> contents / Mail-Art story ... / Mark Bloch /

Well friends, I want to tell you what happened when I sent out my first big batch of mail art in about 10 years. Make that 12. I think 1989 was the last time I actually did that.

By the way, the Word Strike may be ending soon. But don't hold your breath.

Anyway, thought you all would enjoy this. Only mail artists could truly appreciate the irony of this:

I have a list here. I always write down who I send to. At least I try. What do I do with them? Not much. They sit around for decades. Little dated lists of who I sent to, and, if I am lucky, what. I usually make those lists while I am in line at the post office. But not always. Anyway, so I made one. It was like old times. There I was all sweaty from carrying a huge bag of mail to the P.O. Discheveled. Out of breath. But you see, this is not a negative thing. I enjoy it. It is a very familiar feeling. It has always been a performance for me to go to the post office, or an Event ala George Brecht. Or Yoko Ono. If you could write it on a card, what would it say?

One of the things I have been doing this last decade plus has been thinking about these types of activities: events, performances, trips to the post office, etc. Once I sort them out perhaps the Word Strike will be over.

Anyway, there I was, jotting down who I was sending what to on the back of an old sticker I found in the post office lobby. Now mind you, I hadn't even gotten around a genuine mailing yet, this was just alot of stuff that had accumulated over the past twelve years and I wanted it off my plate. To clear the decks for a proper mailing, perhaps.

But anyway, that brings us to one, just one of the items:

Some background: I worked at ABCNews as a graphic artist and art director on their web site. That's what I did from mid 1997 until just recently when I couldn't take it anymore and quit. But that's another story. The point is that I did manage to make a couple of pieces of mail art, here and there, and like I say, not mail them, but at least I MADE them. A few of them made their way to work where I had a scanner and a zerox machine and lots of other groovy equipment. So I could fiddle about. Sometimes- on a rare occasion- I would bring my mail to work directly from the post office and fiddle around there. For some reason one piece caught my eye. I think it said RETURN TO and then it had a picture of a guy with his address underneath.

Well, as you can imagine, ABCNews, being a news organization, had alot of disturbing imagery lying around. For instance guns. And weapons. We had pictures of every conceiveable gun and tank and battleship at our disposal. With Americans being shot in the home, in the workplace and the school as well as in traffic on their way to these places, we did plenty of stories about firearms. Therefore a picture of a pistol was always nearby. I am not sure what moved me that but once upon a time I grapbbed such a picture, electronically, scanned the ADD TO RETURN TO image of the guy and made the gun point at his head. (After all, a man's temple is his body...)

That was months ago. Perhaps over a year ago. Time passes. One thing leads to another and PRESTO I am ready to do a little mail art. Don't ask me why. Well, actually, as me why I dare ya. But anyway, I did. I recently gathered up some 30 or 40 pieces of mail art and took them to the post office. I did my ritual. I stuffed envelopes, I rubber stmaped, I looked up addresses (this is the hard part for me) and I took them all down to the P.O. I stood in line. I made my list. I took my turn and conversed with the postal employee. Paert of my performance is that it always begins with some types of hostile exchange- usually on their part as they see my approach the window with irregularly-shaped mail by the sackful. But eventually it turns pleasant and downright entertaining as they, too, beome unwitting mail artists. (Notwithstanding the overuse of my most recent rubber stamp: LACKS WIT.)

Anway, the listy was made (and later discarded into a pile appropriately), the items were mailed and I returned home. Days passed. I enjoyed the once familiar feeling of wondering when each piece might arrive. I searched my being for remnants of a once-frequently-used extra-sensory radar for this sort of thing. As you know, mailartists sometimes get serendipitous jolts of joy as their dried saliva is being symettrically split by a letter opener or anxious index finger.

Never did I imagine what would happen next. About 3 or 4 days letter I came home from a few errands around town and I got a meesage on my answering machine. SOme nice woman called to tell me that a card I sent a non-mailart aquaintance had indeed arrived, but the guy no longer lived there. Thanks, lady. Very kind of you. Nice of you to call. But half way through listening to the message, the phone rang again. I think I am glad I was there to answer it.

A male voice asked "Is this Mark Bloch?" I replied that it was. He continued calmly but sternly, "Before I take this down to the police station, I'd just like to give you a chance to explain why you sent me a photo of myself with a gun pointing at my head."

There was a pause. It didn't take me long to remember the image. I'd only sent one like that. And there I had been, just days beofre, admiring it. Thinking about the lucky bastard who I was going to send it to. The only piece of mail art to a stranger I was going to send or intended to send, for about 12 years and perhaps longer. I had no idea why I had done it. Perhaps it was just the proximity to the gun image or the scanner or the whatever..... The fact is, I did do it and I was delighted with the results. Ten years off of mail art makes one more focused. Or at least it did with me. Many of you already ARE focused. It took me a ten year hiatus to achieve the level of serentity necessary to create a singular image of such power and clarity. And now the lucky recipient was on the line.

Of course I remembered it and I told him so. "Well, don't you know?" I asked of him. "Aren't you a mail artist?"

Ray Johnson once told me a story about this bottle he found with a note in it. Apparently some kid attached a note to a bottle or something and airlifted it with a helium balloon and of all the people in the world- Ray Johnson found it! Then Ray complained to me that when hew called the kid to talk to him about it, his mother was very suspicious and wouldn't let the child speak to Ray for more than a second. The reason I tell you this story is for Ray's description of the tragic irony of the tale: "Here this kid hit the jackpot and his mother wouldn't let him talk to me." Well that's about how I was starting to feel about the sweepstakes winner on the other end of my phone.

"I've done a little research about mail art," he explained. (A charming and wondrous sentence in itself- i assume he meant on the Internet but I never asked him. Let's all thank God that the world has changed for the better in THAT area in the last 12 years- a decade ago for one to have "done some research about mail art" might have taken several years IF one knew where to look- not to mention a no-expenses-paid trip to Tyringham, Massachusetts or Stuttgart, Germany. Or perhaps just to your house.) He continued, "But that doesn't give you the right to frighten my wife and I with a very serious and vicious attack...."

Etcetra etcetra etcetera. You get the...um... picture. This guy was pissed off. Somehow he had received some UNSOLICITED mail art from me. He was concerned. And scared. And now his fear had turned to anger. I tried to explain. I reasoned with him.

Eventually (the entire conversation lasted about 15 minutes. I stood there in disbelief with my coat still on next to my answering machine the entire time.) I figured out what MIGHT have happened. Although I am still not sure. Turns out this guy is an author. He sends out his photo to news organizations for his books to be reviewed and he MAY have sent one to ABC. Perhaps I needed it for work, perhjaps I just found it laying around. But somehow I thought it was mail art when it was not. This was a photo of a guy and he wanted it returned. Not ADDED TO and returned. Oops. And it is also interesting that while I am not one to make violent images- guns and dismemberment are not my thing- although I know for many mail artists it is- I did manage to- on this particular day, with this particular guy- make an image that, yes, COULD be interpreted as being quite violent and disturbing.

Well I could go on and on and in fact I already have, but that's enough. You get it. I finally send some mail art, this guy hits the jackpot and boom, art not spoken here. And the more I tried to explain, the angrier he seemed to get. Finally I realized I could continue gloating and preening over the effectiveness of my communication OR I could simplyu apologize to the guy and avoid a visit from the local police or perhaps John Ashcroft. So I told him I was so very sorry and it was not intentional and this part I left out the sentence fragment about how proud I was that I managed to scare the wits out of several of his family members.

I told him that he could keep the part about him but would he send the rest back to me. Not only did I want to document this marvbelous misunderstanding, but I also remembered admiring an additional piece of art I stuck inthere- a pice called How Mail Art Began and it was slick as all get out because I made it at work. It was a map of the world with arrows all over it. And I only made one. This is the type of throwaway gesture (another Ray Johnson term) that is quite easy to do at work but would take me months of planning and perfectionism if I ever elected to do as a mail art piece. So there I was admiring it in the P.O. line and wishing I wouldn't lose my place so that I could go xerox it and send it all of you./ But I never did. I simply said Fuck It and mailed it off to this guy. This guy I THOUGHT was a mail art newcomer and deserving of my most excellent work. In fact he could represent the ENTIRE gaggle of mail art newcomers circa 1989-2001 who would never get a god dmned thing from me because I "ve been too busy being a mail art old timer, which bascially means Giuve Me Back My Life Please, I got Stuff To Do. But this guy would be your proxy, your stand-in. He would get the gun-at-head masterpiece and as your added bonus for acting now this handy dandy How It All Began Mail Art World Map. So Fuck It I said bravely, I will NOT step out of line to document this, no. I will send him the one oand only original, even though it was computer generated. No file exists. No replica. No hard copy. No reasonable or unreasonable facsimile.

Which goes to show ya. Never resume mail arting after a decade hiatus. And ALWAYS get out of line to xerox stuff that is one of a kind. Because everything might change in the 12 year Word Strike period and now suddenly you could be living in Uruguay oir the USA and the police will come to your door to arrest you, the mail artist, or even worse, you will receive a phone call from someone who, despite their 15 minutes of mail art research, just doesn't understand.

Copyright © Mark Bloch - markb@echonyc.com