Working Permit: A Canadian Travel Diary (April 19-23, 2001) by John Held, Jr. The Fake Picabia Bros. got to the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, at 9:00 Friday morning, having risen at 4:30 in Chicago. It was our luck to get a female customs inspector. We don't have a very good history with them. "Where are you from?" "San Francisco and Chicago." "Why are you going to Canada," she asked. "We're giving a talk at the Art Gallery of Hamilton," we answered. "Do you get paid for that." "Well, we get our travel expenses." She pondered for an instant. "Why would you do that?" "Good question." But not a good enough answer. In we go to be examined more carefully by a higher-up to see if we need a work permit to enter Canada. After additional questions and some show-and-tell of the exhibition invitation and program, we are allowed to resume our journey. Very Fake Picabia. An hour later, we pass by London, Ontario, the former residence of the late Mail Artist Michael Bidner, who coined the term artistamp. He would be pleased to see the status the medium has risen to in the years since his death. The previous day, Picasso and I had a free day in Chicago and we went to the Chicago Art Institute School of Art Library to see The Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, which houses the Dorothy Patrick Harris Mail Art Collection. Donated in the mid-1990's, by the Chicago Mail Artist when she re-located to Atlanta, the Collection contains a sizable number of artistamp sheets. Gaglione intends to make future donations to them. Last summer we sent twenty boxes from his collection to the Alternative Traditions in Contemporary Art Archive at the University of Iowa. But now with Stephen Perkins and Estra Millman having both left the University, Picasso decides to concentrate of making materials available closer at hand. Unfortunately, we didn't meet librarian Doro Boehme, who was responsible for acquiring the Harris Collection, but we have no doubt that she will be amenable to donations, especially since the Artists' Book collection will soon be moving into expanded quarters. After our visit to the School of Art Library, we meet up with John Rininger, an exceptional artistamp producer, who takes us to Quimby's Bookstore on W. North Avenue. Just as we enter, our eye spies the new book, The Stamp Art & Postal History of Michael Thompson & Michael Hernandez de Luna. This book is a revelation, not only for the incredible reproductions of the artistamps produced by the dynamic Chicago duo, but for the essays that are included in the book. I was especially impressed with Michael Hernandez de Luna's acknowledgment of Yves Klein, whose Blue Stamp was sent through the French postal system in 1958 (see The Stamp Art Gallery essay, The Formidable Blue Stamp of Yves Klein, published in 1996, which can be found on my web site, www.geocities.com/johnheldjr, under Writings I). Jas. Felter contributes an essay, Artistamps and the Postal System, which provides an excellent background to the work of "the two Michaels," accompanied by excellent reproductions of works by Karl Schwesig, William Farley, Michael Hossz�, Vincent Trasov and Dogfish. My favorite contribution, however, is by Simon Anderson, a professor at the Art Institute School of Art, who was a practicing Mail Artist, while living in England during the seventies. His writings on Fluxus are landmarks in the field, giving the book In the Spirit of Fluxus, a distanced cultural perspective, which previous writings on the field by Fluxus artists themselves lacked. In his essay, Pushing the Envelope: Mail Art and the Michaels, Anderson does the same for Mail Art-lending an observant eye to the field, which no practitioner, myself included, has heretofore been able to cast. With this spurring us forward, Gaglione and I proceed on to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, to speak at the Community Mail Art Exhibition, organized by Lew and Lori Tauber. Although new to the field of Mail Art, the Taubers are enthusiastic and committed. Lew is a clinical psychologist, who also writes for The American Philatelist, and other philatelic magazines. His specialty is on the artist postage stamps of the Austrian artist, Hundertwasser, and this weekend marks the publication release of his book, Hundertwasser on Stamps, which he has been working on for ten years. The Taubers have put together a jam-packed program on Saturday, April 21, which features remarks by the Mayor of Hamilton, and the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Community Outreach Coordinator, Tor Lukasic-Foss has installed the Mail Art/Artistamp exhibition in cases and frames, giving the exhibition a nice crisp look, which dignifies the contributions from twenty-two different countries. The major contribution of The Fake Picabia Bros. to the weekend is a performance, "Artistamp Action for Yves Klein," which we hope, brings the Mail Art experience to life for the audience new to the artform. Donning shoes, to which we attach rubber stamps, we ink them up on oversized stamp pads, doused with blue ink. We then step on the printed artistamp sheets ("Artistamp Action for Yves Klein/Hamilton Gallery of Art,/Hamilton, Ontario, Canada/April 21, 2001"), which we have laid out behind a kitchen enclosure, which affords us a flat surface for the stamping. To our delight, the performance goes well, and we are praised by those who witness the event, including Mail Artist Deborah Day, photographer Vytas Benusis, Rachel and Rose Kraemer, and our hostess Barbara Echenberg. We relax with a reception afterwards, and later, dinner at the Taubers. Sunday, we are back on the road, fighting the weather and traffic during our eight hour drive back to Chicago. It has been a fast paced weekend, with lots of travel. But making new friends, and seeing old Mail Art compatriots on display in Hamilton has made the trip worthwhile. "Why would you do that?," the customs official had asked. Because this is what we do. We live and breath Mail Art, and prepare the way for others to enjoy the ride. |