John Held, Jr. Papers Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Key to the Collection: Correspondence 1976-1995 Part IV Brown, Jean (Tyringham, Massachusetts) When I read Katherine Kuh's article, Preservation of the Avant-Garde, in the October 30, 1976 issue of the Saturday Review, it changed my life. Just a month earlier, I had found out about Mail Art and had written to Ray Johnson (see file United States) and E. M. Plunkett (see file United States), inquiring about the field. What I had first assumed to be a very underground art, was now being discussed in a highly respected publication, written by a distinguished art critic. In her essay on collector Jean Brown, Kuh wrote, "It is always the marginal she stresses-such manifestations as concrete poetry, rubber stamp art, the vagaries of video. She is after elusive connections, the small interstices that relate the recent past to less publicized present-day directions...Other borderline movements she considers extensions of Dada and also perhaps Fluxus are Postcard Art and Lettrisme. For some years certain artists have denounced what they view as the sterility of museums and private galleries. They resent, too, the difficulty of breaking through the official barriers that prevent them from reaching a public, and as a result they are turning to 'mail art' via postcards and letters." From Johnson and Plunkett, I was beginning to learn the process of Mail Art. After writing to Jean Brown, requesting an appointment to view her collection (she was living some ninety miles from Utica, New York, where I was residing), and visiting her at her Shaker Seed House in Tyringham, situated in the Berkshires, I began to understand the context of these art forms. I heard about Fluxus for the first time. I was introduced to George Maciunas, with Jean arranging for me to stay overnight at his Great Barrington farmhouse, not far from her. In short, Jean Brown opened up a new world to me, starting me on a path I still navigate. What we had in common was a background in public librarianship and an innate curiosity for contemporary art. Unlike myself, a young librarian with a family just beginning to find himself, Jean and her husband Leonard, were early collectors of Dada and Surrealistic ephemera, at a time in the early fifties, when this material went begging. When she was introduced to Maciunas in the early sixties, she developed a new passion, becoming the "Denmother of Fluxus," sheltering and supporting her little hens as best she could. Her archive and stationary were designed by Maciunas. She helped Dick Higgins (see file United States) by storing his Something Else Press Archives in her attic. Ken Friedman (see file United States)) spent days in the archive researching. When John Lennon and Yoko Ono came to visit her and see the archive, the little town of Tyringham went wild. She was chauffeur to Duchamp, who responded to her question during their excursion, about the scarcity of spirituality in contemporary art, "What will happen to serious artists who hope to retain these qualities in their work?," answered with the remark, "They will go underground." Jean became my best friend and confidant, guiding me through the breakup of my marriage, as well as escorting me through the twists and turns of the world of alternative art. This is my complete correspondence with Jean Brown. Shortly before she died in 1994 at the age of 83, The Jean Brown Collection was acquired by The Getty Center for the Arts and Humanities (See file United States).    53 letters 18 postcards 8 loose notes 1977-1991 Burch, Charlton (Birmingham, Michigan) Editor and publisher of the slick alternative arts magazine, Lightworks, Burch published my article, "Mind the Gap: Bridging Art and Life During a One-Week Mail Art Performance Party in London," in issue 20/21, 1990. Much of the correspondence focuses on preparations for the article. Burch featured a number of Mail Art and Fluxus related stories in his publications.   4 letters 3 postcards 1986-1991 Chew, C. T.  (Seattle, Washington) One of the most talented artist postage stamp artists, Chew has always hovered on the edge of Mail Art, associating with Seattle Mail Artists such as Dogfish (see file United States) and Bugpost, as well as collaborating with E. F. Higgins. Chew, however, considers himself a mainstream artist. He views his artist postage stamps as fine art prints, rather than as part of the Mail Art process, as many in the field do. Designed on the computer, his artistamp works are highly detailed and colorful. Examples are affixed to the envelope. 1 letter 2 loose notes 1987-1991 Cleveland, Buster (Long Island City, New York) A member of the Bay Area Dada group, and a organizer of the Inter Dada 80 (see file USA) festival staged in Ukiah, California, the late Buster Cleveland, was a crossover artist, maintaining ties in both Mail Art and the East Village art scene, where he exhibited at Gracie Mansion Gallery. Cleveland and E. F. Higgins were fixtures in Soho and the East Village, performing on street corners covered with Cavellini stickers (see file Italy). Cleveland was a talented photocopy collagist, and produced a number of artist postage stamps. Towards the end of his life, Cleveland did a series of monthly postcards on the theme, Art For Um. 2 letters 1 postcard 1989-1993 Cole, David (Brooklyn, New York) A poet and painter bringing a deep spirituality to his work, Cole's watercolor envelopes are visual jewels, documenting the life of his fictional Paumonock Traveller. Cole curated the 1985 exhibit, The Scroll Unrolls, shown at the Janco-Dada Museum, Einhod, Israel, which produced one of the finest Mail Art catalogs ever published. He was one of the first Mail Artists to incorporate computer graphics in his correspondence activities. 3 letters 1 postcard 1987-1990 Cook, Geoffrey (Berkeley, California) Bay Area artist Geoffrey Cook spearheaded the Mail Art letter writing campaign to secure the release of Uruguayan artists Clemente Padin (see file Uruguay) and Jorge Caraballo (see file Uruguay), who were imprisoned for their Mail Art activism in 1977. A poet, critic, historian and Pakistani spy, Cook has taken part in many Bay Area Dada projects over the years. 3 letters 1992 Corbett, M. B. [AKA Tensetedoned] (Preston Park, Pennsylvania) Publisher of the Mail Art assembling zine, Tensetendoned, Corbett is one of the great rubber stamp designers in Mail Art. Many of his designs are based on variations of Cavellini's (see file Italy) Mail Art Bull, in which sections of the animal are marked, not with cuts of meat, but with the creators' correspondents. Corbetts' variations take the appearance of skeletons, machines, anatomical charts and prisms, containing the names of art movements and art historical personalities, as well as his correspondents. Corbett also produces poetic stickers, widely distributed within the Mail Art network.   2 letters 1 postcard 1992-1994 Corrato, Mark and Mel [AKA Fa Ga Ga Ga] (Youngstown, Ohio) One of the wittiest minds in Mail Art, Fa Ga Ga Ga issued an outstanding postcard series based on humorous happenings, puns, and in-jokes connected with the Network. During the 1992 Networker Congress year, Corrato edited, The Face of the Congress, which reproduced photographs from various events during the year. The Corratos visited the Soviet Union, and were in Leningrad visiting the Yudins (see file Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and Eugene Shashkin (see file Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), when the Soviet Union collapsed. The following year, they returned to mount a cooperative Mail Art show with their Russian counterparts. Much of their work is based on Ray Johnson (see file United States). 9 letters 18 postcards 1990-1995 Crane, Michael (Sacramento, California) Co-author (with Mary Stofflet) of the seminal Mail Art publication, Correspondence Art: Source Book for the Network of International Postal Art Activity (Contemporary Art Press, 1984), Crane conducted research on the field by polling participants before the book was published. Included in the file is a questionnaire circulated by Crane, addressing such topics as shows participated in, articles and reviews mentioned in, and correspondents. Major shows, publications and Mail Art participants are listed for checking off, making this an important document of seventies Mail Art. A listing of contributors to the project, as of June 15, 1977, is also included. 2 letters 1 loose note 1977-1978 Craven, Richard  [AKA Richard C., richard] (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) A member of the New York Correspondence School, and curator of the 1976 exhibition, Correspondence: An Exhibition of the Letters of Ray Johnson, held at the North Carolina Museum of Art, which was accompanied by an important catalog of Johnson's (see file United States) work, Craven also produces a series of Poetry Postcards, displaying a Duchampian (and Johnsonian) propensity toward wordplay and wit. 3 letters 5 postcards 1981-1987 Danky, James (Madison, Wisconsin) A Newspaper and Periodical Librarian at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Danky is an editor of Alternative Library Literature, and an advocate for zine collections in libraries. 1 letter 1 postcard 1993-1994 Darling, Lowell (Oakland, California) An important early Mail Artist, active in the late sixties and early seventies, Darling is well-known for his campaigns for public office, including a race for Governor of California, detailed in his book, One Hand Shaking: A California Campaign Diary. His Fat City School of Finds Art degrees were widely distributed in the seventies. Darling was the organizer of the Hollywood Deccadance, which brought together a multitude of Mail Artists from the United States and Canada in 1974. This was a seminal event, drawing inspiration from Ray Johnson's (see file United States) New York Correspondance School Meetings in the sixties, and influencing later Mail Art events, such as the Mail Art Congresses of 1986 and the Networker Congresses of 1992. 1 letter 1983 Dazar [Omahaha] (Omaha, Nebraska) A participant in the Southwest Decentralized Mail Art Congress, which I organized in 1986, Dazar was a correspondent of Al Ackerman (see file United States), buZ blurr (see file United States), Fran Rutkovsky and many others. She was a talented producer of artist postage stamps, and a recycler of Mail Art imagery. Her file includes an "add and pass" letter first begun by Ray Johnson (see file United States), sent to John Evans (see file United States), before being forwarded to Al Ackerman (see file United States) and Fran Rutovsky, before Dazar received the work and passed it along to me. This particular letter is a masterpiece of Mail Art, a visually compelling and conceptually challenging work, exemplifying the cooperative nature of the networking experience.  4 letters 1 postcard 1986-1987 Davidson Galleries (Seattle, Washington) The Northwest United States is a vital center of artist postage stamp activity, with Seattle as the hub. Carl Chew (see file United States), Dogfish (see file United States) and Bugpost are all active artistamp producers, each with their own specialty. Add Vancouver, British Columbia into the mix, with Ed Varney (see file Canada), the editor of Artistamp News, Jas. Felter (see file Canada) and Anna Banana, all active participants in the field, and the Northwest becomes something of an artistamp juggernaut. Capitalizing on this, the Davidson Galleries have hosted several International Artistamp Biennials, marking a major incorporation of this fugitive art form into the mainstream fine art print community. 1 letter 1 postcard 1990-1993 DeSirey, Jan, and Dodge, Chris (Minneapolis, Minnesota). Not only married and working together at the North Hennepin Public Library System, this couple also finds time to edit the informative library zine, MSSRT Newsletter. Chris and Jan's reviews of alternative  library materials are one of my primary sources for staying in touch with the small press underground. As a former public librarian, I admire Desirey/Dodge for their liberal dedication and survival in an often hostile environment. 11 letters 1988-1991 Dogfish [Robert Rudine] (Seattle, Washington) Postmaster of Tui-Tui, Dogfish is one of the most mysterious Mail Art figures. A philatelist, creating cancellation stamps, rubber stamps and first day covers, much of his work is based on Northwest Native American folklore. A native of Dallas, Rudine and I met several times when he was in the area visiting family, as well as various artistamp functions such as Harley's (see file United States) Oberlin College exhibit, Corresponding Worlds, and the 1986 Southwest USA Mail Art Congress. Dogfish artist postage stamps are often high-quality color off printed works, easily passing as legitimate postage from some exotic culture. Many of his artist postage stamps are affixed, and rubber stamps impressed, to the envelopes and postcards. 8 letters 6 postcards 1986-1991 Dunn, Lloyd (Iowa City, Iowa) Dunn had a rather short, but focused and ferocious, life span in Mail Art. As the editor of Retrofuturinsm and Yawn, and the publisher of Networker Statements (with Stephen Perkins [see file United States]) in 1992, Dunn blended situationist desktop graphics with Mail Art concepts of Neoism, plagiarism, networker congressing and Art Strike. I often used Dunn as an example when I talked to Mike Gunderloy (see file United States), publisher of Factsheet Five, about the link between zines and Mail Art. Included is an address list printed out from Dunn's Hypercard stack, containing some three-hundred international artists involved in alternative culture. 9 letters 1991-1993 Durland, Steve (Santa Monica, California) I received several of Durland's Tacit postcard formatted zines in the late seventies, at which time he was an active participant in Mail Art. I was always disappointed and a bit surprised that Durland didn't mention Mail Art when he assumed editorship of High Performance magazine, the most influential Performance Art magazine of the eighties. Many of my questions were answered in a round of correspondence we had concerning the relevancy of contemporary Mail Art. "The Mail Art network has always been a bit of a philosophical problem for us editorially. Having observed it carefully from both the inside and the outside, it's my personal feeling that, as far-reaching as it is, it is also self-congratulatory and hermetic, and seldom has much resonance beyond the network itself...Other writers have argued in the past that by writing about the Mail Art network we would attract them as readers, but that has never proved to be the case. When we've done such in the past, all that has happened is that we've gotten lots of requests for free copies and lots of additional manuscripts. I don't recall having ever seen a Mail Artist on our subscription roles. Some Mail Artists get pretty upset when I say things like that. Hope you won't since it's not meant to be nasty. Just realistic from an outsider's perspective. The Mail Art network has never been able to resolve the contradiction between its professed anarchy and egalitarianism with its desire for historification. So I say more power to what it is, and offer a plea for recognition of what it isn't." My response and additional correspondence between us are included in the file.  2 letters 3 postcards 1 loose note Dyar, Mike [ AKA Eat Art] (San Francisco, California) Every time I see my name listed in a international Mail Art exhibition catalog, Mike Dyar's name is there as well. He's active and has been so since the seventies. This strenuous participation is balanced by a meditative interest in Cage, Beuys and Zen. His envelopes are often affixed with glazed leaves from various plants, making them an archivist's nightmare: they stick together. Dyar is, in good part, the reason why I moved to San Francisco from Dallas, and I see him on an almost weekly basis, as we both attend Wednesdays at Tom Marioni's Society of Independent Artists. 5 letters 1991-1995 Edwards. Jesse (Los Angeles, California) I first met Jesse Edwards in San Francisco, when I attended Inter Dada 84 (see file United States). He was living in San Francisco at the time, collecting Mail Art works for his J. E. S. Archives, one of the few people I met who was seriously engaged in amassing work in the field. Our early correspondence discusses various trades of work. Edwards moved to Los Angeles in the mid-eighties, where he worked in an art packing and moving company. 6 letters 5 postcards 1983-1993 Evans, John (New York, New York) An early correspondent of Ray Johnson (see file United States), and a charter member of Johnson's New York Correspondence School of Art, Evans is a widely exhibited artist. When we first began corresponding, Evans was showing at Cordier & Ekstrom gallery in New York, where he was showing his New Collage Diaries. His Avenue B School of Art has been a fixture in the Mail Art network for four decades. His recycled envelopes and letters, embellished with watercolor splotches, are Mail Art classics. 4 letters 1981-1994 Evans, Walt (Klamath Falls, Oregon) The closest Mail Art comes to having a resident folk artist, Evan's postcards are marked by wonderful ink  portraits and jam-packed writing. "In two years I've gotten to know many interesting people via M/A. One of the nice things about M/A  is you meet people who have so many ideas different about life than you, yet share their art with you. Also I have ended up swapping artworks with people who I started out just sending my simple drawings to." 2 postcards Circa 1992 Fallico, Arturo (Saratoga, California) One of the great visual designers in Mail Art, Fallico was introduced to Mail Art when he met Vittore Baroni (see file Italy), while studing abroad. I perforated Fallico's artist postage stamps for many years. 3 letters 1992 Francis, Harley [Harley] [Terra Candella] (Oberlin, Ohio) A Mail Artist active in the field of artist postage stamps, Harley has a thorough grounding in stamp collecting, often incorporating first-day covers, cancellation stamps, and other philatelic devices in his work. He organized the exhibition, Corresponding Worlds, at Oberlin College in 1987, which was accompanied by a panel composed of Mail Artists Michael Bidner (see file Canada), Ed Higgins, Judith Hoffberg (see file United States), Ed Varney (see file Canada), Chuck Welch (see file United States) and myself. The file contains a complete program of activities surrounding the weekend. Harley moved to Northern California in the early nineties, where he has continued his involvement with Mail Art. 10 letters 1 postcard 1985-1989 Frank, Peter (New York, New York) Involved in Fluxus through his association with Ken Friedman (see file United States), Frank is a respected art critic, currently (2000) writing for the L. A. Weekly. Frank wrote one of the first comprehensive overviews of the artist postage stamp medium, "Post Modernism: Artists' Stamps and Stamp Images," first published in the May-June 1987 of Art Express. The letter in the file is his standard response in three languages (English, French, German) to Mail Art exhibition contributions. "As of 1 January 1981, this statement is my participation in all mail art exhibitions and publications (certain postal formats excepted)." 1 letter 1984 Franklin Furnace (New York, New York) One of the great resources for artists' books and performance art in the United States, the  book archive was acquired by Clive Phillpot (see file United States) for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1984, Franklin Furnace hosted a controversial Mail Art exhibition under the curatorship of Dr. Ronny Cohen. For information on this seminal Mail Art event see the files of Carlo Pittore, John Jacobs, Gene Laughter, Lon Spiegelman and Chuck Welch (all files United States). The letter included in this file informs me of acceptance into the photocopy art exhibition, Copy Cats. 1 letter 1981 Friedman, Ken (New York, New York) A participant and historian of Fluxus, Friedman was also actively engaged in Mail Art in the late sixties and early seventies, and has always kept a proprietary eye on developments in both fields. Friedman has given freely of his expertise, and has written on occasions when I am conducting research, and commenting on the results. In regard to the essay, "Mail Art Networking in the Eighties," I wrote for H. R. Fricker's, I Am a Networker (Sometimes), Verlag Vexner, 1989, Friedman wrote, "In your writing about the early history of MA, there is one important issue I feel you overlooked: Ray Johnson created a poetic model for mail art, not a working social model. The Fluxus contribution was to create a social model, to flesh it out with approaches and models to the creation and management of exhibitions, and the development of a great many tools-such as the many mailing lists and information products, forms of 'zine publishing, etc.-that became working formats for the network." There is also an informative letter commenting on areas of Mail Art publishing to pursue in regard to my research for, Mail Art: An Annotated Bibliography. Friedman moved to Oslo, Norway, in the nineties. He edited, The Fluxus Reader (Academy Editions, 1999). His papers are part of The Archives of American Art.  10 letters 1 loose note Gaglione, William [Daddaland] (San Francisco, California) My closest collaborator in the Mail Art network, Gaglione has been active in the field since the late sixties. At a time when Mail Art was dominated by Ray Johnson and the New York Correspondence School, occasional participation by well-known mainstream artists, and the Fluxus group, Gaglione emerged as one of the first generation of artists strictly associated with Mail Art, seeing it as their primary artistic activity. Gaglione was the center of the Bay Area Dada group with Tim Mancusi (see file United States), Charles Chickadel, Anna Banana, Patricia Tavenner, Geoffrey Cook (see file United States), and others. Gaglione has been a leading artist in the rubber stamp art medium, publishing rubber stamp zines, organizing exhibitions, and in the early eighties, beginning his own rubber stamp company, Stamp Francisco. In 1995, I moved to San Francisco to become Curator of Gaglione's Stamp Art Gallery, producing a number of exhibitions and catalogs on leading artists in the fields of Mail Art, rubber stamp art and artist postage stamps. We have performed and published together as the Fake Picabia Bros. While we have usually communicated by telephone, rather then the mail, the file contains a number of letters between us, as well as rubber stamped envelopes, that contained posters for his Stamp Art Gallery exhibitions before I arrived in San Francisco. 33 letters 3 postcards 6 loose notes 1979-1995 Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities (Santa Monica, California) In preparation for a trip to Los Angeles, I wrote to the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities to request access to the Jean Brown (see file USA) Collection. I also included a paper I had written about Mail Art archives. Ladislav Pugel, an Intern in Special Collections, wrote in response, "Thank you for sending a copy of your paper, it raised some intriguing questions regarding the very nature of the 'art' of mail art and the morality of selling and/or institutionalizing mail art archives. Questions like those, which have no definite answer, are among my favorites. And I am glad to see that the opinions of the artists themselves are often wide-ranging. The history of mail art, and its publications would also be helpful to any scholars interested in the subject. I hope you will not mind if I include a copy of your paper in the accession files for the Jean Brown and Bern Porter collections" (April 4, 1991). 1 letter 1 loose note 1991 Greenberg, Clement (Norwich, New York) Formalist art critic and champion of the Abstract Expressionists,  I met Greenberg at an art/social function in Utica, New York. Inviting him to the Mid-York Library System, where I was a video librarian, I had Greenberg walk through the closed art stacks, talking about different books that caught his eye. I remember particularly his leafing through Tom Wolfe's, The Painted Word, commenting sarcastically, "I think I'm in that one." The postcard in this file reads as follows: "Dear Jonathan, Thanks for letter w. news & material. Glad yr show was such a success. (Both stampings on yr letter were beauiful, espcially the "Emphemeral" one, which was original.) At the moment I'm swamped w. reading, having to work up a talk for Paris, on Feb. 15, & at the saame time get the 7th chapter of my book going. What I'd very much want is for you & yr beautiful wife to visit me here some time (to stap at least overnight). Maybe we can contrive that in March. There's a small chance of my getting to Utica before then. Best wishes to you both, Clement Greenberg." (January 13, 1977). 1 postcard 1977    Greenberger, David B. (Brookline, Massachusetts) Greenberger worked in a nursing home, interviewing the residents on a wide variety of subjects and compiling the answers in a magazine called Duplex Planet. They were so authentic and life affirming, that the residents became underground cult heroes. Comic books were drawn about them. Bands put their words to music. Greenberger was one of my first correspondents. I loved receiving his postcards rubber stamped with the phrase, "World's 183rd Greatest Artist," typifying the hypocrisy of the art world that Mail Artists were rebelling against. 2 letters 3 postcards 1979-1985 Gunderloy, Mike (Rensselaer, New York) When I saw my first issue Mike Gunderloy's Factsheet Five in 1987, it was a revelation. Gunderloy had individually corralled an underground phenomena-the zine scene. Every issue of Factsheet Five would review hundreds of self-produced, usually photocopied, periodicals. While Mail Art captured the flavor of do-it-yourself art, zines were doing the same for publishing. Although Mail Artists were producing their own magazines, and had been doing so since the early seventies, the zine scene, composed of artists, poets, journal writers, and anyone else needing to get something off their chest, had been operating on a parallel track. Anyone sending in their zine to Gunderloy received a free copy of Factsheet Five. It was such an excellent publication, that people began creating zines just to get a free copy. Zine culture under Gunderloy exploded. I began contributing articles to Factsheet Five, including, "Eighties Mail Art Networking" (February 1990), and "Networking the Nineties" (April 1990), both of which were reprinted as introductory essays in my book, Mail Art: An Annotated Bibliography. When I mentioned in an issue of ND magazine (see Daniel Plunkett file, United States), that Gunderloy was running on a parallel course to Mail Art, but seemed oblivious to it, Gunderloy responded, "Saw your interview in the current issue of ND and figured that you might like to have copies of the enclosed (Gunderloy's previous publication, Madness) to add to your archives. This should also satisfy your curiosity as to my connections with mail art..." (July 18, 1988)    2 letters 1 loose note 1988-1990 Hall, Laurel [Gorey Laurie] (Whittier, California} Laurel Hall had several letters from Ray Johnson (see file United States) just before his death, and became something of an acolyte. "I received seven responses from him between October and December of last year. He called me in mid-November and we had a twenty-or-so minute conversation during which I was so unnerved by his call (actually I had to return his call) that I supposed he thought I was a pretty sad case. His last mail to me was sent December 7. It is something I think you'd be very interested to see. I think it announced his intention to die although at the time I received it I didn't read it that way" (April 1, 1995) 4 letters 1995 Hanson, Andy (Dallas, Texas) My best friend, while living in Dallas, Hanson and I shared an interest in rubber stamps, leading to his participation in the various Mail Art and performance events I organized. A society photographer for The Dallas Times Herald, Hanson was my "photographer of record," capturing Modern Realism exhibition openings, performance works, Mail Art Congresses, and the various Mail Art personalities that visited Dallas throughout my fourteen year tenure. Hanson had a photography show at Modern Realism, which attracted a number of Dallas luminaries, including several of the Hunts. 5 postcards 1991-1995                                                                                                                              Continue to Part V