WestCoastArtistampDiary95

Art from the Rim:
The New York Correspondance School
of San Francisco Artistamp Travel Diary

by John Held, Jr.

Wednesday, May 31, 1995: Dallas-Portland-Salem.

Take the city bus from McMillan Avenue to the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. At $1 it's the best travel bargain in town. I've taken ten of the Mail Art Bibliographies with me, workshop supplies, and a tuxedo for the Fake Picabia Brothers performance, so my bags are really heavy. Arrive at the airport at 9:30AM and take the 10:55AM fight to Portland, Oregon.

I've come to Oregon to open the Faux Post: International Artist Postage Stamp Exhibition at the Bush Barn Art Center in Salem. Why there? Because my brother Peter was the curator at the Art Center and this was an attempt to get the Salem Art Association to sponsor a visit between my brother's family and myself. Little did we know in 1994, when we initiated the project, that he would be leaving to take another similar position in Helena, Montana.

All in all, it's worked out well. Before his departure, Peter got the Visual Arts Resources travelling exhibition service in Eugene, Oregon, to pick up the show. Then, when situated in Montana, Peter arranged for six art centers in the state to pick the show up. With this built-in support, Visual Arts Resources became very supportive in all aspects of the show, from framing the work, producing wall texts and labels, to publishing a brochure to publicize the show. Peter and his daughter Sarah are coming in for the show.

I arrive in Portland at 1:00PM, after witnessing one of the most spectacular aerial displays I've ever seen. As the plane approaches Portland, we pass Mt. Hood, which is almost parallel to our flight path. The base covered in fog, the snow-capped mountain seems to float. It's one of the most spectacular geographical marvels I've ever witnessed.

I'm picked up at the airport by an old friend from Upstate New York, who is currently the head of collection development and rare books at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Cliff Mead is an old book hunting buddy, so our first stop is at Powell Books, a famous Portland haunt. I control my book purchasing inclinations, but see plenty of worthy trophies.

We reach the Bush Barn Art Center at 5:00PM and I meet David Brown, the Director of the Art Center, and Saralyn Huldy, the curator, who has been my contact person there. After a quick view of the installation in progress, I'm driven to the house of a person who has volunteered her services to the Art Association in hosting visiting artists. Ada has a lovely sprawling house, which sits on a ridge overlooking a valley and rows of mountains beyond. We sit on the porch and watch the sunset, while dining on pasta and fresh salmon. It's breathtaking, relaxing, and filling.

After dinner I take out my rubber stamps and a sheet of perforated paper and make a sheet of hand-stamped artist stamps for Ada. She enjoys watching the work progress. Soon after I turn in for the evening.

Thursday, June 1, 1995: Salem, Oregon

Wake up at 7:00AM and have breakfast on the porch with Ada. It's a wonderful, restful place with an uncompromising view.

At 8:00AM, I'm picked up by Saralyn Huldy and we drive over to the Art Center. I immediately start installing a show of one-hundred hand colored xerox stampsheets of mine that will be shown the first floor Focus Gallery. The Faux Post show is in a more spacious upstairs venue. The stampsheets were shown earlier in the year at Adirondack Community College in New York, where I had a four-person show with Crackerjack Kid, Arturo Fallico, and Willie Marlowe. Meanwhile Saralyn is installing the Faux Post show. There are eighty-five works individually framed by seventy-two artists.

Work for Faux Post has come from my personal archive, recent contributions by mail artists as a result on an invitation printed and mailed by the Salem Art Center, and loans from the estates of Robert Watts and Donald Evans. The show highlights historic examples, different production techniques (computer, offset, rubber stamps, photocopy, stickers and even electrical tape), and various themes ( mail art about mail art, political and social concerns, personal worlds).

There were two-hundred and seventy contributions received as a result of the mailing by the Art Center, all of which were displayed at Modern Realism, my Dallas gallery, in February. All contributors will receive documentation of the Oregon show (postcard, brochure, checklist and contributors list) as a result of their participation.

I finish installing my work in the Focus Gallery by noon. Dena Brown, the director of Visual Arts Resources had arrived from Eugene with wall texts and labels for the show, and after giving them to Saralyn we go to lunch.

After lunch I videotape an interview with Saralyn about the show. We add a segment of me discussing some individual works in the exhibition. The tape will be used to train docents in various venues. After the interview I do some xeroxing and prepare packets for the workshop to be held that evening. Peter arrives with his daughter Sarah. Sarah goes off to stay with some friends.

Dena, Peter, and I go for Thai food, and arrive back at the Art Center at 6:00PM to get ready for the 7:00PM workshop.

About forty people have signed up for the workshop, most from out of town. I have brought some perforated gummed papers, and the Art Center supplies envelopes, paper and stamp pads. The good folks from Rubberstampmadness in Corvallis have brought tons of rubber stamps. Roberta Sperling, the editor of Rubberstampmadness, has come. I saw her last at the Artist Talk on Art mail art panel in 1984 in New York City. We talk about my recent trip to Paris for the Mus�e de la Poste rubber stamp show, and I encourage her to attend it.

Also at the workshop in Alyce Cornyn-Selby, who has just installed the world's largest postage stamp on a billboard in Portland.

I start off the workshop by doing a letter opening event. I've bought nine pieces of unopened mail that was delivered to me in Dallas on Tuesday. In the course of the event, I relate some mail art history, some techniques, some anecdotes of the Mail Art experience.

The workshop participants then begin working on the perforated papers, the envelopes, and enclosures. It's a very enthusiastic crowd, and even Roberta Sperling is stamping away like crazy. I ask her if she doesn't tire of this in the course of her job, and she answers that she hardly ever gets to rubber stamp being busy with her editorial duties. The workshop breaks up about 9:30PM.

Peter and I stay the evening with a friend of his, who is on the Board of the Art Center. She has recently been given a Governor's Award in the Arts for her many years of cultural activism. Turn in around 10:30PM.

Friday, June 2, 1995: Salem

Eat breakfast and then go to the Art Center at 10:00AM. I'm interviewed by Ron Cowen for the Oregon Statesman for a forthcoming article on the show. A photographer puts me through the paces as well.

Back to the house where I finish reading Making Modernism, which traces the business acumen of Picasso and his dealers in establishing a market for Modern Art. In addition to being a good read, the book has much to impart on the ways in which new art is assimilated by the mainstream.

The Faux Post exhibition opens at 6:00PM, and I give a gallery talk at 7:00PM, at which time I thank Peter, Saralyn, and Dena for their respective help in organizing the show, and lay out some of the criteria for the selection of work.

On hand are Anna Banana, James Felter, and Ed Varney, who have come from Vancouver, and Bugpost, who has come down from Seattle. This is my first meeting with Felter, a pioneer in the field, who organized the first exhibition of artist postage stamps at the Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada, in 1974. Felter has brought along the latest edition of his International Directory of Artistamp Creators, which I obtain by trading a copy of the Annotated Bibliography.

Bugpost has brought a copy of his Standard Artist Stamp Catalogue, which describes various artist postage stamps in detail as to perforation size, number of stamps on the sheet, color, etc. It's a huge undertaking, which updates the work first attempted by Michael Bidner, another pioneering Canadian artistamp historian.

Anna Banana, the editor of the Artistamp News, has come resplendent in a necklace of dollar signs. She has recently placed a portion of her mail art collection with the National Postal Museum of Canada. Although Anna and I have had our ups and downs with one another over the years, we have grown closer since our meeting in Qu�bec last year, and her attendance at the exhibition opening is very much appreciated.

Ed Varney and I were roommates at the artistamp exhibition at Oberlin College organized by Harley in 1987. This was one of the first major gatherings of artist postage stamp artists, and it forged many friendships. None the least of which is the relationship that Ed and I have forged.

After the show opening, we go for a party at the house of David and Sloy, two Salem artists and friends of Peter. David is a painter, and the walls and ceilings of the house have become his canvas. Sloy is a writer, who also does visual poetry and is into the zine scene. There's about twenty people at the party. Anna, Ed, and Jim are there and we get to talk before their drive back to stay in Portland with Alyce Cornyn-Selby. Leave at 1:00AM.

Saturday, June 3, 1995: Salem-Portland-San Francisco

Peter drives me to the Portland airport where I catch a 9:30AM plane. Arrive in San Francisco at about 10:30 and take a shuttle van directly to the Stamp Art Gallery. Picasso Gaglione is there and making preparations for our performance at 1:00PM.

This is a reunion for Picasso and I, as we traveled together in France, Belgium, and Holland less than a month ago. We performed together at the opening of the Mus�e de la Poste exhibition of rubber stamps, L'Art Du Tampon. First thing off the bat, Gaglione shows me the Fake Picabia Brothers Travel Diary that he has made of the trip. I sent him the text, and he has put together a great book including photographs and the rubber stamp impressions Gaglione made from the places and persons we visited: the National Postal Museum, Daniel Daligand in Paris, Guy Bleus in Wellen, Rod Summers in Maastricht, and Ruud Janssen in Tilburg. On the cover of the publication is one of our souvenir rubber stamps made for the Paris performance.

Darlene Domel, Picasso's wife is there. She shows me the new Stamp Francisco rubber stamp catalog, which includes an introduction she has written including mention of our Mus�e de la Poste adventure. If Gaglione provides the artistic direction for the rubber stamp company, it is surely Darlene that fuels the business acumen of the enterprise. It is she who allows Gaglione the freedom to pursue a creative course combining artistic talent and energy with a supportive financial base unmatched in the Network.

My long time correspondent Mike Dyar is there. I'll be staying with him the next few evenings. He's a zen master and a Beuy's devotee. R. Seth Friedman, the editor of Factsheet Five has come. This is our first meeting, and I like him immediately. Coupled with my respect for his publishing talents, makes for an airtight friendship at first sight. Steve Caravello, Picasso's right-hand man, who does his computer design and photography is there. We met first at Inter-Dada '84. Tim Mancusi, Picasso's cousin has come down from Rohnert Hills. He's a master eraser carver among other talents. He works in a competing rubber stamp business and is still very active in mail art.

Picasso Gaglione, Steve Caravello, Tim Mancusi are joined by Charles Chickadell. The four formed the core of the Bay Area Dadaists in the early seventies. They staged performances, and they edited publications, among them the NYCS Weekly Breeder.

Bob Kirkman has come from Chico. He's been a long-time correspondent. Barbara Cooper, a painter and new correspondent of mine, has come from San Rafael. She brings along a fat envelope of goodies, which I later discover has a few of her paintings in it. A librarian for the Berkeley Public Library has come. She is holding a mail art show. Ted Perves, who is helping Gaglione curate an upcoming show on J. H. Kochman, the Czech rubber stamp pioneer, has also come. There are many more, including Seth Mason and Diana Mars, who work at Stamp Francisco. In all, about thirty-five people.

Gaglione and I are to perform Fluxus artist Robin Page's Guitar Piece. We have done this event previously in Dallas, kicking a guitar around the block as an example of a street concert, or a manifestation of "destroyed music." It's a popular piece because in involves the audience. This time Gaglione adds a new wrinkle, and instead of kicking one guitar, we have four to work with.

Bob Kirkman announces the performance. It's part of FluxFest '95, which Gaglione is holding throughout the year. Out come the guitars, the cameras, the video.

We never make it around the block. There is a teenager who has come with his father, who believes that the point of the performance is to bust up the guitars as soon as possible. So we only make it to the corner. The pieces are gathered up, and back inside the Stamp Art Gallery Gaglione and I sign them with gold pens.

After this, chairs are set up in the gallery in front of the works I have on display as part of the Netland Impressions exhibition.   I have taken twenty of my favorite rubber stamp images from diverse networkers that are in my collection of rubber stamps, blown them up to poster size, and colored them with oil sticks. Standing before these works based on designs from A-1 Waste, Banco de Ideas Z, Julie Hagan Bloch, M. B. Corbett, Picasso Gaglione, Ray Johnson, Dobrica Kamperelic, Graciela Marx, Stephen Perkins, and Andrej Tisma, I explain my relationship with these artists, and the images the works reflect.

This is used, as was the letter opening event in Salem, as a jumping off point for a discussion of the networking experience. I find that these devices impart more information than a mere recitation on the meaning of Mail Art. This artform demands involvement. It is revealed by participation. Citing anecdotal incidents unravels the principles of the medium, and the spirit of adventure it entails.

Gaglione and I go back to his house with Darlene at 3:00PM to unwind. Picasso and I go to meet Mike Dyar at a Japanese restaurant near his house. Sushi. It's amazing how universal this food has become. Less than a month ago I had some in Belgium.

We walk to Mike's house. I spy a book on Ulises Carrion on the bookshelf that attracts my interest. It was Carrion, the late Mexican artist living in Amsterdam, who tutored me in mail art during a visit to his Other Books and So gallery and bookstore. This was in 1976, when I went over to Amsterdam for a show at Stempelplaats Gallery, the first gallery devoted to rubber stamp art.

Gaglione freely admits that Stempelplaats is the model for his present Stamp Art Gallery. It had a museum component, a gallery, a publication program, and the resources to produce rubber stamps for artists. Due to the deaths of Carrion (1989), and his partner Aart van Barneveld (1990), who directed Stempelplaats in it's golden years, Gaglione has filled an important void in the rubber stamp community.

Sunday, June 4, 1995: San Francisco

Have coffee in Mike Dyar's garden. Read a recently published article on artist run spaces in the city. It's nice to see so much attention placed on the subject. I'm just upset that the Stamp Art Gallery isn't mentioned, because it's an outstanding example of the genre. It's just not as obvious as the others cited. It doesn't handle painters, it's connected with a business, and it deals with a field that art critics have yet to fully examine: the rubber stamp, mail art, zine, and other networking communities. I can't help thinking that if I moved to San Francisco I could help Picasso in raising the level of awareness of these fields in the wider cultural community: locally, nationally, and internationally.

Mike's friend Nancy picks up up for a day at the beach. The weather has been perfect. The wind is strong in the city, but fades in the cove of Baker Beach, on the grounds of the Presidio, just a mile from the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. Mike belongs to a social set that meets here regularly to play volleyball.

I'm a little envious of the fact that Mike is able to balance his passion for the alternative arts (he basically thinks of himself as a conceptual artist) and a social life. It's his zen training, no doubt. Many of the people he spends time with have little knowledge of his art activities, and probably don't care. I've never been able to find this balance. My life revolves around my writing, trips, archiving, curating, and mail art activities. Friends, as a rule, demand too much time. My closest friends are those at a distance I spend time with corresponding. It's a virtual life.

But this is relaxing. No performance. No discussion of aesthetics. Simply hanging out on the hot sand. Watching the volleyball game in progress, the Pacific Ocean, and the mountains framing it all. Oh, did I mention that this is a nude beach, and that even the volleyball players are in various states of undress? What the hell am I doing in conservative Dallas? If I had any doubts about moving here, they are now completely dispelled.

After being on the beach for six hours, Nancy, Mike, and I go for Hunan dinner in the city. Then back to Mike's where I insist we call Ashley Parker Owens, a mutual friend and active networker, who has also been mulling over a change of scene. Only later do I realize that we called her at 1:00AM Chicago time.

I settle down for the evening to read, Marcel Duchamp: Artist of the Century. There's a whole chapter on his Tzanck Check, which mentions his use of rubber stamps in the work.

Monday, June 5, 1995: San Francisco

After coffee in the garden, Mike Dyar takes his bike to work, and I take the bus to the Stamp Francisco.

Let me describe the layout of the operation. There is retail shop in in front, where many of the stamp designs listed in the mail-order catalog are displayed. Moving toward the rear there are books for sale on rubber stamp art, Mail Art, and periodicals such as Vamp Stamp News, Rubberstampmadness, Stretch Marks, Eraser Carvers Quarterly, and ND are available for purchase. Next is the Stamp Art Gallery, which has monthly shows. A museum of rubber stamps, including antique stamp sets, stamp pads, and rubber stamps from other countries, are displayed.

Gaglione's office is opposite the Gallery, and includes a reprographic area, a small room containing a desk, and another room where his private library of books on Fluxus, rubber stamps, Mail Art, Dada, and Futurism are housed.

This public area leads to the back offices where Seth Mason and others keep up with orders, answer the phones, keep the books, and organize presentations at marketing centers around the country. There is also a break area and lunch room for the employees. Toward the back of the floor is a wide open space where about twenty people are gathered around tables cutting rubber and mounting them on wooden blocks. There is another area where the rainbow pads are made. And off of this large room is a smaller one where the vulcanizer is housed. In the very back is Darlene's office, large enough and suitable for an energetic CEO.

Gaglione and I sign the first twenty copies of our Fake Picabia Brothers Tour Diary. I take a look at his library, and he gives me copies of some of the books he has published through Stamp Art Editions including the works Photographs as Rubber Stamps, Hand Carved Art Stamps by Henning Mittendorf, Serge Segay, Joseph Beuys, S. Gustav H�gglund, and Graf Haufen. He encourages me to write up a diary of this West Coast trip so that he can do a book in this same series.

One of my favorite things about visiting Stamp Francisco is having a jumbo rainbow stamp pad custom made. I chose an extra large stamp pad, the colors, the design, and have it made up by the person who inks the regular pads. I figure she knows how to apply the ink better than I since she works with it every day. So Thanh Huong makes me up a beautiful pad of purple, red, blue and yellow in a swirl pattern. I enjoy working with a specially prepared ink pad. It emanates good karma.

After a lunch of take-out Hunan food, Picasso and I head out on the day's business, which is to visit two book dealers specializing in the post-war avant-garde: John Campbell of Lure Books, and Steven Leiber. There is nothing like this in Dallas. In fact there are very few places in the world that can match the work these two dealers are doing. Barbara Moore of Bound and Unbound in New York City, and Juan Aquis in Geneva, Switzerland, are others engaged in this activity, but it still a very small club, and I am eager to touch base again with this important sector engaged in the legitimation of the contemporary avant-garde.

Picasso and I set out on foot to visit John Campbell. Last time I was in the city, it was his partner Molly Hankwitz I met.   This is my first meeting with John. I find him to be thoroughly knowledgeable in his field which includes Lettrism, Situationism, Nouveau Realism, Fluxus, Pop Art, Concept Art, and Mail Art. Much of the material is way out of my price range, but it's always fun to browse and see what certain items are bringing.

After speaking to Guy Bleus a month ago in Belgium, whom I consider to be the best archivist in the Mail Art field, my ideas on collecting have changed somewhat. Guy's collection is a reflection of his activity in Mail Art. The archive is composed of correspondence, catalogs, artist books, posters, artist postage stamps and rubber stamp work, which have been accumulated as a result of his participation in the field. He doesn't go beyond this area. He's not a rich man building up a collection, but an artist who in the course of his activities has built a sizable and valuable collection of materials.

I've never been that secure with my collection. When I was working full-time and had the money to buy, I did. I filled gaps in the collection and items that caught my fancy. But working part-time has curtailed these purchases. If I see a bargain I take advantage of it. If an important gap needs to be filled, I'll bite the bullet. But I get too much stuff in the mail on a regular basis to squander limited resources on additional items. It's a neverending pit. Nevertheless, I'm drawn to these book dealers for what I can gain in information and to gain a sense of where the market is going.

But I do purchase some things. I buy about five issues of Art Com, which were published in San Francisco by La Mamelle, under the direction of Nancy Frank and Carl Loeffler. La Mamelle was a very important alternative art space in the seventies, which did much to encourage the rise of video, mail, and performance art.

So it's a very informative visit, and I look forward to more contact with John. After two hours of looking around, Picasso and I take a taxi to the Marina district to see Steven Leiber's collection.

Steven is in Europe, presently in Paris looking at the Mus�e de la Poste rubber stamp exhibition. I introduced Picasso to Leiber on my visit to San Francisco in 1992, and since then the two have become friends. Although Steve isn't there, his assistant shows us around. Leiber has recently brought out a new catalog, Ray Johnson, North American Networkers, and Dadazines. It's a work of art in and of itself, which apes the format of Johnson's 1976 North Carolina Museum of Art catalog. When I received it Dallas, I called and asked them to reserve Ace Space Co.'s, On the Road 1971/72, documentation of an early "touristic" Mail Art event. But while I'm there I can't resist acquiring a book illustrated by Ray Johnson in 1969, What a Man Can See, by Russell Edson. It fills a gap. What Mail Artist can resist another Ray Johnson item? It's $75, but who's knows when I'll ever see it again.

Leiber has hundreds of Ray Johnson letters, acquired through purchases of the Albert Fine, Tim Mancusi, and Jeff Berner collections. I know some involved in Mail Art bemoan the fact that this material, freely given through the mail, has now become consumable items. It doesn't bother me at all. Mail Art remains a gift among friends. I spend thousands of dollars a year sending out my work to others, just as they do in their turn. The network isn't about to break down because of the sudden commercial interest in historic work.

These works have become classics of the field. The history of Mail Art is just being seriously considered. These dealers provide a service in recognizing the worth of the material and selling it to institutions that have become interested in new artistic fields. From these institutions, the material filters to scholars who are doing research and writing about it. This is turn influences a younger generation, who in turn become new practitioners. Mail Art is the most important thing in my life, and I think it is important in terms of redefining the definition of art. It's been kept secret long enough. Ray Johnson's recent death has made more people aware of the field than ever before. I want the word to get out, and it's these dealers scavenging around on the bottom of the food chain that enable knowledge of the field to bubble to the top.

Leiber has the best reference library I've ever seen on the post-war avant-garde. Book after book on every aspect of contemporary manifestations. After specializing in Fluxus for many years and seeing the market for it explode, he is now entering the Mail Art field using 1979 as as cut-off point. His interest is very encouraging to me. It's just a matter of time before classic Mail Art enters it's rightful stage on the contemporary art scene, and starts spreading its anarchistic philosophy of a more democratic art.

We take a bus back to Bill's house where Darlene makes us a nice dinner of pasta and pork chops. Spend the rest of the evening talking shop, looking over recently acquired books, and begging Darlene to take us up to Santa Rosa the following day to see Harley's artistamp show.

Tuesday, June 6, 1995: San Francisco

Actually, it doesn't take much to convince Darlene to drive us up to see Harley's show in Santa Rosa. She's very supportive of Bill's activities. I mean, it wasn't like she didn't know what she was signing up for when they got married. And if anything, Darlene's support has had a powerful impact on Picasso's art, which he can now pursue on a consistent basis.

We have breakfast and drive to Stamp Francisco, where we meet Mike Dyar. Picasso makes a mock-up of a blank book that we will use for a collective rubber stamp bookwork at this evening's N.Y.C.S of San Francisco Correspondance Art Dinner. Then we're off about 10:00AM on the fifty mile drive up the coast to Santa Rosa. We get there about 11:30AM and have some burgers before going over to the California Museum of Art at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts. The show opened May 10th, and is just one in a spate of artistamp shows including my own in Salem, and one recently curated by Guy Bleus.

It's not surprising to see the interest in artist postage stamps flourish. They are one of the more purely visual aspects of Mail Art, and one the audience can identify immediately with the postal medium. There has been so much activity in the field between Mail Artists that a show is easily formed sifting through one's archive and putting out a call for more recent examples.

Harley has been very active in the field throughout the eighties. Due to his childhood interest in collecting postage stamps, his entry into Mail Art was through the artistamp field. He became very friendly with the late Mike Bidner, a pioneer in the field, the one who gave the artistamp field it's name, and to whom Harley has dedicated the show.

The exhibition is closed to the public, but Harley has agreed to come and open it for Darlene, Mike, Picasso, and I. In contrast to my curated pared down show in Salem, which only had eighty-five works, Harley's show has over three-hundred works by a far larger selection of artists. The stamps are shown under Plexiglass on display matting made to look like airmail envelopes. Where I showed only sheets of stamps, Harley has included works on envelopes, and postal sculpture. It's a very attractive show.

Harley and I have met previously when I came up to Oberlin, Ohio, where he was then living, to talk on a panel on artistamps for a show he was curating at Oberlin College. Since that time, Harley has lived in San Francisco, and more recently, in Guerneville, just outside Santa Rosa. He has recently sold most of his collection of Mail Art to Oberlin College.

Continue to Part II