A Book I Must Own

A List of Art Which Would Be Destroyed If Ed Ruscha's Painting 'Los Angeles County Museum on Fire' Became Reality Today by Michael Crowe, 2011

There are so many things to love about this booklet: yet another artwork inspired by Ed Ruscha (I am keeping track), a list, definite numbers, a conceptual project that incorporates both art and writing, email correspondence with a librarian, ETC.

Then I discovered that he and Lenka Clayton, my favorite artist who incorporates a typewriter (and lists, and found objects and and and), are "art partners" who have been collaborating on Mysterious Letters since 2011.

From Lenka's website: "Michael Crowe and I are in the middle of writing a unique hand-written (or hand-typed) letter to every household in the world. So far we have written over 2,700 different letters to the residents of Cushendall, a small Northern Irish seaside town, the inhabitants of Polish Hill, Pittsburgh, everyone on a long street through St. Gallen, Switzerland, a suburb of Cologne, Germany, two streets in Paris France, and many, many people in Tilburg, Netherlands. Each letter is different, and where possible personally addressed. We sign them "love Michael & Lenka", and write in a chatty, friendly tone about topics of possible mutual interest; the weather, gentleness, Roseanne, etc."

Welcome to this evening's rabbit hole.

Alan Riddell's "Typewriter Art" (In all its 1970s glory)

Alan Riddell's Typewriter Art is making the rounds on the internet but I thought I would share some of my favorite pages (via). I can't help but think of early ASCII art and Me and You and Everyone We Know.

Sidenote: the best part of driving to a residency (something I have never done before) is the ability to pack a typewriter and two laptops.

Exposed a Roll of Film for the First Time in a Decade

Sent 17 January 2014. Owning a typewriter makes letter writing infinitely more interesting for me to write (and hopefully for one to receive).

School is Out For Winter

First things first, visit the library for reading material:

Conquer my fiction list that continues to grow rather than shrink.

Sleep for a week.

Prep for next semester.

Photograph water, edit images and print in an empty photo lab.

Visit this:

Maya Ben-Ezer, Shift Key (image courtesy of the above link)

Skyriter Eraser

A surprise arrived in my post office box yesterday - an old school eraser to accompany the Skyriter. I am banging out typewritten text for my new "Art about Instagram" side project. It is a slow process as each image is not instantaneous, rather an overly planned fabrication. For the first time in my life, I am participating in a form of social media that is public (yes, a photograph was made to express my horror of that action).

I am now embracing that I have six side projects occurring simultaneously rather than one large one. Accepting this was difficult to do. I am looking forward to the holidays AKA more studio time.

A Postcard Written by Robert Morris to Sam Wagstaff in 1967

On a typewriter no less... [image via]

(Two) Origins

I have a vague recollection of owning an old typewriter in graduate school. Perhaps I left it in Arizona or Oregon - I am not very sure. The last serious project that featured typing was Alive in Every Closet, an artist's book in my MFA thesis show.

Aunt Eleanor was a paranoid schizophrenic who unwrapped cigarette packs and wrote descriptions of people parked in front of her property on the foil. While sorting through the house where she died, I discovered similar characteristics between us - she was as orderly within her chaos as I am in my cleanliness - sometimes too fearful a prediction. In this series, I question my relationship with a woman I met only through the remnants of her possessions. She is my symbol of excessiveness and obsession - the one familial guilt shoved aside in a refusal to acknowledge her mental illness.

I miss the days of making ethyl acetate prints on kleenex and bags in the printmaking studio. I was fascinated by brown paper back then too. After completing this series, I challenged my future self to create a project focusing on my orderliness (AKA the neat freak disease). I'd like to think that Autobiography does that, not overtly but the white backgrounds are symbolic of all that is clean and organized in my world.

Jacqueline Suskin's "Poem Store"

[All images are from Jacqueline's website]

Watching the evolution of Jacqueline's Poem Store on twitter is another inspiration behind my desire to own a typewriter. She camps out at farmer's markets on the West Coast, transporting her machine, chair, table and umbrella on her bicycle. She types a poem in response to any requested subject on small, random sheets of paper in exchange for whatever price one is willing to pay. These actions happen quickly and spontaneously; the opportunity to live with her words is fleeting.

Sometimes people send her copies of the poems she writes. Many are available to view on her website and here are four that caught my eye:

If you are not in the vicinity of Los Angeles, Jacqueline offers the rest of us an opportunity to participate here. After spending nearly an hour with the Purchase page open on her website, struggling with how much to pay, I hereby resolve to complete the transaction before the week is over. I have a subject in mind but the price continues to evade me.

Ode to the Typewriter

James gave me a pre WW2 Smith Corona Skywriter this summer. I have wanted an old one  for some time, believing that having one in my possession would enhance my mail art participation. The "R" was bent and I finally found an elderly gentleman that fixed it in Indianapolis. [Dropping it off on the south side of town in a janitorial business was an adventure in and of itself.]

The interest in this analog activity is fascinating and more and more typewriters are cropping up. Renting a typewriter at a hotel is now a possibility in West Texas as are communal writing events on vintage machines in Seattle. Here are some artists that feature them in their sculptures, installations, and photographs.

Julie Wills, Words, 2011 [coal, beeswax, rabbit fur, thread]

 Heidi Kumao, Letter Never Sent, 2000 (video projection on typewriter)

Liza Lou, Trailer (Detail), 1998-2000

 Nik Mirus

Christophe Dillinger, Typewriter Series [typed directly onto 6x6 negatives]

Robert Cumming, Bad Night for Writing, 1974

Allyson Klutenkamper, Kafka, 2012

Kate Stone, The Anne Frank Room is Upstairs from the series At the Seams,