Thomas Arthur Schaefer
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Monday, October 31, 2016

Respect And Condesention Of Circles

Untitled (2016)
Photocopy and bumper sticker on cardstock
8.5 x 11 inches / 21.6 x 27.9 cm

MAILING TRANSFERRAL — OCTOBER 31, 2016
BARKER - Somewhere Betwixt 09 - 'The best prophet of the future is the past.' (4x6 postcard)
IZZY - Torquaret Channeling 01 (4x6 postcard)
WASSERMAN - Reiki Chieftain 01A (6x6 abstract postcard)

Today I took on a daunting task, but I had to tackle it. So the blog we are on right now lost all of it's images from 2014 back to it's beginning in 2004. This happened some months ago when I did some server transitioning. Some server issues and stuff just got lost. Or, more like bad backup on my part. So I spent most of my Halloween evening handing out candy and re-uploading years and years worth of images, post by post by post. So I'm quiting for the evening. I completed all the way thru 2011 to current. I wanted to make myself a note about what all this meant tonight, as I didn't produce any physical works today. Though this blog is a work in itself. It's good to remember what you do on a certain day and the reason for it.

This blog is an important artifact. It's title is just as important now, as when I pulled it together some 12 years ago. Suppositions, Slants & Suspicions — so appropriate. This blog is a ready retainer of my personal information, not unlike my sketchbooks, notebooks and journals. One never knows when one won't be around. In my current situtaion this thought is casting back on me every morning I wake up. When one has the ability to leave behind something that helps define and explain ones life, work, thoughts and beliefs — that thing holds great power. I've thought it for the last few months since getting back onto this blog again after recent events. I may have mentioned before, but it bears repeating. There is and will always remain a very large gap in content on this blog. The timeline is very specfic and it gives me pause every time I notice it. It's a powerful signature of events had and un-had.

Going through certain time periods today and having to figure out what photos were in what post, dug up a lot of old memories. Good or bad, old memories never leave you. Time is strange like that. We forget so much, but it only takes so little to trigger so much more. I'm happy I made it through those years today. It was worth the effort and time to look back and save what there was for the future. The rest of this 'restoration' project will have a different type of reflection on me. I'll wait a few days before I start the next section, 2010 - 2004. I need todays work to sink in and run its course.

I could have, of course, just left all the content lost or even just gone in deleting everything. Why not start fresh? But at that thought, I'm reminded of Robert Rauchenbergs 'Erased de Kooning Drawing'. It's a work I've actually had the pleasure to see in person. I stared at it for almost an hour and most everyone in the museum looked at me confused. Why is this man staring at a blank piece of old paper? But for me, that piece and that experience has had an enourmous impact on my current work. It helped me realize that nothing is ever really lost. All information is retained in some fashion. It's all a matter of how the viewer construes it. The power of 'Erased de Kooning Drawing' derives from the allure of the unseen and from the enigmatic nature of Rauschenberg’s decision to erase a de Kooning. The power of this blog for me currently derives from the allure of what was there and my introspective decision to un-erase it.

Here is me with 'Erased de Kooning Drawing' at the San Fran MOMA - June 2010

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