Three Sheets to the Wind

 

I had a great mail-art idea.

Lately, at least for a couple years, I’ve really leaned into sending large manilla envelopes. As a rule (we all need rules, right) I like to drop in a couple handmade collages, five or six broadsides, a 4x4, and a bit of ephemera. To send these in the United States, no way could I afford to send them out of the country, it costs me almost $2.40. To make the best use of my time, I like to send out ten or so at a time. I’ve done this about every other week. In between mailing these, I send items to specific people and things to friends and family. Taking a guess, I’d say that I mail out stuff 46/52 weeks. It’s a bit of a hectic schedule I’ve created for myself but it slowly, expensively, gets rid of the clutter.

To combat the amount of stuff, and the monotony of addressing envelopes and going to the post office each week, I came up with a plan. I’d focus on sending out things in regular sized envelopes for a while. I’d put three sheets of paper in the envelope. That’s six sides for my creations. Considering the cut in cost, I didn’t have to worry about who I sent to as much. I could send out of the country without worry. It seemed like a great plan

What I ended up doing was simple, I’d work on things when I finished grading. I did this at work. Everything had a digital component to them, that way I could do them sitting at my computer without anyone asking questions. An hour here and there adds up. I’d then then print them out in editions of 30. No idea why I decided on that number. It was like a mini zine. What I included was the usual fair, minus the analogue collages. It was mainly broadsides and short writings. I worked about two weeks ahead on these, so when I printed out one thing, I already had another printed and dropped into decorated envelopes. I did this about eight times, mailing one pile out a week, every week for two months.

This was a bad idea.

Doing short runs of things meant I was spending more time putting addresses on envelopes. Of most of my mail-art related clerical work, I hate doing this. My handwriting sucks and we have computers now, so there’s no reason to handwrite anything. All day I type and I’m good and fast with that; I do it for fun even. Look at this thing, I typed it. I never handwrite things. It hurts! Also, I get bored doing it. With the short runs that were meant to save time and money, I was doing three times the amount of handwriting. Even worse, it wasn’t saving me any money. I bought three times the amount of stamps.

I got a theory for this. It’s like the mini candy bars. No one wants to quickly eat a large candy bar; that’s something psychopaths do. Anyone, however, will take down twice that amount if you have those mini ones around the house. Toss in a few of the snack size, and you’re eating just as much candy, but somehow not feeling as guilty. I was sending as much postage but in smaller amounts, more often. My postage unit price was all out of whack, and I was doing more work to send it.

So, it looks like I’m back sending the big envelopes. Big envelopes mean larger collages, which means more scanning. More scanning I have to do upstairs which means less time making collages upstairs. I need a scanner in my office. 

 

Innenundo And Out The Other

 

 

 

Above is me playing with getting some old pictures of myself from Jacob Myrick. I sent this out in an edition of 20. I’ll send out those 20 and then never send them out again, probably not. For a little bit, I’m going to try out this pattern. Maybe six pages of something, from and back three pieces of paper, and then “off you go.” Doing this is akin to bands putting out single songs over whole records. Not sure what to put in the big envelopes once the collages start to mount? I’m not sure this is even an idea, but here’s an example of what I was thinking about.

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.