| We Absorb: The Complete Stampworks of M. B. Corbett by John Held, Jr. Andy Warhol was a Machine. Ray Johnson is a University. I will be a Sponge. Tensetendoned We Absorb. Michael Bruce Corbett belongs to a new breed of networking artist fully aware of all the major currents that have shaped a dynamic and expanding Eternal Network of international postal activity. Although the network is inclusive and ever expanding, it draws much of its energy from within. Corbett's rubber stamp activities draw from an extensive historical knowledge of mail art, protagonists within the field, and the currents that have shaped it. As Ray Johnson, the father of the mail art phenomena, related in a 1977 interview, "The Correspondance School had its beginnings in the 1940s, and it was a self-conscious activity in the 50s, and very self-conscious in the 60s..."1 By the time of the conversation, mail art was an open secret. With the publication of Crane and Stofflet's Correspondence Art in 1984, the history of mail art was there for the taking, if one was so inclined. M. B. Corbett became not only an active player in international mail art circles, but a student of its culture. His rubber stamps reflect an intimate knowledge with twentieth century art movements as Dada, Surrealism, Futurism, Constructivism, Nouveau Realism, Gutai, and Fluxus, which encouraged the growth and direction of the medium. His charts with participants from these movements are homages to previous artists who paved the way toward the current situation in international networking art. This is not surprising given Corbett's educational background. He received an undergraduate degree in Ceramics from the Maryland Institute College of Art, in Baltimore in 1985. Unsatisfied after a brief period of study at Cranbrook Academy in Bloomington Hills, Michigan, he received his MFA in Art from Pennsylvania State University in 1988. His studies were centered around glass and ceramic sculpture, but he was also schooled in painting, printmaking, copy art, and performance. After graduation, however, Corbett underwent a crisis of faith, realizing that his education prepared him for the life of a college art professor or a professional artist. He no longer had access to expensive studio equipment or possesed the desire to earn his living from art, and took a job outside the field. Corbett first heard about mail art while an undergraduate. Rev. Paul Summers, an active mail artist from Baltimore, introduced the medium as an organized worldwide activity that had been in existence for many years. Corbett had been corresponding with friends from high school for many years, and he realized that he had been engaged in mail art, so this new information had a certain affinity to his life. But at the time it made no lasting impression. Some years later, however, Corbett picked up a copy of Factsheet Five, then edited by Mike Gunderloy. Among the listings he found out about a mail art project, which concerned a photo exchange. Participating in the project and receiving the promised documentation astounded him that a stranger would respond in this fashion, but again, it proved a passing interest. It was not until he lost his job in Baltimore as a result of management bankruptcy, and moved back to his parents rural home in Pennsylvania in 1990, that Corbett began his involvement in mail art. He found an issue of the rubber stamp magazine, National Stampagraphic, and renewed his interest in rubber stamps, which he had played with as a child. He was also using rubber stamps in connection with his ceramic sculpture and tiles during his undergraduate study. In graduate school Corbett had a printmaking professor, who was especially attracted to the visual possabilities of the rubber stamp. He began writing to other rubber stamp enthusiasts contacted through National Stampagraphic and Rubberstampmadness, but didn't get the response he anticipated, finding much of the work "too cute." But then in mid-1992, he read an article in National Stampagraphic about the Networker Congress. He wrote away for the Congress Statements Book that was suggested for further reading. At the same time, he received a Brain Cell from Japanese mail artist Ryosuke Cohen, and the assembling magazine Mani Art from Pascal Lenoir of France. Finally his past exposure to the medium, and his interest in rubber stamps prepared him for this previously unknown level of understanding and everything clicked. Corbett finally found what he was looking for. Within a month, he began work on his own assembling project, Tensetendoned, a word appearing to him some ten years previous as he was typing poetry. Although it has no exact meaning, the word signified to Corbett an involuntary physical reaction when the body encounters an unfamiliar situation. The muscles become tight, as when one stands at the edge of a cliff, or approaches orgasm. It's a feeling of having no control over the intellect at the expense of the physical. Corbett's work, however reflects an opposite sensation. His work tends to be very deliberate. By December 1992, the first issue of Tensetendoned was distributed. Some four years later (May 1996), the thirtieth issue is slated to appear. The organization, production, and distribution of the assembling magazine, provides a framework to Corbett's networking experiences. He thrives on the repetition and compulsive administration it requires. We Absorb became another motto. "I chose 'We Absorb' consciously and for its exact meanings. To become absorbed, as in a hobby. To absorb work and wring it out again like a sponge. To absorb the costs and the burden of a project. The original source was an episode of the old Star Trek with a stiff hooded figures saying, 'You will be absorbed' in robotic voices. On another level, We Absorb signified his interest in learning about the history of the network in which he had become an active participant. From his study of mail art roots, Corbett found a niche from which he could observe and participate in the progress of contemporary art. From this he derived a sense of self-esteem and a feeling of continuation with the movements he studied. Corbett came to the visual arts through the literature of existentialism and surrealism, so it is no surprise that his visual art activities encompass the intellectual stimulation these movements provide. He is, for instance, fascinated that the Futurist concerns of speed and the machine have continued relevance to contemporary thought on the place of the computer in society. The computer plays an important role in Corbett's rubber stamp work. Many of his designs are created in this manner. Since he became involved in mail art, Corbett has collaborated with three other network artists in the design of his stamps. The first was Timothy Burgin, also known as afungusboy, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia. When Burgin left the network to pursue a career in mainstream art, Corbett teamed up with Sue Hughes of Pittsburgh, who did many of the circular stamps (New Flesh on Old Bones). His last collaborator has been Rusty Clark of West Springfield, Massachusetts, who has worked with him on textual stamps. "The computer is used only to do text and then to my specific instructions. I like clean type. The final designs are done by old fashioned hand paste-up." Once the stamps are designed, they are gathered on 7 1/2" x 11" sheets and sent off to be made into photo-polymer stamps. There are several companies that provide this fairly inexpensive service. Many of them advertise in the pages of Rubberstampmadness magazine and charge from $30 to $40 per sheet. Since Corbett can arrange up to fifty designs on a page, his price per unit is minimal. Corbett first sent these designs to a company in Phoenix from 1993 to 1994. The mail-order company specialized in poured photo-polymer, which sometimes caused bubbles to appear in the final product. From 1994 to the present, Corbett has used a Little Rock, Arkansas, company that uses a rigid photo-polymer method, which provides better reproduction values. Once these polymer sheets are returned to Corbett, the images are trimmed to size, mounted on a rubber cushions, and affixed to balsa wood. Balsa is used because it is easy to work with hand tools, easy to store, and the soft flexible wood provides a cushion for the pressure of the impression. The stamps are indexed, and stored in shoe and cigar boxes. Besides his interest and use of previous art movements as the subject of his stamp designs, much of his work reflects his association with Ray Johnson. Having read about him in Crane and Stofflet's Correspondence Art, and finding his address on a mailing list, Corbett wrote to him, and was very pleased when he responded. In a forthcoming interview for a project by Dutch mail artist Ruud Janssen2 , Corbett writes about his correspondence with the late artist. "Our postal exchanges grew in complexity and frequency as time passed. Some weeks I mailed to Ray on a daily basis and vice versa. He sent books, articles, newspaper clippings, posters, drawings, collages, letters, photocopies, sculptures, photographs, love and nothings. Recurring, layered themes wove throughout. Many still leave me puzzled." "Some mailings contained things to be sent to a third party. I passed along items to a number of people, including Geoff Hendricks, Robert Warner, Bill Wilson, John Evans, and Roy Lichtenstein. There are certain gifts from Ray I hold especially dear, such as a large seed pod from a Kentucky coffee bean tree, a T-shirt from Baja California, a box covered with postage stamps by Geoff Hendricks, two of his exhibition catalogues, and a box of perfumed carrots tipped with balloons." Soon the relationship escalated. "Ray began telephoning me in early 1994. We first spoke the day before I left on a long car trip to Seattle and San Francisco, the Tensetendoned Pacific Rim Expedition. I remember the conversation well because I was so shocked Ray had called. Among other things, he told me he was 'actually quite charming,' despite his reputation to the contrary. Indeed, he often was just that." The telephone conversations and correspondence with Johnson continued until shortly before the New York Correspondance School guru's death on January 13, 1995. The relationship had a profound effect on Corbett. It spurred him to document the relationship, and many of his Ray Johnson images are taken directly from letters received from the enigmatic artist. Surprisingly, although Corbett often used the rubber stamps on his mailings to Johnson, they were never commented on, with one singular exception - a Buddha image. Corbett's interaction with other networking artists has stimulated him to appropriate their images into his work. The Appropriations series is a record of his partnership with these artists. The value he places on these relationships are thus preserved and circulated to others. They are traces of an ongoing process of interaction and creativity. "Appropriations also included those stamps I lifted unaltered from other, non art contexts. I appropriate them, but I claim them in their new context. Others are fakes, forgeries, or pastiches." This interaction with fellow participants in the Eternal Network is also documented in his series of of take-offs on the Mail Art Bull (first conceived by the late Italian artist Carlo Battisti as an homage to Guglielmo Achille Cavellini), which used the diagram of different cuts of meat on cattle to honor leading artists. The American mail artist Rocola then made a rubber stamp of the Mail Art Bull to gather his most active correspondents. This way of expressing a cabal of comradery has had many spin-offs in mail art, but Corbett has raised it to a new level with the diversity and complexity of his designs. There is a strong undercurrent of spirituality running throughout Corbett's work. This dates to his creative work before joining the mail art network. As a ceramic artist, he was influenced by a tradition of Western Esoteric thought, epitomized by the alchemists, who sought to change themselves, as well as the elemental forces of nature they worked with. So too, Corbett has been shaped by his involvement in the network, as he has contributed to it. Corbett writes that, "Conversations with others who knew (Ray Johnson) lead me to believe Ray embodied as many meanings as the number of people he affected... In this way, he was a mirror. He reflected you. Indeed, the house that Ray built was a house of mirrors, a labyrinth..." So too, the stampworks of M. B. Corbett, are a reflection of his interests, aspirations, and growth as an active participant in the Eternal Network. His appropriations are homages to historical figures and correspondents that resonate within him, revealing aspects of his own personality and intellectual evolution. Back to Writings |