Thomas Arthur Schaefer
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Monday, January 31, 2005

Sickness Sets In — More Correspondences

Called in sick today... I'm sitting in bed with the laptop working on filing things. I've added more people yet again to the correspondence list — another 5. I'm also going to post my address on the website sometime this week to allow anyone to write me. The damn internet is on the fritz as usual. It's been like this since last friday so i've been writing these posts into a text file and saving them away. As soon as i figure out whats wrong with it I'll post these up to the site. I might not be able to post these everyday but i still have to write them somehow everyday.

Barker. Aaron — Dallas, Texas
Buttrey. Kevin — Cleveland, Tennessee
Cotealia. Spring — Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Duran, Dave — Savannah, Georgia
Glasso. Tracy — Atlanta, Georgia
- Harl, Michael — Richmond, Virginia
Hollenbeck. Phi — Dallas, Texas
Kanka. Jaroslav — Atlanta, Georgia
Kidwell. Martha — Charleston, Tennessee
Kutzback. Donny — Kenmore, New York
Newman. Scott — Savannah, Georgia
Olive, Frank — Bethel. Connecticut
Pearson. Olivia — Charlotte, North Carolina
Reynold. Tom — Powder Springs, Georgia
Schaefer. Susan — Grand Island, New York
Sherrill. Nancy — Marietta, Georgia
Skorepa, Dave — North Royalton, Ohio
- Smith, Jeannette — Atlanta, Georgia
Statts. Jason — Savannah, Georgia
- Sylvester, Olie — Auburn, Georgia
Vinson. Chuk — Atlanta, Georgia
Weiss. Danny — Miami Beach, Florida
- Whitlock, Laurie — Chattanooga, Tennessee
York. James — Brighton, Michigan
Zimmerman. Cassandra — Dallas, Texas

Sunday, January 30, 2005

Kanka-Blackmon-Drinking-&-Me

I did work on the Schaefer/York correspondences for a good bit of the morning. They are really relaxing ones to work on... just white paint. Done in the same vein as the 'Adds' Series. I got about 5 of each done, but only their fronts... I hope to get their backs done this next week. Each set is about 20, but like other correspondences, they will be stagered throughout the mailing weeks.

Kanka called me about 1pm and insisted that I go to El Myr and have a drink... and of course I bent. Had a pretty good time there.. as usual. Another photographer friend of ours was there - Blackmon. She was assisting Kanka earlier that day. They were shooting a yoga class and said it was crazy-funny. Kanka showed me his new Cannon Mach2... sweet little (big) camera, can't wait to use it on our next shoot.



Started to not feel that well so I went home early. I've been kinda ill all week. I think I'm gonna call in sick tomm. and try to beat this with sleep. I just did a little more work on the final 'v.Refuse/n. Refuse' correspondences for Zimmerman, but had to cut that short because of this headache. I'm gonna go to sleep now.

Saturday, January 29, 2005

Folks Helping Folks With Folk

Well the weather man was right. Ice everywhere... I mean everywhere and thick too. I had over a 1/4" coating my entire car. The streets were frozen.. man everything. the best part was getting it off the car. you could actually roll down your windows and be left with a fully intact sheet of ice... kinda like a second window. the funniest was smashing that... hmmm good stuff.

We finished building out the under-structures for all of Sherrills bio panels. They should be really sturdy. She had all of the bio printed on chip board and skilled in black ink. Standard Deluxe out of Alabama did that. They look really good. I'm truely interested to see how everything looks when the show is hanged. She also had poster printed up by Hatch Show Print... they look really cool... very Hatch'ish.

Stayed up until the wee hours with Kanka drinking martinis... gin of course. Most of the night I spent looking at this mammoth door Sherrill had. She was wanting to make that into the title panel for the show... something you'd see I guess when you wanted into the door. We had tried silkscreening onto earlier that night but it just didn't work. I don't know what the hell she'll do with that door. i wish i could have helped her with it but she'll figure it out I'm sure. I think it will be best for her to do that kind of thing... she already has the show in her head I know it. I'd just screw thing up.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Ahh Fridays Again

Not to much happened today. I did talk to Weiss He's been pretty excited about all of the cards I've been sending him. He was asking who they were supposed to go together. I don't think I told him though. Bahh ha ha!! Going over to Sherrills tonight to help her with preparing materials for the Folk Art show at the Woodruff. I think we'll be assembling all the backing materials for her bio panels. I want to make sure that we build these things sturdy... the show travels for 2 years. So the better we make them the longer they will last of course.

Should be interesting weekend Kanka will be joining us. the weather report says we're going to have an ice storm, but I think it's a bunch of shit. Better go buy my bread and milk... yeah right i think I'll be buying a bottle of gin instead. Read a funny story today about a guy who got trapped in his car under huge amounts of snow. He was traveling up to his cabin or something like that and brought with him a few cases of beer. He drank all the beer and used his pee to melt the snow that trapped him in his car. So the moral of this story is... bread an milk won't get you out of a snow covered car but alcohol can.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Drinking With the Kids

Halleluiah... Received another correspondence from Barker today (he's been away for a while) I think he's on a stamp kick this month. Last week I received 'Rough Riders' with a nice little story about a guy trying to get to his cousin's birthday. This week I got one called 'World Refugee Year'... and I must agree, it is very noir.

Spent the evening drinking with Kanka and Sherrill. Basic conversation and sensationalism that I'm always expecting (good stuff). It was a good evening at our usual waterhole El Myr — El Schmere. Drank a few too many black beers with Kanka. The waiter said that they were second best to sex... but I found my eyes googling at every beautiful brunette that entered. Ahh what is it with my hate and love for the color brown. HA!!!

Developed several interesting correspondence scenarios while I was at the bar, but I'll have to work them out more fully before I can clearly explain them here. Going to take it easy tonight and do a bit of organizing and go to sleep early. I think next week Monday I'll be able to start sending correspondences to 3 new people.

- Kanka
- S. Schaefer
- York

Then the next big mailing will be my Valentines and everyone on the list gets a few of those. i will be very busy in the next few days so I'm going to get my sleep while I can tonight. Perhaps I'll dream up some new art schemes... I usually do when I go to sleep early.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 27, 2005
—————
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 03 (drawing)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 06 (postcard)

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Revised 2005 Correspondence List



Barker. Aaron — Dallas, Texas
- Buttrey. Kevin — Cleveland, Tennessee
- Cotealia. Spring — Chattanooga, Tennessee
Glasso. Tracy — Atlanta, Georgia
Hollenbeck. Phil — Dallas, Texas
Kanka. Jaroslav — Atlanta, Georgia
- Kidwell. Martha — Charleston, Tennessee
Kutzback. Donny — Kenmore, New York
Newman. Scott — Savannah, Georgia
- Olive, Frank — Bethel. Connecticut
- Pearson. Olivia — Charlotte, North Carolina
Reynold. Tom — Powder Springs, Georgia
Schaefer. Susan — Grand Island, New York
Sherrill. Nancy — Marietta, Georgia
Skorepa, Dave — North Royalton, Ohio
Statts. Jason — Savannah, Georgia
Vinson. Chuk — Atlanta, Georgia
Weiss. Danny — Miami Beach, Florida
York. James — Brighton, Michigan
Zimmerman. Cassandra — Dallas, Texas

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 26, 2005
—————
BARKER - More Than Three Occasions 01 (postcard)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 05 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 05 (postcard)

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Working at Sherrills

I'm gonna take my materials over to Sherrills Studios space tonight to do work. Haven't seen her for a few days and i like getting over there... it inspires me to do nutty things. Last time I was over there I took 2 of Hollenbecks 'Left Foot' correspondences with the intention of using some of her pastel house paints on them. I did... but after i looked at them I decided to set them on fire. they just looked like they need to be set on fire. Plus, I like burning things over at her house. Every time I do it she gets so bent out of shape. Fun Fun

Tomorrow I will be posting an updated correspondence list. I am adding 5 more people, bringing the total to 20.

Have suspicions that the people in my mailroom at work might be stealing my mail before it goes out. I checked with Newman to see if he received any postcards and after saying he didn't know what I was talking about, he added that if he had received anything it would have been at least 3 things (wonder what he's cooking up). This is positive news because I've only sent him 3 so far.

FORGOT TO SCAN MAILINGS AGAIN TODAY. DAMNIT!!!! And today I sent the Weiss the most controversial correspondence yet (only if you look hard at it though) I'm gonna have to stay up late tonight and scan everything.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 25, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 10 (postcard)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 04 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 04 (postcard)

Monday, January 24, 2005

Monday

Not feeling very well today. I'm gonna do a little bit of organizing, but I'm getting to sleep early today. I don't plan on getting anything productive done today. Need rest.. the last thing I want is to get sick and not be able to work for a prolonged period of time.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 24, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 09 (postcard)

Sunday, January 23, 2005

Hollenbeck 'Left Foot'

Created a lot of new 'Left Foot' correspondences over this past week. Set a ot of them on fire too. It seems that the latest theme for about the past 10 of these has had something to do with burning. Some are set on fire... some have things you light up... and other have actual money (which I obviously have to burn). So far I'm at about 15 of the total 50. It's strange, but I have a tendency to either I guess tell a story or a better way of putting it is following a train of thought. it's the same thing I've been doing with Barker for the past year. All of his correspondences follow some common thread. Come to think of it, this all started with the Newman Media Mail work.... huh. I'll be very interested in seeing where these correspondences are at when I reach the initial 50. Who knows I might never send Hollenbeck anything else ever besides 'Left Foot' correspondences... but I doubt that.

Discovered that the instep of my left foot is the exact height of a dollar bill.... strange proportions... I'll have to use that observation at a later time in this series.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Bits and Pieces

Spent the major part of today organizing all of my small bits and pieces of junk into little labeled boxes. Things like keys, dice, bits of plastic, wood, bits of paper, and bits of metal. All of these things used to be piled together in large shoe boxes... but I decided today that it would be better to separate them into corresponding families. I'll probably use a lot of these pieces for the Hollenbeck 'Left Foot' correspondences.

I'm really enjoying doing these Hollenbeck correspondences the most. Because they have such a loose common theme I'm able to do almost anything with them. Just as long as they fit into that 9" x 12" envelope.

Friday, January 21, 2005

Email to Kanka

On Jan 20, 2005, at 8:57 PM, Jaroslav Kanka wrote:

how was the wing haven.....<05 Track 05 2.m4a>

REPLY:

Wing Haven was good. I busted out the pink paint and made some correspondence pieces for Cassie in Dallas... everyone gave me strange looks. I guess they have never seen anyone paint at the bar... fuck'm... 'I am important'. ( I have finally realized this)... I'll do what 'has' to be done. I do not know any other way.... 2.5 more years before I go for broke and try to make it on the passion.... on the obsession... on the soul... on the conscience... on the chaos... on the Virgin... on the self... and on and on and on. I am tired... so so tired. Not in myself but in the sociological fact that as a person I must earn... .... ..... ....... ..... I am so, so tired of earning my good friend... I simply want to produce... MULTITUDES UPON MULTITUDES... PROCREATE ON PREVIOUS INTUITIVE PROCREATIONS ...... DIVERD... and DIVULGE

Tonight I watched a film... the first film that has ever touched me...... and I can never tell anyone of it... even you.

November 28th, 2004 changed me.... I think I have changed myself again... I am sick... sick and so tired

Things are so strange my friend. I had an amazing conversation with a good friend this morning. I am going to start sending correspondences to his daughter (Olivia - 22 months). I know her likes and dis-likes. Ohh to be at such a tender age. I want to leave everything and start a-new, but alas I am not that naive soul. I can not leave what has already begun.

Why must we carry on..... Do I need to leave something behind for my 'own'... or is my 'own' the every.

I AM POSTING THIS TO THE BLOG

- Thomas Arthur Schaefer

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Thursday

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 20, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 08 (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 02 (drawing)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 03 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 03 (postcard)

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Correspondence Sets Complete

Completed prepaing all 15 sets of correspondence materials today.
200 postcards
— 20 unique mailers

All postcards are hand cut to 4" x 6" standard postcard size.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 19, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 07 (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Left Foot 01 (drawing)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 02 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 02 (postcard)



OMITTED JUGHEAD 07


LEFT FOOT 01

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Stick to the Process

Huge blunder today... I mailed off 2 corresepondences before I had scanned and cataloged them. Very stupid. Hopefully none of them will get lost. I'm not too worried about anything happening to these ones in particular because the content on them is pretty tame, but if I were to do the same thing with something more controvercial, there would be no record of its existance if it dissappeared in transit. I'm going to print a process list to post around my home... just to reinforce it. I will have to get scans of the correspondences when they reach their destination... it's a shame I missed scanning the originals. I won''t make that mistake twice. I suppose I was just excited to get mail out today because of mondays holiday - need to be more patient and follow the process.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 18, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 06 (postcard)
NEWMAN - Magnum Hawaiian 01 (postcard)
WEISS - Miss March / Miss November 01 (postcard)

Monday, January 17, 2005

Weiss – Post Office Closed

It's monday and because of the holiday the USPS is closed. No correspondence transferred today. I completed the first set of Weiss correspondences today. I must say I am very impressed by this technique (paper strips). I used to PlayBoy centerfolds to complete this set of 12 - Miss March & Miss November 2004. When you put all the cards together you get a really strage elongated image of the 2 playmates... it looks really gorgeous. The thing I love most about this technique is the way it puts a random order to everything. Shapes and color areas corresponde to other areas in such a way that they almost seem like they were never separate images to begin with.... it's really impressive. I am going to have to try this technique on a larger scale.

I wrapped the excess from the strips around to the other side of the cards instead of cutting it off. I really gives the address side a nice chaotic look. The excess strips are complimented by some tears from San Diego sex ads. I think Weiss will really like these. I will have to send him instruction on how to frame these works... they really need to be seen all together.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

Streamline Work Habits

Spent most of today reorganizing and catagorizing materials. I started pulling and sorting old materials for use with correspondences. The objective is to slowly purge all of my old materials that are not currently related with other bodies of work. I hope that in doing this I will be able to clear away at least 75% of my materials stockpile. This will not only help me keep a cleaner shop but also prevent me from starting new series of works. The goal is to limit all production of work down to 2 main bodies and 5 sub-sets.

MAIN:
Retroconsumerism
100 Small Works

SUB-SET:
Splits, Spans, Spreads & Sprawls
Black-Pink-White
Richie Rich
Jughead
Drawings

This consolidation of materials should help me produce more work on a faster schedule. This will help my move into a new space easier to organize.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Schaefer Beer

Began working on correspondences for various people using old Schaefer Beer campaign ads. I think they are gonna look really good. I'm producing 1 set of 30 cards that will be sent to S. Schaefer. The main image is a 60's street corner with a Schaefer Beer billboard in the background. I think I'll paint these in the same way Deiter Roth did his set of street scenes from London. Basically, he painted out certain portions and altered parts of the image. For color I think I'll only use white for these, but I'm still not sure what I will do on the opposite side.

Friday, January 14, 2005

Friday

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 14, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 05 (postcard)

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Ray Johnson 1927 - 1995


RAY JOHNSON TRINITY / HOLY SPIRIT

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 13, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 04 (postcard)
BARKER - Ray Johnson Trinity / Holy Spirit (postcard)
HOLLENBECK - Ray Johnson Trinity / Father (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN - Heart to Heart Day Alteration AD (letter)
ZIMMERMAN – Ray Johnson Trinity / Son (postcard)

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

2005 Correspondence List

Barker. Aaron — Dallas, Texas
Glasso. Tracy — Atlanta, Georgia
Hollenbeck. Phil — Dallas, Texas
Kanka. Jaroslav — Atlanta, Georgia
Kutzback. Donny — Kenmore, New York
Newman. Scott — Savannah , Georgia
Reynold. Tom — Powder Springs, Georgia
Schaefer. Susan — Grand Island, New York
Sherrill. Nancy — Marietta, Georgia
Skorepa, Dave — North Royalton, Ohio
Statts. Jason — Savannah, Georgia
Vinson. Chuk — Atlanta, Georgia
Weiss. Danny — Miami Beach, Florida
York. James — Brighton, Michigan
Zimmerman. Cassandra — Dallas, Texas

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 12, 2005
—————
BARKER – Omitted Jughead 03 (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN – Heart to Heart Day Alteration AC (letter)

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Kanka Returns

Kanka is finally back and we meet for drinks at our usual spot today. He said he was going to give me the address to a friend of his in Europe. He said he was a writer and would really appreciate something of this type. (foreign-foreign correspondence... very interesting). I'm going to go through my collection tonight a pick a set of works to give him. I think I'm going to give him the other three works from 'Drawings'. He'll get the other 3 works that go along with the one I gave him for X-mas in 2003. It was called 'Landscape/Still Life'. It's the yellow work with the two spring break college sluts on it. The other 3 that I will give him are:

- Visualized and Narrative Imagery
- The Figure
- Optical Greys


DRAWINGS 08: LANDSCAPE/STILL LIFE


DRAWINGS 09: VISUALIZED AND NARRATIVE IMAGERY


DRAWINGS 10: THE FIGURE


DRAWINGS 11: OPTICAL GREYS

These works will serve as final payment for the photographs he took for me, for the 'Fluoride Set 2004'. I think he will like them a lot. All the works are placed on torn out pages of my colege art history note book. They had pictures that I had copied from art history books to describe some different terms. The terms became the titles for the paintings. The pictures that were taped on became part of the artwork for the first piece (landscape/still life), but they were removed from the last three. I removed them in a protest to the first work which featured two spring break college sluts... and what do two spring break college sluts do. They inevitably take it all off. So I did that literally by taking the other three images off or away from the composition leaving only the tape (some what like tan lines) from where the pictures used to be.


MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 11, 2005
—————
BARKER - Omitted Jughead 02 (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN - Heart to Heart Day Alteration AB (letter)

Monday, January 10, 2005

Weiss Correspondence

Found this picture that Weiss took of me the night I did 100 Small Works: New York City Barstool Baptisms. This photo was taken on our way to the 2nd bar — drinks 3/4/5/6. It was the bar where they filmed Donnie Brasco (Pacino & Depp) back in 96. They even had an autographed picture of the two in costume on the wall behind the bar. I ended up drinking 2 pints of Guiness and had 2 shots of tequila (Patron & Don Julio). We then moved onto a Japanesse Karoke Bar. — You can see the pen I used behind my ear and the drawings in my front shirt pocket.


PHOTO BY WEISS - NEW YORK CITY 2003

I think what I'll end up doing for Weiss will be either about bars or about babes. Maybe I'll do babes and bars together.

Decided today that I'd also start posting the correspondences that I send each day. I'll use this later to reference back to the actual date stamping on the artifacts. I will go back to the start of this year and re-post the work that were sent satrting the 1st.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 10, 2005
—————
BARKER – Omitted Jughead 01 (postcard)
ZIMMERMAN – Heart to Heart Day Alteration AA (letter)




HEART TO HEART DAY ALTERATION AA

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Sundays Workflow

Well today I've taken it kinda easy... didn't get a ton of things done but did get enough correspondences made for at least 5 weeks worth of mailings. Completed — Barker / Zimmerman / Newman / Hollenbeck. Spent a little time designing the labels for the Newman and Hollenbeck sets. Newmans requires a small 1/4" strip of paper with the address and Hollenbeck a simple label to fit onto a 9" x 12" envelope.

Began working on 5 new Hollenbeck 'Left Foot' correspondences. They'll be pretty interesting when they are done because they are being built from a lot of the left over materials I've been using for other projects. So each one should have a mini history of the works i've been creating at least in these past few years.

Completed a new set of 5 correspondences for Barker today as well. They are the 'Fat Chick' set and they feature Fonzie on the back side with a top 5 list. They are pretty silly. Very similar to the 'Upton Sinclair's - The Jungle' set. I've got at least 6 weeks worth of cards for mailing to Barker, so another 2 month vacation will be good, although I'm sure I'll produce another huge amount during this time off. The system of creating large amounts for future use is just so much better especially when I can crank out sets of 5 within a few nights time.

One of the next projects that i need to get rolling on is the 'Events'. I have build all of their wood structures, but now need to fill/sand/prime them for the artifacts that will be on them. I've decided to try and not force these works into being developed every month — only if they merit the documentation. It looks like I will have 2 pieces from 2003 and about 6 pieces from 2004. This just makes the works more momentous, really focuses on their reason for being. I don't want to force any 'Events' into existence if they don't possess true virtues.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Newman & Barker Correspondences

Started using the shredder today to make the Newman correspondences. It's amazing how much faster this particular process goes once you have all the cut portions ready in a matter of seconds. Already completed 16 of them today and I'm probably going to keep going. Since the images started to repeat I'll start another set but with a different patterned stucture.

Considering the concept of creatng some kind of large work with patterned shirts. Something extremely simple... even just glueing the shirts flat on a white ground. I'll have to put some more thought into that though.

Also used the shedder to complete a new set for the Barker correspondences. 4 works from the 'Three or More Times' set. This is a set that had alot of hand cut strips in it previously... but I finished the envelopes with the shredder technique and did some interesting ordering of the images.

Took the left over stripes from 'Three or More Times' and completed Hollenbeck correspondeces 'Left Foot' 1-3. Have to find out what the postal rate on something like this will be (9" x 13" envelope). I'm thinking 74¢ will be fine, but I want to check just to be sure. Gonna spend the rest of the evening scanning and cataloging all correspondences ready for mailing.

Friday, January 07, 2005

New Tools

Well after doing several correspondence pieces where I have been painstakingly cutting 1/4" strips of paper I finally realized today that it was a total waste of my time. I went and bought a machine to do it. it's this amazing invention called a paper shredder. i don't know why I never thought of it before. the idea came to me while I was watching the pile of hawaiian shirt pattern color copies pile up. I'm going to use them for the Newman correspondences. I would have had to cut down almost 200 sheets of paper by hand. So lets do the math on that one.

200 sheets @ 11" tall

11 x 4 = 44 1/4" pieces per sheet

44 x 200 = 8800

8800 hand cut strips... ok that's just not gonna happen. So thank god for the 'straight cut paper shredder'. Now there are only two major drawbacks to using this type of method. (1) you can only feed the sheet in long ways — 8.5" (2) the shedder knives leave the slightest of frays on the edges... but I think those will be almost unnoticeable when the strips are finally glued down. So all in all I'm pretty excited about getting started on these Newman pieces. With the new tool i should be able to get all 20 of the cards strip portion completed by the weekend.

Also today I created the base foundations for my Hollenbeck correspondences. I first met Hollenbeck in New orleans at the HOW Design Conference. At some point during one night of drinking we got into talking about my paintings & work and somehow in the conversation I said i'd really like to have some human bones. After being home for about a month I received an envelope from Hollenbeck. Written on the front was ' put your best foot forward'. As I open the envelope an removed the other envelopes from the inside I noticed more references to feet. Finally i reached the last bulky envelope and inside was the skeleton of a humans left foot. Hollenbeck told me later that someone had given it to him and he had decided to pass it along to me after our conversation in New Orleans. The foot now hangs over my front door. So last night i decided to start a new set of correspondences with Hollenbeck. I got a fresh sheet of white paper and did a tracing of my left foot and then photocopied the image onto 50 sheets of white cardstock. This will be the basic structure around which I'll compose each of these correspondences. Each will be placed into a 9" x 12" white envelope and mailed accordingly.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 07, 2005
—————
BARKER - John Wayne Fan Club (letter)



JOHN WAYNE FAN CLUB

Thursday, January 06, 2005

New Correspondences & Weekend Scheduling

Spent a good part of today hunting down Magnum P.I. pictures for use in the Newman correspondences... man I found some really good ones. I think the next step is going to be finding as many Hawaiian shirt patterns as I can to use in tandem with the pictures. For the copy portion of these correspondences I’m gonna use unsolved crime articles from the web, just copying them word for work like I’ve been doing with different Barker correspondences. These things are gonna look really cool. I am also getting two rubberstamps made up as well — Thomas Sullivan Magnum III Fan Club & Jonathan Quayle Higgins III Fan Club

For the Kutzbach correspondences I’m gonna do the stick of bubble gum series. I have 15 pink foam rubber bases to build the work on. Each stick will have a different flavor of gum printed on one side and something (probably Bazooka Joe based) on the other. Each stick will then be wrapped in foil just like a real stick of gum. Postage will go on this portion. It’ll be much nicer looking than an envelope.

This weekend should be a busy one. I want to try and get at least 20 Newman correspondences under-way as well as all 15 Kutzbach. I need to wrap up all current Barker and Zimmerman correspondences and get them prep’d for mailing (scan-label-file). Also, I want to get at least 5 sets of general correspondences ready for the group. I need to look into buying myself an inexpensive B/W photocopier for the house — something similar to Sherrill’s.

Once I can build up a big enough set of correspondences (at least 2 months worth) I can get back to work on the Fluoride oil paintings and prep work for the 100 Small Works: Hot, Young and Eager on 25¢ a Day set. I’ve already gotten the images I want to dissect into the 1/8” portions. I’m using the images I enlarged for a set of Naked Lady playing cards I borrowed from Barker. As soon as I finish with these works I’ll probably turn the original playing cards into a new set of 52 +/- correspondences for Barker. I told him I’d return the cards back to him, just never told him how. I’m sure he’ll dig that.

The other thing that I’m going to have to consider scheduling is the final phase of work for the sawlaw.com website. Linton said the client has finally finished writing the content. So we should be ready to finish this website up in the next few weeks. I also need to update Lintons arobasegroup.com website. I figure I’ll just do all this at the same time, that way I can keep all that FLASH thought and method in my head. Was updating cherrylipped.com the other day to add temporary frontside links since the main site is still under construction and I had the damndest time remembering all my hot keys. I’m using too many applications everyday for me to remember all of FLASH’s little bits.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 06, 2005
—————
BARKER - Ingenuousness of Anal Sex (postcard)



INGENUOUSNESS OF ANAL SEX

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Kutzbach - Newman - Weiss - York

I decided today to add 4 new people to my correspondence list for 2005.

Kutzbach - New York
Newman - Georgia
Weiss - Florida
York - Michigan

I won't be sending them the same bulk of mail that I've been sending Barker to begin with. More than likely I'll start off by sending them each something once a week and probably based on a set theme and standard. I'll start it that way and if any of the new people start to send lots of corr. back, I will up the proportion of corr. to meet their response. I figure Newman will be the only one to really do this, since it was him that I started doing correspondences with back in 2002 — Media Mail.


NEWMAN - MEDIA MAIL 00A: WE'RE GLAD YOU ARE HERE (12.26.01)


SCHAEFER - MEDIA MAIL 00B: WE LOVE TO SEE YOU SMILE (01.02.02)

Unfortunately that project started getting too technical in terms of the works and the time invested into each piece was taking away from the purity of the correspondence. We ended the project shortly after I got laid off, but I'm sure he'll be excited to get evolved with something of this sort again. I remember it was always an idea of his to simply send small format art (postcard) instead of the bulky works the Media Mail series was becoming. Maybe Newman and I can start the Thomas Sullivan Magnum III Fan Club or even the Jonathan Quayle Higgins III Fan Club.



Weiss will be an interesting correspondence... I'm sure most of the work he'll send will feature the pretty women he's so fond of photographing. He's been wanting to do work with me for a while, I remember discussing it in NYC when he still lived there. But as with most of my friends, I return phone calls not as often as I should and he probably thinks I've died. Maybe I'll send him initially some correspondences that are similar to the On Karwara 'I'm still alive' telegrams. I think it'll be a pleasant surprise for him to start receiving correspondences of this sort.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

100 Small Works — Concepts

Last night around 2am, I came up with some interesting ways for making the frames for the 100 Small Works: New York City Barstool Baptisms set. Besides using some really heavily guilded frames, I plan on adding sculpted babies to each corner of the frame. I'll use those plastic ones I purchased from Junk Man's in 2004. I'll heat and bend them into different positions (ecstasy/torment) for the top/bottom heaven-hell contrasts.

Also had a great idea for the 100 Small Works: Hot, Young & Eager on 25¢ a Day set. It involves the fragmenting and spacing of pornographic pictures to create a large scale abstracted image... I think it's gonna work out wonderfully and really help build up the layering that is needed in these pieces. Each grided piece will be 1/8 x 1/8 square - separated on all sides by 1/8. Up close the image will disappear but from a distance it should come into focus. I'm planing to hand paint each square based on the segmented originals. Each of the 20 works will have about 100+ squares in each... and I plan the repeat the technique at least 2 times on each piece, with the second phase being one image that is spread across all 20 works. The layering and measurements involved in this are gonna be very ordered, yet very chaotic.

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 04, 2005
—————
BARKER - Birds/Birdfood 02 (postcard)

Monday, January 03, 2005

Barker Correspondence

Completed a large set of correspondences for Aaron today... 30 in all, with about 25 more waiting to be completed. I'm going to attempt to send out at the least 4 of these mailings a week for the entire year. 4 x 52 =208 total // I did a large number of blue Jughead cards again called 'Omitted Jughead'. Like Richie Rich, Jughead is going to become a central figure in a lot of work to come... he's going to be my Christ figure. He wears a crown and I'm saying he's a jew... works for me.

Also started a Ray Johnson'esk fan club mailing too. John Wayne Fan Club - complete with John Wayne stamps. I'm pretty sure Aaron knows about Johnson... in a correspondence I got from him in August 2004 he pasted a clipping from a book that mentioned him among other people. This first fan club letter is a neat little envelope with a 8.5 x 11 drawing inside with Blue Jughead's and a young picture of Johnson in the middle with a jughead head asking "Moticos! Moticos! What is a moticos!". I also did a nice little play on words too – put the letters RA on it (Ray Johnson, sun god Ra, RA periodic table for Radium) Also added UR CR ANIUM (uranium/cranium/your cranium).

MAILING TRANSFERRAL
JANUARY 03, 2005
—————
BARKER - Birds/Birdfood 01 (postcard)

Sunday, January 02, 2005

Barker Correspondence

Began to file away all of Barkers correspondence today in clear page folio books. (3 books) They look really good.. it's nice to be able to flip through them and be able to see both sides. I also like the fact that people can't touch them, the last thing I want is for them to get altered or destroyed. Some of the cards are very delicate, especially the roach card. It must have lost one of its 44 papers when it was getting mailed. I have to give it to him for that card though.. kids got some balls sending me roaches fixed onto a postcard... I mean, at least I paint over all my paraphernalia white. Neither of us put return addresses on our drug mailings — how clever of you Trouble McGee


BARKER CORRESPONDENCE #19


SCHAEFER CORRESPONDENCE #06

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Zimmerman Correspondence

Well 2004 is finally over so now I can finally send Cassandra her mailings. I'm syked to finally get these 5 works done.. I can't wait to mail them. This too has been a difficult work to keep under wraps. It's such a funny concept and I'll finally get my payback for the cat-hair box correspondence from her on July 20, 2004. Here is the break down of the works:

Heart to Heart Day Alteration

PART AA — July 20, 2004 — REFUSE v. 1: to decline to accept : REJECT (performance piece)

PART AB — August 11, 2004 — REFUSE v. 2: to show or express unwillingness to do or comply with : DENY (performance piece)

PART AC — October 31, 2004 — REFUSE v. 3: to give up : RENOUNCE (performance piece)

PART AD — December 10, 2004 — REFUSE v. 4: to withhold acceptance, compliance, or permissioin (performance piece)

PART AE — July 20 - December 31, 2004 — REFUSE n. 1: the worthless or useless part of something : LEAVINGS (correspondence piece)