RECEIVED: Ray Johnson NY Correspondence School Icons from Richard Canard (Karmadale, Illusion, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

 

Mail-art by IUOMA member Richard Canard (Karmadale (Carbondale), Illusion (Illinois), USA (USA)

 

August 17, 2011 - The revered and enigmatic Richard Carnard, true disciple of Ray Johnson's eternal network, sent a second round of mail-art to me that I find not only thrilling but deeply moving.  Above is a chart I had not seen before, doubling as an add-and-pass, which is associated with the Book About Death project. (I could never in good conscience add my name to this list, Richard. "I'm not worthy.")

 

This family tree charts people "who were aesthetic symbols &/or members of [Ray Johnson's] New York Correspondence School." I might just as well call it a personal list of my own cultural heroes (only there's a bunch of poets I'd add). Many of us at the IUOMA engage in discussions about figures we admire, often incorporating them in our mail-art. I am struck how often our dialog touches upon these New York Correspondence School icons. Mail-artists across generations seem to be on the same page, although there are new names to add post-Ray.

 

Richard Canard also cerealized me - ce-real-ism. Kids today eagerly await their fake or real John M. Bennett and Diane Keys grocery lists. But cereal box mail-art is also a staple. I only recently became aware of this. Grigori Antonin (Minnesota, USA) and Batgirl (New York, USA), both orthodox Johnsonians, have sent me pieces of cereal boxes. Karen Champlin (Illinois, USA) remembers receiving cereal boxes from the original NY Correspondence School when, of course, she was very, very young. Here is the piece from Richard Canard:

 

 

I am a big fan of Richard Canard's correspondence and know he is capable of serious wordplay. I think you will find some on the cut-out above.

 

Richard Canard is also engaged in the Literary Division of the network: asemics, concrete, haptic and vispo. The asemic/haptic poem (aluminum drink can crushed by car tire) he sent to Geof Huth (NY, USA) last fall and Geof's wonderful response is already a legend among the fluXerati. Also included in this package with the cereal box is this (I consider it) visual poem. A total treasure, IMHO:

 

The faded LIFE magazine logo is beautiful and, of course, did not scan well. The Ray Johnson signature (real or fake? who knows?) on a popsicle stick adds a haptic dimension. Just a few days ago, Bifidus Jones (Minnesota, USA) posted a blog of Richard Canard's work. I commented to Bifidus that some contend Ray Johnson invented popart and Andy Warhol rode it into the sunset. IF Richard Canard's work (while highly original) represents the core Ray Johnson strain in mail-art, THEN I can definitely see the popart origins and continuity on this work that puts so much emphasis on materials that include cereal boxes, popsicle sticks, and magazine logos - the studied debris of mass culture. Here is the reverse side:

 

A wonderful mail-art package!!! Thank you - only: what to send to Richard Canard? 

 

 

[De Villo Sloan]

Putting this blog to bed, I had one more thought. Cheryl mentioned the similarity of "Book about Death" to the (Egyptian or Tibetan?) "Book of the Dead." She reminds me that Meikal And (Wisconsin} has done a wonderful vispo series called "Fluxus Book of the Dead." You can find it at Open Fluxus. A refrain in nearly all the pieces is: "Don't mess with Fluxus." Never have understood what that warning means... haven't talked to Meikal in a long, long time...

[De Villo Sloan]

I think Helen Amyes (Australia) had work in the first Book About Death show and she attended - long hike from Australia. 

 

We focused on popart and RJ & RC. Pieces of cereal boxes & popsicle sticks also fit the bill for found art, so there's that aspect of it too. Today maybe we call it pre-trashpo.

 

Thanks for the great comments.

[Thom Courcelle]

From Michael Orr.  It's a beauty.

[De Villo Sloan]

Thom, can I just be the scanner monkey & you write the commentary? You say EXACTLY what I feel when I see the family tree. I almost choked up, to be honest. Some are huge icons, and some are people who have touched our lives. I knew a poet, John Logan, whose apartment was filled with Morris Graves work. And it comes back to me now, and then I find you and I now have this in common. The earliest mail-art I received, when I didn't know what it was, my mailbox was flooded with work by Hannah Weiner - and there she is. Apparently many of us feel this way, and we might not have even known that all these things touch the network. I'm sure we all have these personal responses, and I deeply appreciate that Richard is circulating this.

 

As ever, thanks Nancy.

[Thom Courcelle]

Whoa... avast, maties, it's mail art treasure!  I get how you feel you could never add your name to that artwork, DVS, even though the piece invites. I would never be able to do such a thing either.  But I love how gracious and inviting the art is anyway--even without the blatant invitation--that I can read some of those names and recognize some of them as iconic, and read others and know that I have my own personal stories about them (I remember the first time I "met" Morris Graves--one of the Northwest's most famous expressionist painters... it was in La Conner, WA in a tiny little po-dunk gallery that was doing a retrospective exhibition of his work, and I fell in love...), and then seeing them cross referenced, and realizing that in some realm--the Ray Johnson-Richard Canard-eternal network-world--they all converged together to create a greater conglomerative/compendium understanding of the world... and are still doing so today because we are seeing this work and talking about them... well, now I'm getting too verbose to express this thought cogently, but I mean how I can see how we are rolled right into the same snowball with those icons and forefathers/foremothers, because we're doing and creating in the way that they showed us how.  It's only like "six degrees of separation from kevin Bacon."  In fact it's exactly like that!  So don't sell yourself short, man.  You're famous...

 

Lisa... THANKS for posting that video.  How have I missed Viv Maudlin before??? She's my new BFF.  Favorite line: "Oh, look... here's the tennis balls so's I don't put my eye out." (at minute 4:30).

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Just read it again. Am changing my word "great" to "exceptionally outstanding."

[Nancy Bell Scott]

Great post, DVS. I knew of the Book About Death project from Cecil Touchon's collage museum list, but just learned a lot more right here.

[De Villo Sloan]

Let the cereal boxes of the world converge upon me.

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Good to see you, Sloan! Me thinks you are about to have, in the not too distant future, a fine "International ceREAL Box" Collection...be prepared! 'Love the "POP" culture of Richard Canard, and his fine take off of "Illinois"...definitely "illusionary"! 'Tis special art here.

[De Villo Sloan]

And so Ray Johnson was very interested in icons like Marilyn Munroe, Judy Garland (1), and James Dean (right up there with Marilyn). Marie's blog has some great discussions about the fascination with Marilyn:

http://iuoma-network.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-heated-heart-from-...

Cheryl, I noticed Arthur Rimbaud is listed on the NY Correspondence School. You once asked me if anyone had heard of him. I think so.