Thursday, January 5, 2017

"Eat At Slappy's" Collage


Its former resting spot out front.  
I belong to an online group of ‘dudes’ that post a lot of questionable images. It’s a group for about fifteen or so people to annoy and gross out each other. It’s like the back of the bus in high school. A few of the guys in the group work at a chicken restaurant in town name Slappy’s, a very good restaurant. Somehow this small group started making memes with the phrase “Eat at Slappy’s” and then posting them to our small group. Some of those images were quite questionable, silly, or even offensive. It took on a life of its own and blew up. Everyone in the group was slapping the phrase all over strange images found online. It got out of hand, so much so that it was suggested we should stop.

Right in the middle of barrage of images I went upstairs to work on some things. Without much direction I made a couple larger collages with a couple karate dudes right up front. Thinking of what to put with the karate dudes I went with a phrase I’d seen one too many times that week, “Eat at Slappy’s.” It was silly and done quickly but I thought it looked pretty interested.
I sent a message to one of the guys that works at the place and asked if he wanted the thing. Not only did he want it but he said they’d put it up in the restaurant. Since it was going up in the restaurant I decided to go and get a decent frame for the thing. I dropped it off to my friend and he sent me the following picture.

Honestly, I can’t think of a better honor than having my work up in a chicken restaurant in Winston-Salem North Carolina. Some might want their stuff in a nice gallery, or art space of some kind, but I’d rather have mine hanging in a place where the glass collects small flecks of airborne chicken deliciousness. It feels appropriate to have it in such a setting.
A few weeks ago I dropped in to pick up a gift from the guys at the shop and noticed that it had moved from the wall (t-shirts rested there now) to against the window frame looking into the kitchen. It’s moving around, it has a life, and people are seeing it. Hopefully it stays there for a while before they end up tossing it out, or breaking the glass and then sitting in some unused spot in the restaurant. I hope that glass collects a lot of chicken particles.

This is the menu. You should go there if you're in Winston-Salem NC. I'll take you.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Address Books


At the end of this year I realized that I was running out of room in my current mail-art book. This book keeps all of the addresses for my correspondence. It also keeps a tally of how many pieces I send each year and how much I have received. Beside each person’s name that I correspond with I have the amount of work they’ve sent me and the amount I’ve sent them. I try and keep this as accurate as possible to ensure that I don’t cheat anyone. I try and stay equal with each person I send to, don’t want too much of a disparity. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen behind with some folks, those that are just too prolific. I’m sure that I miss something every once in a while.

I’m now starting on my third mail-art book. The first book I decommissioned about three years ago. Through the first two I have other types of lists. I have a world list where I tried to mark off the countries I’ve sent to, I have since abandoned that effort. I’ve also had lists for zines as well as CD’s and even as somewhat comprehensive list to mail-art shows I’ve sent to. Not going to try and keep this up with the new book, too much work, and it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.

When I was typing up the new master address list to go in the new book, I omitted a lot of names. I kept addresses of people that I consistently send to, people that respond, and folks that I find truly inspiring. In other words, I was looking to trim the fat a bit, too many people to send to causes me a bit of anxiety. Sure I want to send to folks I’ve never talked with, but over a period of a few years you send a lot to these people and never get anything back. So, I trimmed the list down to 98 names. The book must have had at least three times that amount in it; lots were folks that stopped sending or some that had passed on. Two folks that I’ve mailed things to since the very beginning have died within the last year and another I had just started to correspond with died.

So the new book is nice and sleek, awaiting my marks and impromptu lists (I’m sure I’ll start new ones up) and of course, collages. So many stickers, so many stickers.

Looking over the list, I noticed that most of my correspondence and I have gone back and forth at least ten times, many others around the twenty time mark. There’s definitely a disparity between my domestic correspondence and my international ones. The price of a postcard rises by almost sixty cents once it goes over the border. I need to try and rectify this moving forward. The person I’ve sent the most to is Richard Canard. He was the third person I ever corresponded with! I think I’m going to send out awards for the top three. Either way, here is gold, silver, and bronze.

First Place - Richard Canard – 82 – IL-USA

Second Place - K.S. Chambers – 37- CA-USA

Third Place - Amy Irwen – 35 – MN –USA