scattered notes on collecting (fwd)
Ryan Whyte
our server couldn't handle. If you're interested in seeing the jpg perhaps
contact him backchannel about it. -- Ryan]
From: Paul Lambert <ptlam...@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 09:03:50 -0700
To: "WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines"
<WRYT...@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Re: scattered notes on collecting
Scattered Notes on collecting 'Bark Paintings'
A woman I knew, my housemate in the late 70's through the end of the
eighties each morning went to the bins (the Goodwill As-Is) and would bring
home some bags of used clothes. This was a daily occurrence. As the clothes
and various fabric items began to accumulate in the house(this would be the
collection) I began to worry that the house would fill up with these bags of
clothes and what I like to call misc. fabric items. I don't believe she
viewed this as a problem. Ultimately she de-camped taking most of these
fabric items with her. I did have a party somewhat after she'd gone and
piled the left over clothes on the floor in a room as party favors.
There was a reoccurence ten or twelve years later when strange forces
underfoot she began bringing bags of these misc. fabric items to the house
again. This plan was detoured. I hired a Tibetan fellow named Monday to help
me go through this latest attempt at savaging the nuclear family. I decided
to set aside and save only what I call 50s table cloths. I regret in
retrospect disposing of the aprons from the same era but I can be rather
cold when faced with impending doom by misc. fabric.
I now have a collection of 50s tableclothes. There are at least 50 and might
be as many as 70. Unfortunately there is no curator to count them. I don't
have a kitchen table per se but thats not really the point is it? During the
same era I was drug along to a few estate sales or garage sales but if your
house is essentially a garage sale(I mean collection) why should you go to
another again and again? I acquired a few "Bark Paintings". As my
brother-in-law is Japanese and the "Bark Paintings" are made in Japan, once
therefore I mentioned that I collected "Japanese Art"
I had only a couple dozen of these paintings and so asked a fellow, a former
potter, who likes to go to these house sales to keep a look out for bark
art. He seems to buy me about ten a year. I don't think he gives the effort
much thought. He's really looking for books and records. The money for the
bark art is typically in the $5 to $10 range. One time at a garage sale I
bought a banana box full of used matchbooks. At a certain point I had a
garage sale and de-accessioned the matchbook collection.
At some point my Japanese brother-in-law came by and wanted to see my
"Japanese Art Collection". He seemed to react to the collection with
prolonged laughter. Unseemly and embarassed both for him and my poor dear
sister I quietly stepped back to let him regain his composure.
This "Dealer" who I buy the odd "Bark Painting" from almost always tells me
about larger more grand "Bark Paintings" that he did not get for me. Because
he was short of cash, because he was in a hurry to get to another sale, like
that. So why does he have to tell me he saw two large size beautiful "Bark
Paintings"? I don't even want the things anymore but I can't figure out how
to turn him off and he's so peculiarly diligent.
When I was a young man I would drive by this old guy who stood by the side
of the road preaching at passing cars. He lived on some waste land along the
hi-way out of town. In a sort of, the edges of an industrial part of town
before you got out into the country. There was this dusty collection of
cars. I assumed he collected abandoned Hudsons. I think he lived in one.
There was an upside down one, on its back, scrub shrubs and scraggly trees
growing around. Plus several tall rough wooden crosses stood like totem
poles amidst this tableau. Anyway I never met the guy. Drove by him a lot.
Usually on the bus as this was pre-car. It was the guy next door to him,
down the road that I met.
Now Stan was a collector and specifically told me he had plans to open a
museum in St. Louis Oregon. The center piece of this institution was to be a
cup and saucer collection sans cups. Hence simply the saucers for he was
down in the cups. He explained the advantages of foregoing the cups and
simply collecting the saucers. This predated my involvement with the UFO
Museum by several years. The UFO Museum being what I consider an off shoot
of the 24-Hour Church of Elvis/Where's the Art Gallery now sadly near
defunct the artifacts lay a mouldering in my basement garage. Vhats as
Stevie?
So in Stans yard arranged in neat rows were these coffee cans full of
saucers soaking in water being out of doors and Oregon its always soaking in
water you see. It was quite good looking over the entire outdoor temporary
setting of his collection. The city barbarians at the gate would come
periodically at the beheist of some misguided neighbor and clear the yard of
his acquisitions and haul the collection to the dump. Eventually they
foreclosed on Stan and he went to sleeping rough and pushing his collection
in a series of shopping carts.
He told me once people were following him and taking the carts dumping out
his stuff like that. One time I encountered him and he had 4 carts locked
together with a chain and he was moving them across town in increments.
When he still had his house I did some dumpster diving with Stan, but very
little. The scale of his collecting left little time for anything else. For
dumpster diving was a childhood vice that as an adult with a lawn mower, a
car, a house, the potential of gainful employment "a job" although far off
in the future always looming over me, and then of course my sweetheart
bringing all the bags of clothes home every day.
So one day she comes home with this lady who reminds me of Royalty and I was
to come to find out from a friend(and fellow Inist and future tag team
partner Isadoor Achmeds Bey aka the Braincrusher) who was a checker for the
bins that she was royalty. He said she was called the Queen of Ties or
something like that. She bought all the ties I guess. Anyway somehow her
husband knew these Frenchmen well and one Romanian who were artists and
poets in Paris.
So he introduced me at a distance to some of these Letterists and a bit
later the Inists. Starting in 1992 Gabriele-Aldo Bertozzi began inviting me
to Inist conferences and exhibitions in Italy, Spain, Finland and Argentina.
The current one is the fall: www.futuristi.it
We had one exhibition in Portland in ... a few years ago. At that time dear
Gerald aka Mr. Burns was still with us. Mr. Burns did a drawing that was in
LAFT around the time of his passing. I've attached it as a jpg.
It has something to do with Ling, the bark art collecting and the I-Ching.
Prior to Mr. Burns departure for points East he asked me to throw the
I-Ching on the idea of him going on this trip. I threw it once and it came
up #23 which means don't get out of bed and pull the covers up over your
head. Well he wanted to be sure so I threw it again and again it came up
#23. This is a very bad luck number. Just see what Burroughs has to say
about it. Anyway Gerald went on the trip and I believe he died on the 23rd.
Anyway thats when I got the news July 23rd 1997.
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Paul Lambert <ptlam...@earthlink.net>