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Anna Banana (24 February 1940) - Mail-artist, performer, writer, publisher, artistamp artist - took her nick name at the age of 30, when she was attending a party on a mountain. A man who passed roughly made her fell over backwards into a box of bananas, "Anna Banana" was born. A name she did not give herself but a group of her students who called themselves the 'Monkey Patrol', started to call her earlier "Anna Banana. Around 1984 she changed her married name and took Anna Banana as her official name. She lives in British Columbia and has been an innovator, entrepreneur and critic in the Mail-Art network since 1971. As an artist she was one of a number of artists who pioneered an important branch of Mail-Art, when she created and distributed editions of original postage-size artworks called artistamps. Years later, she organised and curated exhibitions of artistamps by artists from many countries.

She began her artistic activities in 1971, playing 'Town Fool' in Victoria, BC, where she was born. With a self made costume from strips of fabric sewed together in rainbow progression, a rainbow pant-suit and topped with a foolish hat she went on the streets. When it became colder and with less tourists she decide as a former teacher to offer to teach arts and crafts for free in schools and organisations. To communicate her intentions to the citizens of Victoria, she published a newsletter called Banana Rag. Her first idea is to attract children for her free classes, so she went to some schools and passed out her newsletter directly to children. Yet her foolish appearance caused reserved reactions from the schools and were reported to the authorities. However, through this activity, she found several schools that welcomed her free activities. She also sent the newsletter to artist friends in Vancouver and through Gary Lee Nova (Canada) a member of 'Image Bank' she received a copy of their Image Bank Request List. This was a listing of artists and their address then active in the Mail-Art network, and a list of the sorts of images they would like to receive. She immediately made up a series of envelopes containing requested images for the addresses on the list and sent them a copy of the Banana Rag requesting they send her anything about bananas. Soon she received mail in return and this was her start as Mail-artist.

Till 1991 she published twenty nine issues of the Banana Rag, with only a break of two years after she returned to Canada from San Francisco (U.S.A.) in 1981. Initially it was related to her 'Town fool' activities, but after she moved to San Francisco in 1973, it focussed on banana news, art, clippings, ... received from the Mail-Art network. When she picked it up again in 1983, she focussed more on Mail-Art news, invitations, networking, but still included banana art and items as they appealed to her. In 1991, she converted it to Artistamp News, reflecting her more restricted interest in Mail-Art works and specifically in artistamps. Artistamp News is a twelve page newsletter, with reviews of exhibits, news, articles, feedback from networkers, artist profiles, Mail-Art invitations, and descriptions of new editions, over which some full-colour actual stamps were tipped in. All together she published eight issues and in 1996 she passed this publication on to Ed Varney (Canada), as it was taking too much of her time and financial resources.

"My own involvement was about providing a show place for Mail-Art, and documenting the process through VILE magazine and the Banana Rag. I felt that Mail-Art was a most significant movement, and needed to have a place, besides our individual mail-boxes, in which it could be seen by a larger audience. (although in fact, both publications circulated mostly within the network). During the 70's I was heavily involved through the production of these publications, and because of this work, many artists sent me their works, whereas if I hadn't been publishing, I might have received a great deal less. In the 90's I turned my focus on AN aspect of Mail-Art, producing Artistamp News, because the field had become so broad, it was impossible to cover and interact with it all." (A. Banana, personal interview, December, 2002)

In May 1973, two years after she came in full contact with Mail-Art she was on the road to meet her correspondents. She intended to drive across Canada, down the Eastern U.S.A., across the Southern States and up to the West Coast, searching for a place where she would live next. However, she went south into Washington, Oregon and California. In San Francisco she met with twelve of her Mail-Art connections, including the 'Bay Area Dadaists' group, Bill Gaglione, Tim Mancusi and Charles Chicatelli. She met also Monte Cazazza who occasionally collaborated with 'Bay Area Dada', Patricia Tavenner (aka. 'Mail Order Art' or 'Mail Queen'), Irene Dogmatic and 'Opal Nations'. She decided pretty quickly that San Francisco was the place for her to live. Before finally moving there she went on with the trip for another two months, meeting Mail-artists Lowell Darling in Los Angeles, several in Arizona and New Mexico, and Dana Atchley in Colorado. However she realised that there were too many problems and driving alone was not that much fun. While In San Francisco, she had met her future husband, and she knew that was where she wanted to live. She decided to quit the mega-trip, and headed back to San Francisco at the end of August, where she settled down for the next eight years, getting even more committed to Mail-Art with the publication of Vile magazine.

Vile which Anna started in 1974 turned out to be an important instrument in the expansion of the Mail-Art network in the seventies. It not only documented Mail-Art activity throughout the whole network, but it published contact addresses of international artists, giving the (artist) readers the possibility to contact other participants of the Mail-Art Network. Banana published Vile in 1974 and 1975, and then in collaboration with Bill Gaglione between 1976 and 1979. By 1980 Banana wanted to move on in other directions as it took too much time and cost to produce and mail the magazine. At that time, her relationship with Gaglione was falling apart and she returned to Vancouver in Canada. That move was followed by a two year silence in which she tried to quit Mail-Art however, in 1982 she applied for funding to produce About Vile, so that she could bring Vile to an official conclusion, using the materials that people had sent for it, and wrap up the years (1973-1981) in San Francisco. The book About Vile was published in 1983, and gave details about the seven issues that were published between 1974 and 1979. Once About Vile was published she needed the network to distribute the book. Which caught her up again in sending and receiving mail. She began publishing the Banana Rag again, with altered format and focus, making it more a Mail-Art information/forum, than the strictly banana content of the earlier editions.

To fund her activities and public events such as the Banana Olympics of 1975, she founded 'Banana Productions', a graphics business while she was in San Francisco. This "home based business" with a tax number was the business front for publishing Vile, Banana Rag, and later Artistamp News and International Art Post. Having business status gives her tax exemptions on the printing costs, and provided other work to get an income to cover living costs. She moved back to Vancouver, Canada in 1981, and, with the 1988 purchase of a Rosback rotary pin-hole perforator, she began publishing International Art Post, a speciality publication of artistamps for other artists. In the creation of artistamps, Banana was very active from 1976 through to 1998.

Networkers began making artistamps in the mid 1970's when the first colour Xerox machines came out. From the mid 1970's, the network expanded from about a hundred people to thousands, the wave of people flooding the network affected the quality of the work and increased demands for response. New people who joined the network often sent out quickly-reproduced impersonal art. Mail-artists dedicated to answering all mail found it impossible to keep up and many reconsidered their non-judgemental commitments to respond to all mail. Banana herself came to a conclusion: "I can't humanly relate to everyone; I don't have the time to commit, or money to finance so many communications. It's too overwhelming". After arriving at that point, she concentrated on one-to-one exchanges focusing on the artistamp medium, to narrow, instead of expand, her personal network. Banana came in contact with artistamps by Ed Higgins (U.S.A.) and Carl Chew (U.S.A.) in the mid seventies. She made her first ones in 1976, in response to an invitation by Ed Varney (Canada) which he reproduced on one of his 'anthology sheets'.

In 1976 - 1977, she produced her first two editions on a colour Xerox machine her neighbour Eleanor Kent (U.S.A.) had in her home in San Francisco. Eleanor introduced her also to Jeff Errick (U.S.A.) of 'Ephemera', a company which produced buttons, postcards and stamps. He gave her the possibility to perforate her stamps at 'Ephemera', in trade for copies of each edition. It wasn't until she moved back to Vancouver in 1981, that she gave her full attention to creating artistamps in a high quality of reproduction. The editions which Varney produced inspired her and her work at 'Intermedia Press' gave her the opportunity to learn the technology of full colour photo offset printing. Her initial editions done in 1976 were reproduced using colour Xerox. In 1984, she did a series commemorating the 'Inter-Dada '84' festival. An event which might be considered the first 'Decentralized Mail Art Congress', with Cavellini attending from Italy, Ed Higins from New York city, and a group of Los Angeles Mail-artists who came to San Francisco for it. The originals of all these editions were collages, as were her 15-sheet 'Euro-Tour Commemorative' edition which she did in 1987 after her '86 European trip. For 'Euro-Tour' editions, however, she used the brand new Canon Laser colour copier, which gave better reproduction than the earlier colour Xerox machines. During her work at 'Intermedia Press', she figured out the cost for a full-colour printed edition and circulated this information in 1987. This resulted in 1988 in the first two editions of International Art Post. The parody of an official medium of exchange and the reaction of the public are aspects that attracts her to artistamps, the possibility to put your own artwork on a stamp is another.

"The beauty of stamp art is that it doesn't take up a lot of room, doesn't require exotic equipment and supplies (other than a pin-hole perforator!). One doesn't have to have a huge studio in which to work. One can experiment with different medium without a big cost factor. One can produce a large body of work, and keep it all in one simple box on the shelf, or in an album. One can produce additional copies of an edition as they are required, rather than having to do a huge run all at once. One can send single sheets, or a whole show around the world without great expense, trade with other stamp makers, and produce limited editions at a relatively moderate cost." Janssen, R. (1995). [Interview with Anna Banana]. TAM Mail-Interview Project [WWW page]. URL http://www.iuoma.org/

Anna figured she could produce full colour, high quality printed editions at a price affordable by artists by ganging all the individual images onto one press sheet, printing, perforating, then separating five hundred sheets into the individual stamps. She calls these editions International Art Post, and she also produces private editions, in which the client takes the whole edition, with no separating out individual stamps. She curated an exhibit of artistamps from her personal collection, and exhibited it in 1998 as 'Artistamps from the International Mail-Art network' at the 'Sunshine Coast Art Center', in 1999 she exhibited an amended exhibit as the 'Popular Art of Postal Parody' at the 'Richmond Art Gallery', and in two thousand under the same title at 'Open Space' in Victoria, BC. In each of these exhibits, works by over 60 Mail-artists were shown.

Banana made her first performance in 1971, dressed as a banana. Through her town fool activities, she organised a parade entry of students from several schools where she was teaching art activities. From that time on performance was a part of her art practice, from single podium acts to large public events and she also travelled extensively as a performer. Her public work has always leaned in the interactive direction, with public participation as an essential part of the work. As 'Town Fool', she created interactive events, such as an 'April fool's day' contest where the public decorated a banana (for fool's day) or an Easter egg. She continued creating 'April fool's day' events after moving to San Francisco. The largest of these was the Banana Olympics, which she staged in 1975 in the 'Embarcadero Plaza", San Francisco. It was covered by three major newspapers and 'Co-op Radio', a non-commercial radio station did a live broadcast of the event. The Banana Olympics is a parody of the Olympic games, with a series of humorous races conducted on a track. Winners are decided not by who crosses the finish line first, but who does it with the most "appeal", so costume and style of performance were the deciding factors. Klaus Groh (Germany) and Marek Konecizy (Poland) came to be judges for the first event. Races such as the 'overhand banana throw', the 'hundred yards dash backwards', 'three-legged race', 'non-motorized vehicles race' were featured. Over hundred contestants from the public at large received degrees of 'Bananology' for their participation. In 1980, Anna's second Banana Olympics were sponsored by the 'Surrey Art Gallery' and the 'Canada Council', so she was able to pay for staffing and assistants. For that occasion, the Banana Olympics took place on an Olympic size track, so the setting was much better than in San Francisco, in terms of a parody.

"My favourite race in the 1980 B.O. was the Bureaucrat's marathon, in which contestants had to go around the entire track taking three steps forward, two backwards, and one to each side. This inspired by an official in the Surrey bureaucracy who tried to prevent the event (by not signing cheques) because he said it wasn't "art!" The curator persevered, and after a month or so delay, I was able to proceed. Other new races were the art race, in which contestants emulated artworks (a lovely picasso by a couple in masks) and a Venus di Milo that eroded as he went down the track until he was rolling on the ground . . . to name a few. The most popular of the new events, was the "appealing relay", in which team members had to pull on a girdle, walk down the track, remove it, and the next team member had to pull it on. Many contestants made their best performances in this race." (A. Banana, personal interview, August, 2003)

In San Francisco she did also a series of 'Dada Sound Poetry' events in collaboration with Gaglione and the 'Bay Area Dadaists'. They also produced two audio cassettes, one of Dada sound poetry and one of the Italian Futurist Sintesi. She and Bill Gaglione interpreted the Italian Futurist theatre for live performance, which they performed in 1978 in a festival at 'A Space' in Toronto and in twenty nine cities during their European tour that fall. Back in Canada, she presented the Banana Olympics in 1980 in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver. That fall, she and Gaglione did a fourteen city tour of Canada with an expanded program of Futurist theatre works they called Toward the Future. In the following years she has made numerous performances of several other performance works and workshops in Canada or abroad. After several solo works, she has concentrated on interactive events, as she found performing solo to be excruciating. In the 1980's and 1990's she travelled with banana-themed, interactive performance events such as an elaborate 1993 parody of a research study called Proof Positive that Germany is Going Bananas. In 'Proof' she appeared as Dr. Anna Freud Banana, dressed in a white lab coat with the embroidered badge of the Specific Research Institute, investigating the "new German Banana consciousness". She tested gallery goers in seven German cities for "Banana Syndrome", using a "bananized" version of the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) and her "roar shack" banana peel test cards. In 2001 she created her first technology-rich work at the 'Banff Centre for the Arts' where she battled with technology in a "nightmare" of incompatible files from her older system to Banff's newer ones, overworked technical support, and lighting and projection conflicts. But in spite of the "hair-tearing" technical traps, and due to Banana's extensive performance experience, the real-time interactive parody of a TV game show went smoothly.

At the beginning of the new century Anna's Mail-Art activities are greatly reduced as she moved in other directions. She became involved in the making and trading of Artist Trading Cards (ATC's ). Trading both by mail and with various artists, in her home town Roberts Creek where she introduced the activity. She also attends the monthly trading session organised by Bill Thomson (Canada) and Lois Klassen (Canada) in Vancouver. Beside her personal newsletters Banana Rag (1971-1991) and Artistamp News (1991-1996), Banana wrote articles about Mail-Art and Mail-artists for exhibition catalogues and publications such as Rubberstampmadness.

In 1995 Anna approached the 'National Postal Museum' of Canada about the possibility of their buying her archive, and they counter offered to purchase four hundred pieces, which Anna was to catalogue. These works will be used for educational purposes in the workshops they offer, and possibly to mount exhibitions from it in their little gallery within the 'Museum of Civilization' in Ottawa/Hull. Anna accepted their offer, with the notion that having at least some of her Mail-Art Archive in such a museum would set a good precedent, and perhaps later they would decide they should have it all, or that their purchasing this tiny portion of it would give it validity that might make some other institution take an interest.

Related Topics:

[01] Artistamp
[02] Banana Rag
[03] Network
[04] Exhibition
[05] Newsletter
[06] Image Bank
[07] Artistamp News
[08] Varney, Ed
[09] Bay Area Dada
[10] Gaglione, Bill
[11] Mancusi, Tim
[12] Cicatelli, Charles
[13] Monte Cazazza
[14] Tavenner, Patricia
[15] Dogmatic, Irene
[16] Darling, Lowell
[17] Atchley, Dana
[18] Vile
[19] Banana Olympics
[20] International Art Post
[21] Higgins, Ed
[22] Chew, Carl
[23] Errick, Jeff
[24] Decentralized Mail Art Congress
[25] Cavellini, Guglielmo Achille
[26] Inter-Dada
[27] Performance
[28] Groh, Klaus
[29] Konecizy, Marek
[30] Dada
[31] Futurism
[32] Artist trading card
[33] Thomson, Bill
[34] Klassen, Lois
[35] Post Museum
[36] Archive
[37] Catalogue

References:
[01] (A. Banana, personal interview, December, 2002)
[02] (A. Banana, personal interview, September, 2002)
[03] (A. Banana, personal interview, August, 2003)
[04] Honoria. (2002). contribution text from Honoria to "Mail-Art Encyclopaedia", U.S.A.
[05] Janssen, R. (1995). [Interview with Vittore Baroni]. TAM Mail-Interview Project [WWW page]. URL http://www.iuoma.org/ 

Date last update: 4 April 2004