailers.

Also yesterday I traded an old scanner for a large box of 70's Playboy magazines. These are going to make for great correspondence materials. I'll also be using them in some fashion with the '100 Small Works: Hot, Young and Eager on 25¢ a Day' series.

p.s. DEATH TO COMCAST CABLE..... you evil bastards. I still have no internet.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 3, 2005
—————
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 08 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 07 (postcard)

Folk Art Show A Blast - Bigger List!!!

The Folk Art Show opened last night and it was awsome. Sherrill did a great job... I'm so proud of her efforts. Everything she put together was perfect. Got to the Woodruff at about 6pm and went across the street to drink martinis with Kanka before the show. Linton eventually joined us. We were seated in a window seat and I saw linton approaching the entrance from a distance... man what a crazy hat he had on. Totally 1950's style.. the kind Newman always used to were when we were in college together. I wonder if he still wears that.

Ran into some new and old faces at the show and just had to get their mailing addresses. So again the list has increased by 5. Now I'm at 30 and I'm sure it will get bigger in the coming months. This group will all recieve the Valentines Mass mailing that will go out middle of next week... hopefully hitting just before V-Day.

Barker. Aaron — Dallas, Texas
- Beasley, Elizabeth — Atlanta, Georgia
Buttrey. Kevin — Cleveland, Tennessee
Cotealia. Spring — Chattanooga, Tennessee
Duran, Dave — Savannah, Georgia
Glasso. Tracy — Atlanta, Georgia
Harl, Michael — Richmond, Virginia
- Herrle, Jake — Atlanta, Georgia
Hollenbeck. Phi — Dallas, Texas
Kanka. Jaroslav — Atlanta, Georgia
Kidwell. Martha — Charleston, Tennessee
Kutzback. Donny — Kenmore, New York
- Linton, David — Atlanta, Georgia
Newman. Scott — Savannah, Georgia
Olive, Frank — Bethel. Connecticut
Pearson. Olivia — Charlotte, North Carolina
Reynold. Tom — Powder Springs, Georgia
Schaefer. Susan — Grand Island, New York
Sherrill. Nancy — Marietta, Georgia
Skorepa, Dave — North Royalton, Ohio
Smith, Jeannette — Atlanta, Georgia
- Stanford, Chris — Lilburn, Georgia
Statts. Jason — Savannah, Georgia
- Steeger, Robin — Dallas, Georgia
Sylvester, Olie — Auburn, Georgia
Vinson. Chuk — Atlanta, Georgia
Weiss. Danny — Miami Beach, Florida
Whitlock, Laurie — Chattanooga, Tennessee
York. James — Brighton, Michigan
Zimmerman. Cassandra — Dallas, Texas

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
FEBRUARY 2, 2005
—————
BARKER - More Than Three Occasions 02 (letter)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 07 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 06 (postcard)

New Month = New Methods

Since the correspondence list is still growing and I can't possibly send everyone on it a unique mailing every day or even every week I've decided that ontop of sending out the unique pieces, I will also be sending out one mass mailing every other week and on holidays to everyone on the correspondence list no matter how large it grows. This way people who might not recieve unique pieces as frequently as others will still have some form of contact from me.

The first set of cards to go out will be to the new list of 25. The correspondences are called 'Rabids' and while each of them are close to identical in nature they are all slightly unique. Each has a set of different synonyms that relate to the word rabid on the back side and a photograph of me and a dog, taken by Kanka, on the front. They all look really cool. I hope everyone gets them and enkoys them. I'm still waiting to confire 2 peoples addresses, but I plan on sending these out on friday. the trasferral listing is gonna be big.

Sickness Sets In — More Correspondences

Called in sick today... I'm sitting in bed with the laptop working on filing things. I've added more people yet again to the correspondence list — another 5. I'm also going to post my address on the website sometime this week to allow anyone to write me. The damn internet is on the fritz as usual. It's been like this since last friday so i've been writing these posts into a text file and saving them away. As soon as i figure out whats wrong with it I'll post these up to the site. I might not be able to post these everyday but i still have to write them somehow everyday.

Barker. Aaron — Dallas, Texas
Buttrey. Kevin — Cleveland, Tennessee
Cotealia. Spring — Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Duran, Dave — Savannah, Georgia
Glasso. Tracy — Atlanta, Georgia
- Harl, Michael — Richmond, Virginia
Hollenbeck. Phi — Dallas, Texas
Kanka. Jaroslav — Atlanta, Georgia
Kidwell. Martha — Charleston, Tennessee
Kutzback. Donny — Kenmore, New York
Newman. Scott — Savannah, Georgia
Olive, Frank — Bethel. Connecticut
Pearson. Olivia — Charlotte, North Carolina
Reynold. Tom — Powder Springs, Georgia
Schaefer. Susan — Grand Island, New York
Sherrill. Nancy — Marietta, Georgia
Skorepa, Dave — North Royalton, Ohio
- Smith, Jeannette — Atlanta, Georgia
Statts. Jason — Savannah, Georgia
- Sylvester, Olie — Auburn, Georgia
Vinson. Chuk — Atlanta, Georgia
Weiss. Danny — Miami Beach, Florida
- Whitlock, Laurie — Chattanooga, Tennessee
York. James — Brighton, Michigan
Zimmerman. Cassandra — Dallas, Texas

Kanka-Blackmon-Drinking-&-Me

I did work on the Schaefer/York correspondences for a good bit of the morning. They are really relaxing ones to work on... just white paint. Done in the same vein as the 'Adds' Series. I got about 5 of each done, but only their fronts... I hope to get their backs done this next week. Each set is about 20, but like other correspondences, they will be stagered throughout the mailing weeks.

Kanka called me about 1pm and insisted that I go to El Myr and have a drink... and of course I bent. Had a pretty good time there.. as usual. Another photographer friend of ours was there - Blackmon. She was assisting Kanka earlier that day. They were shooting a yoga class and said it was crazy-funny. Kanka showed me his new Cannon Mach2... sweet little (big) camera, can't wait to use it on our next shoot.



Started to not feel that well so I went home early. I've been kinda ill all week. I think I'm gonna call in sick tomm. and try to beat this with sleep. I just did a little more work on the final 'v.Refuse/n. Refuse' correspondences for Zimmerman, but had to cut that short because of this headache. I'm gonna go to sleep now.

Folks Helping Folks With Folk

Well the weather man was right. Ice everywhere... I mean everywhere and thick too. I had over a 1/4" coating my entire car. The streets were frozen.. man everything. the best part was getting it off the car. you could actually roll down your windows and be left with a fully intact sheet of ice... kinda like a second window. the funniest was smashing that... hmmm good stuff.

We finished building out the under-structures for all of Sherrills bio panels. They should be really sturdy. She had all of the bio printed on chip board and skilled in black ink. Standard Deluxe out of Alabama did that. They look really good. I'm truely interested to see how everything looks when the show is hanged. She also had poster printed up by Hatch Show Print... they look really cool... very Hatch'ish.

Stayed up until the wee hours with Kanka drinking martinis... gin of course. Most of the night I spent looking at this mammoth door Sherrill had. She was wanting to make that into the title panel for the show... something you'd see I guess when you wanted into the door. We had tried silkscreening onto earlier that night but it just didn't work. I don't know what the hell she'll do with that door. i wish i could have helped her with it but she'll figure it out I'm sure. I think it will be best for her to do that kind of thing... she already has the show in her head I know it. I'd just screw thing up.

Ahh Fridays Again

Not to much happened today. I did talk to Weiss He's been pretty excited about all of the cards I've been sending him. He was asking who they were supposed to go together. I don't think I told him though. Bahh ha ha!! Going over to Sherrills tonight to help her with preparing materials for the Folk Art show at the Woodruff. I think we'll be assembling all the backing materials for her bio panels. I want to make sure that we build these things sturdy... the show travels for 2 years. So the better we make them the longer they will last of course.

Should be interesting weekend Kanka will be joining us. the weather report says we're going to have an ice storm, but I think it's a bunch of shit. Better go buy my bread and milk... yeah right i think I'll be buying a bottle of gin instead. Read a funny story today about a guy who got trapped in his car under huge amounts of snow. He was traveling up to his cabin or something like that and brought with him a few cases of beer. He drank all the beer and used his pee to melt the snow that trapped him in his car. So the moral of this story is... bread an milk won't get you out of a snow covered car but alcohol can.

Drinking With the Kids

Halleluiah... Received another correspondence from Barker today (he's been away for a while) I think he's on a stamp kick this month. Last week I received 'Rough Riders' with a nice little story about a guy trying to get to his cousin's birthday. This week I got one called 'World Refugee Year'... and I must agree, it is very noir.

Spent the evening drinking with Kanka and Sherrill. Basic conversation and sensationalism that I'm always expecting (good stuff). It was a good evening at our usual waterhole El Myr — El Schmere. Drank a few too many black beers with Kanka. The waiter said that they were second best to sex... but I found my eyes googling at every beautiful brunette that entered. Ahh what is it with my hate and love for the color brown. HA!!!

Developed several interesting correspondence scenarios while I was at the bar, but I'll have to work them out more fully before I can clearly explain them here. Going to take it easy tonight and do a bit of organizing and go to sleep early. I think next week Monday I'll be able to start sending correspondences to 3 new people.

- Kanka
- S. Schaefer
- York

Then the next big mailing will be my Valentines and everyone on the list gets a few of those. i will be very busy in the next few days so I'm going to get my sleep while I can tonight. Perhaps I'll dream up some new art schemes... I usually do when I go to sleep early.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 27, 2005
—————
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 03 (drawing)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 06 (postcard)

Revised 2005 Correspondence List

Barker. Aaron — Dallas, Texas
- Buttrey. Kevin — Cleveland, Tennessee
- Cotealia. Spring — Chattanooga, Tennessee
Glasso. Tracy — Atlanta, Georgia
Hollenbeck. Phil — Dallas, Texas
Kanka. Jaroslav — Atlanta, Georgia
- Kidwell. Martha — Charleston, Tennessee
Kutzback. Donny — Kenmore, New York
Newman. Scott — Savannah, Georgia
- Olive, Frank — Bethel. Connecticut
- Pearson. Olivia — Charlotte, North Carolina
Reynold. Tom — Powder Springs, Georgia
Schaefer. Susan — Grand Island, New York
Sherrill. Nancy — Marietta, Georgia
Skorepa, Dave — North Royalton, Ohio
Statts. Jason — Savannah, Georgia
Vinson. Chuk — Atlanta, Georgia
Weiss. Danny — Miami Beach, Florida
York. James — Brighton, Michigan
Zimmerman. Cassandra — Dallas, Texas

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 26, 2005
—————
BARKER - More Than Three Occasions 01 (postcard)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 05 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 05 (postcard)

Working at Sherrills

I'm gonna take my materials over to Sherrills Studios space tonight to do work. Haven't seen her for a few days and i like getting over there... it inspires me to do nutty things. Last time I was over there I took 2 of Hollenbecks 'Left Foot' correspondences with the intention of using some of her pastel house paints on them. I did... but after i looked at them I decided to set them on fire. they just looked like they need to be set on fire. Plus, I like burning things over at her house. Every time I do it she gets so bent out of shape. Fun Fun

Tomorrow I will be posting an updated correspondence list. I am adding 5 more people, bringing the total to 20.

Have suspicions that the people in my mailroom at work might be stealing my mail before it goes out. I checked with Newman to see if he received any postcards and after saying he didn't know what I was talking about, he added that if he had received anything it would have been at least 3 things (wonder what he's cooking up). This is positive news because I've only sent him 3 so far.

FORGOT TO SCAN MAILINGS AGAIN TODAY. DAMNIT!!!! And today I sent the Weiss the most controversial correspondence yet (only if you look hard at it though) I'm gonna have to stay up late tonight and scan everything.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 25, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 10 (postcard)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 04 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 04 (postcard)

Monday

Not feeling very well today. I'm gonna do a little bit of organizing, but I'm getting to sleep early today. I don't plan on getting anything productive done today. Need rest.. the last thing I want is to get sick and not be able to work for a prolonged period of time.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 24, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 09 (postcard)

Hollenbeck 'Left Foot'

Created a lot of new 'Left Foot' correspondences over this past week. Set a ot of them on fire too. It seems that the latest theme for about the past 10 of these has had something to do with burning. Some are set on fire... some have things you light up... and other have actual money (which I obviously have to burn). So far I'm at about 15 of the total 50. It's strange, but I have a tendency to either I guess tell a story or a better way of putting it is following a train of thought. it's the same thing I've been doing with Barker for the past year. All of his correspondences follow some common thread. Come to think of it, this all started with the Newman Media Mail work.... huh. I'll be very interested in seeing where these correspondences are at when I reach the initial 50. Who knows I might never send Hollenbeck anything else ever besides 'Left Foot' correspondences... but I doubt that.

Discovered that the instep of my left foot is the exact height of a dollar bill.... strange proportions... I'll have to use that observation at a later time in this series.

Bits and Pieces

Spent the major part of today organizing all of my small bits and pieces of junk into little labeled boxes. Things like keys, dice, bits of plastic, wood, bits of paper, and bits of metal. All of these things used to be piled together in large shoe boxes... but I decided today that it would be better to separate them into corresponding families. I'll probably use a lot of these pieces for the Hollenbeck 'Left Foot' correspondences.

I'm really enjoying doing these Hollenbeck correspondences the most. Because they have such a loose common theme I'm able to do almost anything with them. Just as long as they fit into that 9" x 12" envelope.

Email to Kanka

On Jan 20, 2005, at 8:57 PM, Jaroslav Kanka wrote:

how was the wing haven.....<05 Track 05 2.m4a>

REPLY:

Wing Haven was good. I busted out the pink paint and made some correspondence pieces for Cassie in Dallas... everyone gave me strange looks. I guess they have never seen anyone paint at the bar... fuck'm... 'I am important'. ( I have finally realized this)... I'll do what 'has' to be done. I do not know any other way.... 2.5 more years before I go for broke and try to make it on the passion.... on the obsession... on the soul... on the conscience... on the chaos... on the Virgin... on the self... and on and on and on. I am tired... so so tired. Not in myself but in the sociological fact that as a person I must earn... .... ..... ....... ..... I am so, so tired of earning my good friend... I simply want to produce... MULTITUDES UPON MULTITUDES... PROCREATE ON PREVIOUS INTUITIVE PROCREATIONS ...... DIVERD... and DIVULGE

Tonight I watched a film... the first film that has ever touched me...... and I can never tell anyone of it... even you.

November 28th, 2004 changed me.... I think I have changed myself again... I am sick... sick and so tired

Things are so strange my friend. I had an amazing conversation with a good friend this morning. I am going to start sending correspondences to his daughter (Olivia - 22 months). I know her likes and dis-likes. Ohh to be at such a tender age. I want to leave everything and start a-new, but alas I am not that naive soul. I can not leave what has already begun.

Why must we carry on..... Do I need to leave something behind for my 'own'... or is my 'own' the every.

I AM POSTING THIS TO THE BLOG

- Thomas Arthur Schaefer

Thursday

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 20, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 08 (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 02 (drawing)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 03 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 03 (postcard)

Correspondence Sets Complete

Completed prepaing all 15 sets of correspondence materials today.
— 200 postcards
— 20 unique mailers
All postcards are hand cut to 4" x 6" standard postcard size.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 19, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 07 (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 01 (drawing)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 02 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 02 (postcard)



OMITTED JUGHEAD 07


LEFT FOOT 01

Stick to the Process

Huge blunder today... I mailed off 2 corresepondences before I had scanned and cataloged them. Very stupid. Hopefully none of them will get lost. I'm not too worried about anything happening to these ones in particular because the content on them is pretty tame, but if I were to do the same thing with something more controvercial, there would be no record of its existance if it dissappeared in transit. I'm going to print a process list to post around my home... just to reinforce it. I will have to get scans of the correspondences when they reach their destination... it's a shame I missed scanning the originals. I won''t make that mistake twice. I suppose I was just excited to get mail out today because of mondays holiday - need to be more patient and follow the process.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 18, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 06 (postcard)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 01 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 01 (postcard)

Weiss – Post Office Closed

It's monday and because of the holiday the USPS is closed. No correspondence transferred today. I completed the first set of Weiss correspondences today. I must say I am very impressed by this technique (paper strips). I used to PlayBoy centerfolds to complete this set of 12 - Miss March & Miss November 2004. When you put all the cards together you get a really strage elongated image of the 2 playmates... it looks really gorgeous. The thing I love most about this technique is the way it puts a random order to everything. Shapes and color areas corresponde to other areas in such a way that they almost seem like they were never separate images to begin with.... it's really impressive. I am going to have to try this technique on a larger scale.

I wrapped the excess from the strips around to the other side of the cards instead of cutting it off. I really gives the address side a nice chaotic look. The excess strips are complimented by some tears from San Diego sex ads. I think Weiss will really like these. I will have to send him instruction on how to frame these works... they really need to be seen all together.

Streamline Work Habits

Spent most of today reorganizing and catagorizing materials. I started pulling and sorting old materials for use with correspondences. The objective is to slowly purge all of my old materials that are not currently related with other bodies of work. I hope that in doing this I will be able to clear away at least 75% of my materials stockpile. This will not only help me keep a cleaner shop but also prevent me from starting new series of works. The goal is to limit all production of work down to 2 main bodies and 5 sub-sets.

MAIN:
Retroconsumerism
100 Small Works

SUB-SET:
Splits, Spans, Spreads & Sprawls
Black-Pink-White
Richie Rich
Jughead
Drawings

This consolidation of materials should help me produce more work on a faster schedule. This will help my move into a new space easier to organize.

Schaefer Beer

Began working on correspondences for various people using old Schaefer Beer campaign ads. I think they are gonna look really good. I'm producing 1 set of 30 cards that will be sent to S. Schaefer. The main image is a 60's street corner with a Schaefer Beer billboard in the background. I think I'll paint these in the same way Deiter Roth did his set of street scenes from London. Basically, he painted out certain portions and altered parts of the image. For color I think I'll only use white for these, but I'm still not sure what I will do on the opposite side.

Friday

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 14, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 05 (postcard)

Ray Johnson 1927 - 1995

RAY JOHNSON TRINITY / HOLY SPIRIT

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 13, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 04 (postcard)
BARKER - Ray Johnson Trinity / Holy Spirit (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Ray Johnson Trinity / Father (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN - Heart to Heart Day Alteration AD (letter)
ZIMMERMAN – Ray Johnson Trinity / Son (postcard)

2005 Correspondence List

Barker. Aaron — Dallas, Texas
Glasso. Tracy — Atlanta, Georgia
Hollenbeck. Phil — Dallas, Texas
Kanka. Jaroslav — Atlanta, Georgia
Kutzback. Donny — Kenmore, New York
Newman. Scott — Savannah , Georgia
Reynold. Tom — Powder Springs, Georgia
Schaefer. Susan — Grand Island, New York
Sherrill. Nancy — Marietta, Georgia
Skorepa, Dave — North Royalton, Ohio
Statts. Jason — Savannah, Georgia
Vinson. Chuk — Atlanta, Georgia
Weiss. Danny — Miami Beach, Florida
York. James — Brighton, Michigan
Zimmerman. Cassandra — Dallas, Texas

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 12, 2005
—————
BARKER – Omitted Jughead 03 (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN – Heart to Heart Day Alteration AC (letter)

Kanka Returns

Kanka is finally back and we meet for drinks at our usual spot today. He said he was going to give me the address to a friend of his in Europe. He said he was a writer and would really appreciate something of this type. (foreign-foreign correspondence... very interesting). I'm going to go through my collection tonight a pick a set of works to give him. I think I'm going to give him the other three works from 'Drawings'. He'll get the other 3 works that go along with the one I gave him for X-mas in 2003. It was called 'Landscape/Still Life'. It's the yellow work with the two spring break college sluts on it. The other 3 that I will give him are:

- Visualized and Narrative Imagery
- The Figure
- Optical Greys


DRAWINGS 08: LANDSCAPE/STILL LIFE


DRAWINGS 09: VISUALIZED AND NARRATIVE IMAGERY


DRAWINGS 10: THE FIGURE


DRAWINGS 11: OPTICAL GREYS

These works will serve as final payment for the photographs he took for me, for the 'Fluoride Set 2004'. I think he will like them a lot. All the works are placed on torn out pages of my colege art history note book. They had pictures that I had copied from art history books to describe some different terms. The terms became the titles for the paintings. The pictures that were taped on became part of the artwork for the first piece (landscape/still life), but they were removed from the last three. I removed them in a protest to the first work which featured two spring break college sluts... and what do two spring break college sluts do. They inevitably take it all off. So I did that literally by taking the other three images off or away from the composition leaving only the tape (some what like tan lines) from where the pictures used to be.


MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 11, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 02 (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN - Heart to Heart Day Alteration AB (letter)

Weiss Correspondence

Found this picture that Weiss took of me the night I did 100 Small Works: New York City Barstool Baptisms. This photo was taken on our way to the 2nd bar — drinks 3/4/5/6. It was the bar where they filmed Donnie Brasco (Pacino & Depp) back in 96. They even had an autographed picture of the two in costume on the wall behind the bar. I ended up drinking 2 pints of Guiness and had 2 shots of tequila (Patron & Don Julio). We then moved onto a Japanesse Karoke Bar. — You can see the pen I used behind my ear and the drawings in my front shirt pocket.


PHOTO BY WEISS - NEW YORK CITY 2003

I think what I'll end up doing for Weiss will be either about bars or about babes. Maybe I'll do babes and bars together.

Decided today that I'd also start posting the correspondences that I send each day. I'll use this later to reference back to the actual date stamping on the artifacts. I will go back to the start of this year and re-post the work that were sent satrting the 1st.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 10, 2005
—————
BARKER – Omitted Jughead 01 (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN – Heart to Heart Day Alteration AA (letter)




HEART TO HEART DAY ALTERATION AA

Sundays Workflow

Well today I've taken it kinda easy... didn't get a ton of things done but did get enough correspondences made for at least 5 weeks worth of mailings. Completed — Barker / Zimmerman / Newman / Hollenbeck. Spent a little time designing the labels for the Newman and Hollenbeck sets. Newmans requires a small 1/4" strip of paper with the address and Hollenbeck a simple label to fit onto a 9" x 12" envelope.

Began working on 5 new Hollenbeck 'Left Foot' correspondences. They'll be pretty interesting when they are done because they are being built from a lot of the left over materials I've been using for other projects. So each one should have a mini history of the works i've been creating at least in these past few years.

Completed a new set of 5 correspondences for Barker today as well. They are the 'Fat Chick' set and they feature Fonzie on the back side with a top 5 list. They are pretty silly. Very similar to the 'Upton Sinclair's - The Jungle' set. I've got at least 6 weeks worth of cards for mailing to Barker, so another 2 month vacation will be good, although I'm sure I'll produce another huge amount during this time off. The system of creating large amounts for future use is just so much better especially when I can crank out sets of 5 within a few nights time.

One of the next projects that i need to get rolling on is the 'Events'. I have build all of their wood structures, but now need to fill/sand/prime them for the artifacts that will be on them. I've decided to try and not force these works into being developed every month — only if they merit the documentation. It looks like I will have 2 pieces from 2003 and about 6 pieces from 2004. This just makes the works more momentous, really focuses on their reason for being. I don't want to force any 'Events' into existence if they don't possess true virtues.

Newman & Barker Correspondences

Started using the shredder today to make the Newman correspondences. It's amazing how much faster this particular process goes once you have all the cut portions ready in a matter of seconds. Already completed 16 of them today and I'm probably going to keep going. Since the images started to repeat I'll start another set but with a different patterned stucture.

Considering the concept of creatng some kind of large work with patterned shirts. Something extremely simple... even just glueing the shirts flat on a white ground. I'll have to put some more thought into that though.

Also used the shedder to complete a new set for the Barker correspondences. 4 works from the 'Three or More Times' set. This is a set that had alot of hand cut strips in it previously... but I finished the envelopes with the shredder technique and did some interesting ordering of the images.

Took the left over stripes from 'Three or More Times' and completed Hollenbeck correspondeces 'Left Foot' 1-3. Have to find out what the postal rate on something like this will be (9" x 13" envelope). I'm thinking 74¢ will be fine, but I want to check just to be sure. Gonna spend the rest of the evening scanning and cataloging all correspondences ready for mailing.

New Tools

Well after doing several correspondence pieces where I have been painstakingly cutting 1/4" strips of paper I finally realized today that it was a total waste of my time. I went and bought a machine to do it. it's this amazing invention called a paper shredder. i don't know why I never thought of it before. the idea came to me while I was watching the pile of hawaiian shirt pattern color copies pile up. I'm going to use them for the Newman correspondences. I would have had to cut down almost 200 sheets of paper by hand. So lets do the math on that one.

200 sheets @ 11" tall

11 x 4 = 44 1/4" pieces per sheet

44 x 200 = 8800

8800 hand cut strips... ok that's just not gonna happen. So thank god for the 'straight cut paper shredder'. Now there are only two major drawbacks to using this type of method. (1) you can only feed the sheet in long ways — 8.5" (2) the shedder knives leave the slightest of frays on the edges... but I think those will be almost unnoticeable when the strips are finally glued down. So all in all I'm pretty excited about getting started on these Newman pieces. With the new tool i should be able to get all 20 of the cards strip portion completed by the weekend.

Also today I created the base foundations for my Hollenbeck correspondences. I first met Hollenbeck in New orleans at the HOW Design Conference. At some point during one night of drinking we got into talking about my paintings & work and somehow in the conversation I said i'd really like to have some human bones. After being home for about a month I received an envelope from Hollenbeck. Written on the front was ' put your best foot forward'. As I open the envelope an removed the other envelopes from the inside I noticed more references to feet. Finally i reached the last bulky envelope and inside was the skeleton of a humans left foot. Hollenbeck told me later that someone had given it to him and he had decided to pass it along to me after our conversation in New Orleans. The foot now hangs over my front door. So last night i decided to start a new set of correspondences with Hollenbeck. I got a fresh sheet of white paper and did a tracing of my left foot and then photocopied the image onto 50 sheets of white cardstock. This will be the basic structure around which I'll compose each of these correspondences. Each will be placed into a 9" x 12" white envelope and mailed accordingly.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 07, 2005
—————
BARKER - John Wayne Fan Club (letter)



JOHN WAYNE FAN CLUB

New Correspondences & Weekend Scheduling

Spent a good part of today hunting down Magnum P.I. pictures for use in the Newman correspondences... man I found some really good ones. I think the next step is going to be finding as many Hawaiian shirt patterns as I can to use in tandem with the pictures. For the copy portion of these correspondences I’m gonna use unsolved crime articles from the web, just copying them word for work like I’ve been doing with different Barker correspondences. These things are gonna look really cool. I am also getting two rubberstamps made up as well — Thomas Sullivan Magnum III Fan Club & Jonathan Quayle Higgins III Fan Club

For the Kutzbach correspondences I’m gonna do the stick of bubble gum series. I have 15 pink foam rubber bases to build the work on. Each stick will have a different flavor of gum printed on one side and something (probably Bazooka Joe based) on the other. Each stick will then be wrapped in foil just like a real stick of gum. Postage will go on this portion. It’ll be much nicer looking than an envelope.

This weekend should be a busy one. I want to try and get at least 20 Newman correspondences under-way as well as all 15 Kutzbach. I need to wrap up all current Barker and Zimmerman correspondences and get them prep’d for mailing (scan-label-file). Also, I want to get at least 5 sets of general correspondences ready for the group. I need to look into buying myself an inexpensive B/W photocopier for the house — something similar to Sherrill’s.

Once I can build up a big enough set of correspondences (at least 2 months worth) I can get back to work on the Fluoride oil paintings and prep work for the 100 Small Works: Hot, Young and Eager on 25¢ a Day set. I’ve already gotten the images I want to dissect into the 1/8” portions. I’m using the images I enlarged for a set of Naked Lady playing cards I borrowed from Barker. As soon as I finish with these works I’ll probably turn the original playing cards into a new set of 52 +/- correspondences for Barker. I told him I’d return the cards back to him, just never told him how. I’m sure he’ll dig that.

The other thing that I’m going to have to consider scheduling is the final phase of work for the sawlaw.com website. Linton said the client has finally finished writing the content. So we should be ready to finish this website up in the next few weeks. I also need to update Lintons arobasegroup.com website. I figure I’ll just do all this at the same time, that way I can keep all that FLASH thought and method in my head. Was updating cherrylipped.com the other day to add temporary frontside links since the main site is still under construction and I had the damndest time remembering all my hot keys. I’m using too many applications everyday for me to remember all of FLASH’s little bits.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 06, 2005
—————
BARKER - Ingenuousness of Anal Sex (postcard)



INGENUOUSNESS OF ANAL SEX

Kutzbach - Newman - Weiss - York

I decided today to add 4 new people to my correspondence list for 2005.

Kutzbach - New York
Newman - Georgia
Weiss - Florida
York - Michigan

I won't be sending them the same bulk of mail that I've been sending Barker to begin with. More than likely I'll start off by sending them each something once a week and probably based on a set theme and standard. I'll start it that way and if any of the new people start to send lots of corr. back, I will up the proportion of corr. to meet their response. I figure Newman will be the only one to really do this, since it was him that I started doing correspondences with back in 2002 — Media Mail.


NEWMAN - MEDIA MAIL 00A: WE'RE GLAD YOU ARE HERE (12.26.01)


SCHAEFER - MEDIA MAIL 00B: WE LOVE TO SEE YOU SMILE (01.02.02)

Unfortunately that project started getting too technical in terms of the works and the time invested into each piece was taking away from the purity of the correspondence. We ended the project shortly after I got laid off, but I'm sure he'll be excited to get evolved with something of this sort again. I remember it was always an idea of his to simply send small format art (postcard) instead of the bulky works the Media Mail series was becoming. Maybe Newman and I can start the Thomas Sullivan Magnum III Fan Club or even the Jonathan Quayle Higgins III Fan Club.



Weiss will be an interesting correspondence... I'm sure most of the work he'll send will feature the pretty women he's so fond of photographing. He's been wanting to do work with me for a while, I remember discussing it in NYC when he still lived there. But as with most of my friends, I return phone calls not as often as I should and he probably thinks I've died. Maybe I'll send him initially some correspondences that are similar to the On Karwara 'I'm still alive' telegrams. I think it'll be a pleasant surprise for him to start receiving correspondences of this sort.

100 Small Works — Concepts

Last night around 2am, I came up with some interesting ways for making the frames for the 100 Small Works: New York City Barstool Baptisms set. Besides using some really heavily guilded frames, I plan on adding sculpted babies to each corner of the frame. I'll use those plastic ones I purchased from Junk Man's in 2004. I'll heat and bend them into different positions (ecstasy/torment) for the top/bottom heaven-hell contrasts.

Also had a great idea for the 100 Small Works: Hot, Young & Eager on 25¢ a Day set. It involves the fragmenting and spacing of pornographic pictures to create a large scale abstracted image... I think it's gonna work out wonderfully and really help build up the layering that is needed in these pieces. Each grided piece will be 1/8 x 1/8 square - separated on all sides by 1/8. Up close the image will disappear but from a distance it should come into focus. I'm planing to hand paint each square based on the segmented originals. Each of the 20 works will have about 100+ squares in each... and I plan the repeat the technique at least 2 times on each piece, with the second phase being one image that is spread across all 20 works. The layering and measurements involved in this are gonna be very ordered, yet very chaotic.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 04, 2005
—————
BARKER - Birds/Birdfood 02 (postcard)

Barker Correspondence

Completed a large set of correspondences for Aaron today... 30 in all, with about 25 more waiting to be completed. I'm going to attempt to send out at the least 4 of these mailings a week for the entire year. 4 x 52 =208 total // I did a large number of blue Jughead cards again called 'Omitted Jughead'. Like Richie Rich, Jughead is going to become a central figure in a lot of work to come... he's going to be my Christ figure. He wears a crown and I'm saying he's a jew... works for me.

Also started a Ray Johnson'esk fan club mailing too. John Wayne Fan Club - complete with John Wayne stamps. I'm pretty sure Aaron knows about Johnson... in a correspondence I got from him in August 2004 he pasted a clipping from a book that mentioned him among other people. This first fan club letter is a neat little envelope with a 8.5 x 11 drawing inside with Blue Jughead's and a young picture of Johnson in the middle with a jughead head asking "Moticos! Moticos! What is a moticos!". I also did a nice little play on words too – put the letters RA on it (Ray Johnson, sun god Ra, RA periodic table for Radium) Also added UR CR ANIUM (uranium/cranium/your cranium).

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 03, 2005
—————
BARKER - Birds/Birdfood 01 (postcard)

Barker Correspondence

Began to file away all of Barkers correspondence today in clear page folio books. (3 books) They look really good.. it's nice to be able to flip through them and be able to see both sides. I also like the fact that people can't touch them, the last thing I want is for them to get altered or destroyed. Some of the cards are very delicate, especially the roach card. It must have lost one of its 44 papers when it was getting mailed. I have to give it to him for that card though.. kids got some balls sending me roaches fixed onto a postcard... I mean, at least I paint over all my paraphernalia white. Neither of us put return addresses on our drug mailings — how clever of you Trouble McGee


BARKER CORRESPONDENCE #19


SCHAEFER CORRESPONDENCE #06

Zimmerman Correspondence

Well 2004 is finally over so now I can finally send Cassandra her mailings. I'm syked to finally get these 5 works done.. I can't wait to mail them. This too has been a difficult work to keep under wraps. It's such a funny concept and I'll finally get my payback for the cat-hair box correspondence from her on July 20, 2004. Here is the break down of the works:

Heart to Heart Day Alteration

PART AA — July 20, 2004 — REFUSE v. 1: to decline to accept : REJECT (performance piece)

PART AB — August 11, 2004 — REFUSE v. 2: to show or express unwillingness to do or comply with : DENY (performance piece)

PART AC — October 31, 2004 — REFUSE v. 3: to give up : RENOUNCE (performance piece)

PART AD — December 10, 2004 — REFUSE v. 4: to withhold acceptance, compliance, or permissioin (performance piece)

PART AE — July 20 - December 31, 2004 — REFUSE n. 1: the worthless or useless part of something : LEAVINGS (correspondence piece)