Letter

I’ve spent the past couple weeks buying thrift-store frames, ripping out whatever art is in them, then taping in my own. I’ll be hanging my show at Firecat Projects a couple hours after this letter is posted. This is a sequence of activity I’ve repeated more times than I can count. The thoughts, hopes, and wishes throughout the process vary but in the aftermath I always find a way to pick up the pieces and do it again.

I don’t know what other artists, writers, musicians, whatever expect out of their events or publications. I’ve caught myself daydreaming all kinds of pie-in-the-sky scenarios. It’s probably necessary to play these mind-games in order to keep going. Each new thing is the one that’ll change everything. But what does that even mean? What’s the greatest possible outcome from an art show or a book published or a show played?

I’ve had shows that nearly sold out and others where nothing was bought. I can’t recall any particular reason one caught on and another didn’t. The process of making things is a lot of stumbling in the dark where audience or expectations or market forces are concerned. I’ve never had instinct for what people want or don’t want from me. I just keep going.

In the case of this show, the pieces are all illustrations for books that have recently been or will soon be published. Which means that framing and putting them up in a public place isn’t what they were originally made for. Usually, my artwork only does the one thing, that is, hangs on this or that wall. It’s a little bit of an experiment to display these artifacts from publishing projects as their own standalone thing. I did put a bunch of these in my summer Rainbo show and about half of them sold. So there’s reason for optimism, even if that’s not my inclination.

Stan Klein, who runs Firecat, is trying to sell the building that houses the gallery and MCM Framing, so there’s a chance the show might be cut short. I’m fine with that. Stan is a friend and maybe putting some of my stuff up on the walls will help a little. For all my other shows, there were posters and postcards printed at Stan’s expense but I told him not to do it this time. I made my own stenciled posters and flyers and left them a few places. That’s enough advertising this time around. I’d rather people discovered the show on their own. Maybe that’s naive or defeatist but I just don’t want to push it too much this time around.

The opening is this Friday, 7-10pm. Each piece is $50. I’ll have a checklist up on my website later this week for those who’d like a piece but can’t make it to Chicago.

Hope to hear from you one way or the other. That’s what it’s all about, even if I don’t always make that obvious.

K gave an in-depth video interview about her life in zines.

At Village Thrift, looking for frames, I come upon a boxed jigsaw puzzle that catches my eye. It’s a two-sided job. One side is a small town with lots of people and activity, kind of poor man’s Richard Scarry-style. The other is a police lineup with the townsfolk attacking the suspects with tomatoes, a rake, a bicycle wheel, and a purse that looks more like a turkey due to poor draftsmanship. The label says Grand Theft Auto but it looks nothing like the popular video game. It’s $5 so I buy it.

I tell K about it and she’s as baffled as me. We assemble it the next time she’s over. Now it hangs in the bathroom, perp lineup side out. Almost all the decor in there is from thrift stores—couple paint-by-numbers, some embroideries, an old print, a silly vintage PSA illo about wiping your ass.

I float the idea of going to estate sales sometime. A half hour later we’ve got a list of stops in a rough loop around Chicagoland and I’ve booked a car from Hertz for the next day.

The first stop is a very yuppie Lakeview house, the second, a gay couple’s pop-culture-filled treasure trove, the third, a Glenview home overrun by aggressive suburban bargain hunters. Each one a little microcosm. We don’t feel like we belong in any of them.

It’s not till the fourth place that we get our sealegs. I swipe a “Papa’s Lounge” matchbook from the old Polish house for K. At our next stop she takes a little chef pig fridge magnet in return. She scores a wool winter coat while I only find a couple pieces of silverware and a decorative gravy fat separator.

We eat a late lunch at the Red Apple Polish buffet way up Milwaukee. I feel very old complaining about how much their prices have gone up, recalling for the millionth time how I could eat five plates when I was in art school and that it cost $7. That was a long time ago. Two plates is pushing it now, even at $35 a pop.

The Hertz receipt says we traveled a hundred miles. Six sales and several suburbs. A lot of it was going back and forth on Harlem Avenue. Going into strangers’ houses is worthwhile, even if I didn’t find much. It’s a window into how others have lived and, at this point, I make a conscious effort not to buy things. It’s more amateur anthropology. Even though the occupants are very recently deceased or just moving, there’s a palpable sense of death in these dwellings.

Whatever we buy or swipe from these houses brings a trace of loss into our own lives.

You can now buy art from The Sound and the Fury or Winesburg, Ohio even though the books won’t be out till next year.

Speaking of stealing, I very much enjoyed Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, though thievery’s not really what it’s about.

Feels like I haven’t worked on anything new for months. It’s only been a couple weeks but I don’t have any firm concept of time. I overcompensate by being early everywhere, but, really, only right now ever feels real.

During last week’s trip east, talk got to the cupboard in my folks’ basement. It’s filled with maps and notes from decades of trips taken and not taken. My father and K agreed that planning for and anticipating travel, then reviewing and recalling it after is better the actual thing itself. I don’t understand any of that. But I always just wanna stay home.

The couple weeks before this trip I’d decided not to start anything new so as not to be frustrated by having to pause while I’m away. Intentionally not working on things is pretty damn frustrating but I got through it and, just as we were about to head back to Chicago, I got a green light I’d been waiting for.

Stan texted me with dates for a show we’d been discussing over the past few months. He’s been trying to sell his building, so all plans were up in the air. He’d hoped to be done with this a year ago but with the berserker wreaking havoc with the economy, real-estate enthusiasts are uncommonly skittish. He may have to hold onto the place a few more years. Having art shows in the frameshop showroom will hopefully not scare off would-be buyers.

The following Monday I hit Unique looking for small frames. Unfortunately, a middle-aged couple have gotten there before me. For ten minutes I stare daggers through their backs as they methodically pick through every available frame multiple times, their cart nearly tipping over with some fifty they’d already selected. The woman finally turns her head and innocently inquires whether I want access to the shelf. Having scored only scraps, I pedal up to the other Unique up on the Northwest Side. By the end of the day I have about ten new old frames.

The show will be a continuation of what was up in the display cases at the Rainbo in August. Sumi ink, graphite, and ballpoint illustrations from Moby Dick, Babbitt, The Marvel Universe, The Suicide’s Grave, The Sound and the Fury, and Winesburg, Ohio.

More details as they become available. It’s just good to be doing something again.