Dear Blaise,
Thank you for the information regarding being a student at the Indiana University, School of Library and Information Science. I'm glad you've written to me because I am doing a project based around making correspondence with participants for 1 year and you've replied to one of my ads (not you personally I'm sure). But the replies I am receiving leads me into a momentary sneak into someone's life as they write back to me. But where do I go in my project? Do I archive the people, the letters, do I share? I am studying contemporary fine art and have an exhibition in 2 weeks. any advice ion the concepts of my project would be appreciated. Maybe the university has some worthwhile research I could pursue in this area?
Your Sincerely,
Diana
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Dear Diana,
ReplyDeleteYour questions fill in me a welling of deep regret and sorrow. I too, once, was a contemporary fine art student. This was in San Diego in the mid 80's, I had yellow trousers and two types of portable cassette player. Back then and there the art scene was one of much distrust between local, traditional type spray-paint artists and the newer wave of Blotting artists, like me. As I am sure you know, Blotting is (or was in 1984) a creative practice born out of the relaxed nudity laws in southern california in the late seventies. It involved the imprinting of a painted silhouette of a part of ones anatomy onto any surface, though, mostly, cars of German origin. All was going well with my practice and studies, until I fell pregnant with the child of noted librarian, Rhodes scholar, library theorist and regional squash champion Harlan J Pickle. It was a long summer, I saught refuge in the cold aisles of the reference section, Life magazine, Albert Eisenstadt, arousingly well lit pictures of zeppelins and minor European noble men, you get the idea. Blotting is not the type of thing a pregnant woman can do you know, lead based paint being what it is, that is toxic. 2 weeks until your exhibition is it? You would do well to simply attend, which is more than I ever did in my final year, covered as I was with reference cards and endless spoonfulls of cod liver oil. I retrained as a library assistant, married Harly, we moved with his job here, I put my paints away, forgot Blotting forever and dedicated the following decades to the raising of our daughter, Regicida, and her subsequent rehabilitation from a crumpling cheerleading neck injury - sustained during overtime, no medical cover. My main joy in these long, cold, book smelling and indexing years, has been the slim sliver of self respect I have garnered as a national level proponent of Origami, it might not be contemporary, but it's all i have here, squeezed between two large shelves of papers that my mildly affectionate husband has told me to sort into piles of keep and shred. To shred or not to shred. All I have to say is stay away from the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science, its turned me into a glorified messaging service. My daughter never calls, I think she finds me a little strange. I often wonder, what would have happened if I had continued on my odyssey of creative magnificence, imprinting every flat surface in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Fran, with a perfect coloured copy of my left cheek? What changes would have been observed in culture, in the world, in the role of women, who can say...But then, I get an email from someone like you, who wants help with their own activities and I am quite, quite useless. All I can think of is how much I miss that sweet, sweet smell of paint remover in the morning. Don't make the same mistake I did Diana, don't go to the reference section Diana, stay in the warm places and in the light, don't slip into the cool embrace of apathy and neglect, make sure you never over eat on a full moon.
You might try researching the knot based record keeping methods of the Aztecs too, thats always interesting.
Sincerely,
Blaise Pickle
Dear Blaise,
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of blotting before your mail, maybe it's too cold to catch on here in London what with the exposing of body parts. it sounds like fun. Unfortunately street art has now become corporate, and you can see a massive graffiti advert for converse in Shoreditch. I attempted the opposite whilst living in Paris two years ago, by taking down the ads on the metro and putting my own messages up, but it's a lot harder to do here.
But if you miss blotting so much, why not blott?
Best,
Leah