Things I Want to Tell You

During the summer, I spend most of my time working on collages and assemblage pieces. At best, I had three or four days a week where I get four or five solid hours of work. This never happens during the school year. If I’m lucky, I can put together an hour or a two a few times a week while running up and down the stairs doing chores. Little of that time is spent doing much writing or working on broadsides, which both require extended time sitting in front of the computer. As ideas for writing or broadsides come to me during the summer, I make a list of random ideas. When the summer ends, and I head back to work, I start to go through my lists. I can easily find an hour to write during the workday, so my makings output shifts.  

In the first week back at work, I had a bit of downtime and tackled the list one item after another. As I wrote, I started to think of other snippets of nothingness I wanted to include. The list grew and grew. The more I work on things, the more I think of other things to make. Not sure that any of these ideas below warranted their own spotlight so I put them all together. I like lists. It’s fun to complain and vent to the void.

Here’s the list. A top ten.

 

The ignore “no” instead of saying “no”

When to stop using scraps

“Collage writing”

Zine Monies are donations

Postage is too damn high!

That guy

Anyone under 40 doing mail-art?

Positive affirmations but…someone else made that

I create homework

Fun facts

 

The ignore “no” instead of saying “no”

 

If people have no interest in what I make, I’m fine with that. I’m going to make things whether people like them or not. Since I put many of these creations into public, I’d prefer some interaction with them, but that’s a lot to ask. Most things come and go. I move onto the next thing and then the next thing after that. What I hate more than anything is when people say they’re interested, either engaging in a project or saying that you’re going to send me money, but when you follow up, they ignore you. Nancy Reagan and Mr. T. told me to “Just say no” so “Just say no!” The ignore “no” is worse than the “fuck you, I don’t want it.” At least theirs some integrity in the “fuck you!”

 

When to stop using scraps

 

Everything that I make is pretty much scraps. Rarely do I make anything that comes from unused materials. All my materials have been rotting in someone’s basement for the past thirty years. At best they’ve been sitting on someone’s unused desk for at least a decade. I like old stuff because it has character and I enjoy searching. I also don’t like paying for things.

 

The problem here is that the scraps I use in projects make their own scraps. If I work on a collage that I’ve ripped from antiquated books, there’s a jagged edge left over. I cut this off. If that edge is all “fun” and stuff, I use it in another collage. Whether I use them or not, the scraps make a nice pile that I toss into the trash beside my work desk. If I reframe a collage, like cutting a long section off the end, I can have a nice long piece leftover. It only seems right to save these pieces.

 

Over the summer, I collected all the leftover pieces and then put them in an old Lego container. At the end of summer, I dumped the pieces on my desk and quickly made collages of the scraps. Not that these ever come out, they look like shit because there’s just too many colors and too many textures and too many lines going all over the place. No matter how much I sand the new creation into a well-blended piece, it’s too much. To quote Cher, (not that one, but the other one) the collages become “a full on Monet.”  

 

When I finish my collage of scraps, I’ve made more scraps. When I held these up, in my hand, I wondered whether I should shave off the bad ends and put them back in the container. Feeling that this process would never end (with boring results) I pushed every piece of scraps into the trashcan. It was liberating and disheartening at the same time. This forced me to start over and to work with a new pile of materials.

 

“Collage writing”

 

I don’t know what this phrase means, exactly. All I know is that I write a lot of stuff and have done that for over twenty years. The archive of writing is vast and ridiculous. I write about music and travel and life and a lot about making things. Often those things overlap. Sometimes I write about the same subjects again, but I might be the only one to know that for sure. I don’t care. If I write a short essay, it might go online, or it might be printed in an edition of 25 and sent to folks who never read it. If that edition of 25 goes out, maybe only 10 of those folks read my boring essay about plants, going to Chicago, or whatever nonsense I’m on about. No one gets it all because there’s no way to keep decent records of all that and who has the time.

 

Let me try and define this thing. “Collage writing,” is where I take from an old thing I wrote, mess with it, and add it to something new. Punch it up a bit. I’m always plundering the past to add a short thing. For my upcoming book about Lexington NC, I’ve collected a lot of loose things in or around town. This is collage writing. I take and rework and add to something else. There’s enough there, and more to come, that I can do this forever, like reusing a favorite image in a paper collage. It’s all a fucking collage.

 

Zine Monies are donations

 

No one likes trying to collect money for projects. I hate doing it. The only times I ask folks for money is when I’m getting something printed by an actual printer. Other than that, all my printing needs are done on the sly, very early in the morning. A couple times a year, for the past few years, I’ve put together some nicer looking zines. The layout is always simple, just some text or pictures dropped into a PDF file. At some point, I need to put something together that’s a little more official looking. Anyway, putting these together is fun and relatively easy, but they also cost some money. Until recently, I only got them printed in black and white, but now I’ve started to venture into printing in color. Color costs more, a lot more. When I get these printed, I ask folks for money. The money is just to cover the printing and the shipping. One of these projects (out of about ten) might have made money, but only a few dollars over. I look to break even, that’s it.

 

My meticulous records show who has paid and how much. Super awesome folks donate a little more and that is noted. Anyone that pays anything at all will automatically get the next one I print, or at least that’s the goal. In a way, folks are making donations to the overall project of printing zines and not the single item. It’s a long game. I thought of all this while trying to justify the costs of my 4x4 zine that no one wanted. I thought folks would want them…they did not. I printed 25 (the usual amount) but only six or seven paid. Oops!

 

Postage is too damn high!

 

There’s no more of a cliché in mail-art other than how much postage costs. People complained about the price of postage when I started almost twenty years ago. Yes, it was less but people wanted it lesser. I wanted it lesser. I miss that thing where sending to Canada and Mexico was cheaper than to other countries. Come on, they’re right down there and right up there. It really was a glorious time all that many years ago. Although I’m making light of the prices, I’m also annoyed at the prices. Recently I’ve had to take a week or two off from sending things because I spent too much the previous week. Sixty dollars, that was my amount. Sixty dollars is too much for moving paper around the world…too damn much! Don’t even get me started that stamps go up every single year. In ten years, these will be the good years and in twenty…the country will be dissolved so it won’t matter all that much.

 

That guy

Just when you think “that guy” has shuffled off forever, he pops up again. I’ve never understood his whole deal, other than he thinks direct confrontation is some sort of critique. This all popped off when one of the Midwest’s finest mail-artists and humans, was directly harassed for his Anti-Maga zine. That guy wrote in a Facebook post, “My call is not to hate Adam, nor to pour hatred towards him by your work: but to truly be ANTI-ADAM.” No real message. No critique. No insight. If that guy had called for his fellow right-wing followers to engage with an idea that Adam put forth, then it would have been a misguided, but acceptable response. What is “ANTI-ADAM?”

From what I can tell, there’s not a lot of support for that guy’s comments online. He got a few likes here and there, but no one seemed particularly outraged or even clear what he was trying to say. When Adam posted about the comments, a lot of folks shared their thoughts about that guy and his many aliases he cycles through. None of those comments were positive. One person wrote, “Oh. He's back! Best approach w him is ignore and block. Mental illness.” Another wrote, “He was one of the first to send me mail art. The envelope was a 2-sided letter that rambled on. He Asked me if i wanted to be pen pals. I did not. He also sent photos of nude women and plants. Yea....I hoped everyone wasn't like that. I still have all of it as a reminder.”

In the forty comments to Adam’s post, there wasn’t one dissenting voice of disapproval for Adam’s project. How about one more post, this one from the venerated snack master from New Hampshire, “Adam, I remember that it was Moan’s religious views that put me off many years ago. I think he’s still living in Liberty, Iowa, which is somewhat ironic in that I’ve always viewed him as a staunch Libertarian…. think “tea party.” He has had his share of trauma as a younger man … he and his wife lost their first child…an infant. I remember that he was a prolific poet and generous with his mail art. He has always been controversial, but then that’s not an uncommon attribute in the mail art world. I’m sorry to hear that he’s harassing you. Keep up with the great things you’re accomplishing.”

I don’t send to that guy.  I stopped sending him over a decade ago because of his erratic behavior. Seeing that others have had issues with him in the past validates my decision. While some mail-artists have no interest in judging, I do. Such behavior isn’t necessary. No one has to send mail to him, or anyone. Not that anyone has his address, since he never posts one other than a fake one in a former Soviet outpost. Anyway, it’s rare when you get a clear consensus in the mail-art community. When there’s no one in charge, no one to regulate participants behavior, there’s rarely judgement. It’s good to read that many in the community feel the same way about someone disseminating baseless vitriol.

Anyone under 40 doing mail-art?

I’m 45. I intentionally chose an age group younger than me.

Although I don’t have many direct conversations with mail-artists, the issue of a “new generation” pops up. Unfortunately, many of the folks that have contributed to mail-art are getting quite old. In my book of addresses, I often find myself writing a quick note when someone has died. My current book is only four or five years old, but this mark is plentiful. While there’s no way to know how old many mail-artists are actively sending things, I don’t really get the feeling that a new crop is coming up. Not just folks that send a few things and disappear, but folks that are generally devoted. Folks that send mail most weeks without prejudice and are engaged in all processes of documenting. Since I’ve been in this whole thing (around 2009), I can name only a handful of these new “stars.”

In some ways I don’t really care, there’s only so much I can do. I’m sure they’re a million different reasons that younger folks aren’t that interested. Maybe mail-art has moments and we’re just in between them. Maybe a new book or movie starring Timothy Chalemet will come out in the next few years, and then all the old school mail-artists will complain about the influx of interlopers. From the art world perspective, the only mail-artist has come and gone, everyone else is just an avant-garde crafter.

Positive affirmations but…someone else made that

I like it when people say nice things about the makings. While you’ll never know if someone spends more than five seconds looking at a collage or a broadside or some piece of writing, when some lets me know, I’m appreciative. I’m surprised even. I hear so little about the things I create that I don’t assume people really look at them. To me, it’s something I mail that ends up in a giant pile on someone’s desk, and unless I hear otherwise, that’s my image. I’m mostly fine with this. I’m not supreme-king-punk; I don’t have complete confidence in myself. I have maybe…83% confidence in myself, which is a lot if you don’t really give a shit. I don’t require constant affirmation, but when I get an acknowledgment that someone spent a little time with my work, it’s helpful. It’s gas in the tank. It almost justifies the amount I pay on postage every week. Not that you can easily guess why people like this or that, why they’re drawn to that image, or that passage in your writing. You make it, you send it, and maybe one thing out of twenty-five elicits some sort of interaction.

Of course, people can say nice things, incorrectly. I have one example of this.

Most of the time I mail out things, I do so in large manila envelopes. In those envelopes I have broadsides, short writings, ephemera, and a couple of handmade collages. I always think of the collages as the star of each large envelope. They’re unique to just one and are the things I work the hardest on. Nice comments are rarely directed at the collages. Sometimes people say things about the broadsides and maybe they isolate an image or phrase from the writings. Overwhelmingly people respond to the last thing in that group, the ephemera. Normally the ephemera are the things I drop in at the last minute. They’re items I’ve found elsewhere like pictures and strange pieces of paper. None of these pieces are things that I’ve had any hand in creating myself. Most of the time, when someone comments on one of these packages, they say something about the ephemera…the thing I didn’t create. It’s like they toss all the stuff that took time and effort and creatively on my part, pull out a funny picture and say, “Look at this!” I want to response, “Hey asshole, the other stuff! Look at that.”

I’ve noticed this happens every time I make stickers. People see stickers and know what a sicker does, what they’re supposed to do with it. It’s an item that just makes sense. There’s a context there that people don’t have with a broadside. What does one do with a broadside after you look at it? Do you put it on the fridge, do you make a paper airplane out of it, grocery list, no idea. Stickers stick. Got it.

I create homework

The great David Stafford in New Mexico sent me something to this effect. I do create homework, challenging and enlightening homework. If you retain the information, you will not only grow intellectually but also emotionally. Sometimes, after folks have completed my course, they’re eyesight has improved and they’re two inches taller.

Fun facts to end this long and meandering list of stellar insights and annoying grievances.

Almost all the making packages, no matter the size, are not made for a specific person.

Generally, I print 25 broadsides on a solid color the first time, and then weird paper for the second.

For writing I use WORD and for digital editing I use Paint.

I have scanned thousands of images from thrift store books for broadsides.

There’s a pile of pre-made postcards (collages, found pictures) just for non-mail-art people.

All printers are evil.

I’m currently working on a book about Lexington North Carolian that will be my Sgt. Peppers.

I normally write about music, mail-art, life, and movies, but I can’t figure out a thing to say about sports.

Red spray-paint takes forever to dry.

You know that thing where you can identify the paper source in someone else’s collage? Yeah, I love that.

Black paper leaves horrible dust everywhere after you put sandpaper to it.

Collages aren’t done unless there’s a face somewhere in it.

I can’t draw, but I feel like I need to make the effort.

Art people that wear “art clothes” always make me laugh.

It’s all a punk rock; a dada punk rock filtered through a mail-art distribution ethos.

I like it when the rock and roll people respond to me. I’ve gotten things from Ian MacKaye, Kris Novoselic, and Lisa Loeb.

For months I’ve meant to offer my image making services to random free jazz musicians, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

Green looks bad in a collage.

I often use images of myself in things because I don’t want to directly make fun of anyone else, or at least not people that don’t deserve it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Tour of Staunton Virginia With Diana Hale

In early June, Misty, Miles, and I went on out first family road trip. It was a relatively short affair, about ten days long. If it were up to me, I would have pushed for at least two weeks, but we weren’t sure how Miles was going to react on long car rides. It wasn’t so much of an if he likes it or not situation, it was more of dipping your toes into the water of inevitability. He’s going to enjoy road trips. I like putting them together and I like driving very long distances. Misty likes riding and Miles is strapped into a chair and cannot move…for his safety, of course.

The trip was to take us from Winston-Salem North Carolina and up to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. Along the way we’d make stops in D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Only one long drive was planned, and that was the first day of driving. 

First few hours of our road trip.

 

The first official stop was to see the great mail-artist Diana Hale in Staunton Virginia. I have sent mail-art to Diana for years and got to know her a little bit through ZMAG (an online group of mail-artists) meeting on Zoom. We’ve done a few projects together and it’s always a pleasure to see her work in the mail. Not only was it exciting to meet up with Diana, but I was extra excited to see her “space” in downtown Staunton, just in the shadow of an old courthouse. It’s a location that she’s been renovating for some time. She creates from there, and she exhibits the work of others, and has mail-art centered public shows.  When we visited, she was still showing work from “Stamp Out Ice.” In that show, she had artists contribute work, many of which were artist stamps sheets, concerning the influx of Ice agents on American streets. Even some of my silliness was there in the form of Vanilla Ice themed stickers, that Diana had graciously turned into stamps sheets. 

 

List of Stamp Out Ice participants. 

Diana Hale showing us parts of the show. 

Come see the archive!

It’s rare when I got to meet a mail-artist. Usually, I go to them because no one’s coming to the fifth largest town in North Carolina. I have met a few folks, some in the U.S., and some out of the country, but that doesn’t happen all that often. At some point I need to go to one of these big gatherings. It’s nice to be around someone that knows postage rates and the problems everyone has with that one mail-artist…you know that one. It’s dorky, painfully specific fun.

Diana had us park right in downtown Stanton; a city located in the Shenandoah Valley. I especially liked the fact that she directed us towards free parking, those little details are what make for a good host. I appreciated that. After our hellos, we made it over to space. Walkin there, it felt like we had dropped into the late 19^th century. I imagined gas lamps and men in top hats wondering the streets near the towering courthouse. I could imagine a dastardly crime committed in one of the adjoining buildings. Right as the coppers were about to pounce, the cloaked character ducked down an alley and into a dark entry way.

Inside 7 Lawyers Row, I’m not sure there’s an official name, Diana graciously led us around. We looked at the stamps on the walls, and the items on the circular table in front of us. Many of the items were left over from an earlier protest that coincided with the Stamp Out Ice show. In the middle room, we looked at the artifacts she had hung on the wall, an impressive display of mail memorabilia. For a few seconds, Diana and I named the artists solely from their unique personal style. She had books too, a small library of anything related to mail-art, mail, or adjacent subjects. I imagine she’s still accepting donations for the collection. The backroom is a place where she creates work when the space (I hate I keep using this word) is open for visitors on the weekend. He work tools are in that room.  The jewel in her bonnet is a stamp perforator. People who make artist stamps covet these hard-to-find items built around the time gas lamps would have been used on the streets just outside the door. They know the years and the history behind them, who made them, and where they came from. To own one is to announce you’re “the real deal.” Although I liked the main event, I like to see how people work even more. I’m always interested when you get to see how artists create their work and where they create it. Positioned around the room was work she was currently developing, some of which I could make sense of from social media posts and Zoom meetings. Seeing these sorts of things, make a person that you’ve only known through their work a lot more real. 

Miles and the perforator. 

 

After the tour, we went over a few blocks to get lunch. Diana pointed out a few of the more unique elements of Staunton’s architecture as we went. We especially focused on the new “social areas” in the street. These areas are little places where people can sit on wooden benches on top of indoor grass and relax. They took up space where cars could have parked. While waiting on a seat for a burger joint, Miles took advantage of these recently installed areas by rolling around in the grass, which felt like was playing in the middle of the street. It was slightly nerve racking. He tried out both areas in front of the restaurant.

The four of us finished up lunch and strolled back towards are car, looking at a large group of tourists who seemed to be on some sort of official tour. They were looking too long into buildings for it not to be...something. We filed past them as they twenty or thirty of them started to stream into Diana’s building. Misty and I thanked Diana for the tour and the wonderful afternoon. It was on to the next stop. You must move quickly if you’re going to The Luray Caverns, don’t you know.

Thanks Diana.

If you’re in or around Staunton VA or just want to send Diana Hale some mail-art, you can find her at 7 Lawyer’s Row Staunton Virginia 24401. 

 

Let Me Take You To Your Grave Nice Picture

 

I wrote the following while engaged in a summer marathon of rock and roll-based movies. While writing, I was watching a lot of movies about people making their music, their mythologies, and their typical cliched skirmishes. I adore these rock and roll clichés, but I cannot get away from the differences between the world of musicians and that of people that “make stuff.” Anyway, wrote an essay about, here it goes.

This is an essay about practice leading to final creation.

This is my second draft of this report.

Whenever I practice making things, I end up with a thing when I’m done. This might seem obvious, but it’s something that needs to be stated. That thing is right in front of you. It takes up space in your room. You have to find places to put them. You might cut them up in anger or you might set them on fire. If you’re an idiot, you might even try to sell them. The biggest problem with all of this is that they’re not all winners. So much of what you make, while you’re making it, is just shit. Once in a while you’ll pull something nice out of a pile of failure, but that’s not always the case. 10% at best. No matter, it’s there. You have to do something about it. You’ve created a thing that exists in the world for better or worse.

Musicians can practice and it all simply goes into the air and then disappears. There’s no body to dispose of. A day’s failure is just gone. A day’s success needs to be reproduced.

I am writing this to address the difference between musicians and makers. I say makers because artists seems pretentious, it’s actually hard for me to say it. Artists use paint, right? Sorry, an old association, artists stack dirty dishes in the corner of whitewashed rooms while trying to pay down hundreds of thousands of dollars to RISD, right? I’m not a crafter, that’s the worst. A crafter makes things that are clearly beautiful or well-defined, something to go onto a wall or to tie a room together, something that could be useful. On the rare times I see my things on peoples walls, I wonder why they have them up there. A few people have printed 16x20 images of my face on their walls, and I can’t understand how they’re able to look at that for months, or even years on end. I just call them “makings.” I like to use that word because it seems vague, but also a fun way to play with the language. The “makings” consist of collages, assemblage pieces, and weirdo digital / analog amalgamations called broadsides. They have little meaning except to exist.

I know a lot of musicians personally, almost all my close friends play music to varying degrees. Some have properly trained, some have toured, many have made records, but most still collect fancy guitar pedals for discussion at mixed company parties. Although I have a lot of musician friends, I don’t really know anyone that makes things. Not having that connection creates some communication issues, especially when I try and make things for musician friends.

It’s something I’m used to. Being that they make my favorite drug, this isn’t much of a problem for me. For these musician friends, I have carried their heavy equipment into the club. I have tried to lift heavy bass cabinets by myself. I have hauled drum hardware up thin stairs. I have sold merch, something I hate more than carrying gear. One summer, I even drove a band on tour for a month. For that whole time, I was paid $125.00 dollars. The RV I drove didn’t have air conditioning and I mostly slept on the floor after driving to the next venue in the middle of the night, alone. That was fun, no complaints there. I have stood and watched friends bands that I didn’t like very much, telling them they had a great show even if I was thinking of something else while they announced from the stage, “Thanks for coming out.” Best of all, you get to pay 5-10 dollars at the door for that support. It’s not all woe being a friend of dudes (almost always dudes) in a band. Periodically I’ll get drink tickets that go unused. Once that led me to playing drums outside a New Jersey venue on the sidewalk. Some dude kissed me that night. Maybe I got in free.

No one has ever asked if they could come over and help cut paper, or collect paper, or put addresses on envelopes…no one. I practice upstairs while listening to podcasts in a long thin attic that gets way too hot in summer.

There’s a public culture that goes along with playing music, one that I’ve been able to engage with for decades. I’ve enjoyed doing all those little things that help make like easier on a band. Like an idiot, I even volunteered (more liked forced) my services as “executive producer” for a band over the past couple of years. I chose that title for myself because it seems rather meaningless. Manly what my job title has entailed is designing T-shirts and flyers and doing a little light clerical work. I’ve even taken on trying to design record covers, not that anyone has really asked. I just make the thing and then text it to them. Sometimes they respond and other times they do not. Right now, I have dozens of collages made of them but I’m not sure what to do with them. Not that musicians, or anyone for that matter, know what they want when you design things for them, especially when they haven’t asked for them. People only know what they don’t want, not what they do want. Keep in mind they’re musicians, not always the smartest people on earth. Count to four. Tune the guitar. Go to a party and talk about guitar pedals for hours on end, that’s the sort of things they know how to do. They never seem to know if a collage is “too linear.”

When I text them things they don’t know I’m practicing. If they don’t like something, I’ll just make another thing. If that thing sucks, it doesn’t matter other than having a body left to deal with, a thing sitting on my desk or in a giant pile of things. No one said stop either, I just keep going, I need the practice. Maybe I’ll make the bodies? Maybe I’ll cut them up? Maybe I’ll add them to an assemblage piece.

Every couple of weeks I’ll print some new images of them and move them around in a collage. Sometimes I’ll play with the image digitally. My favorite thing I made from one of these sessions is an image that appears in my summer report zine. I think it looks amazing, but I have no idea if they like it or not. Who knows if anyone said anything about the image when I send it to then. Either way, it exists and that’s the most important thing. I’ll find a grave for it later.