Six New Poems by Dylan Zavagno! / Envelopes Take 3!

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The pieces that became these poems (arranged/written/glued by Dylan Zavagno) were the first envelopes that I made for this project. Even though I’ve never been interested in writing poetry, I’ve become fascinated by the process over the past year or two. Out of every creative act, writing seems to have the most level playing-field in a certain sense. Singing takes a certain physical ability – there’s something that someone like, I don’t know…Joanna Newsom does that most of us couldn’t. Even if her voice seems like a bunch of elf-squeaks (I like it), it’s obvious that most people aren’t able to make that type of sound. This extends to other types of art as well, the consideration of abilities and limitations. There are almost always financial limitations as well, and so many ideas can’t be realized because the artist lacks the means to fulfill their plan. It’s great when someone has the money to do something like THIS, but most of us never will.

Poetry became fascinating to me when I realized that none of these limitations were present. No materials have to be used up, it doesn’t have to consume anything or take up space. Also, it’s so weird to think of the fact that it’s just the careful arrangement of short phrases and usually entirely composed of words that I already know…it’s sort of amazing to think about being moved by a reorganization of stuff I’ve already heard and seen.

With this in mind I wanted to make a project that explored these thoughts. I wanted to test them and see if my belief in a sort of alchemic transformation could hold up. Starting the project, I worked from the finished works of others, taking tiny bits and pieces of texts apart (usually old National Geographics) hoping to turn them into something new. My goal was to take something, an article about a trip through a jungle, the fishing villages of a faraway country, or a shipwreck – and begin the process of turning it into something new. I wanted to work toward a full conversion of meaning and see what, if anything was left of the original intent.

I liked this process enough to do another one, and am maybe 24%? 38%? done with a sort of round-two/second version that I’ll post about soonish…

Another New One! / Thank You Hannah Robertson / Ye

God Defend New Zealand

After annoying everyone at the post office with my mountain of envelopes, it’s nice to see some finished products. It’s also been a nice surprise to learn that everyone else seems to finish stuff way faster than I do. Hannah Robertson sent me this last week, complete with a title: God Defend New Zealand.

If you’d like to see a slightly smaller version of this image, or lurk her blog that I just lurked, CLICK THIS ALL CAPS SECTION.

More. Art. Soon…Probably.

Destination Diagram!

These are the places that I’ve sent stuff to so far. I’m pretty bad with computers and just made a Google map. Oh well. Oh, and some are also going here! International=expensive and exciting.

better (two months) late than never…

Although my Valentine’s Day imaginary deadline is now in the distant past, I’m finally finishing my envelopes project this week!

A bit about the project:

Reading a fifty-year-old National Geographic at the kitchen table one night I had a thought. Inspired by fridge magnets and surrealist games I began to cut out words, almost at random. Whatever word or phrase jumped out at me was put into a pile. Oddly, after just a few of these pieces were removed from an article a theme would begin to emerge. What had been a story of a young couple circumnavigating the globe or a lone arctic explorer quickly morphed into a half-finished poem about childhood nostalgia or the feeling of slow recovery from illness. The shift from the original intention felt so powerful that I wanted to pass these unfinished poems on to someone else, to get even farther away from the author’s intention. This led to a planned collaboration with friend and poet Dylan Zavagno. As I worked on his ten envelopes of half-poems I realized how much I enjoyed the process of creative destruction. I didn’t want to stop, so I recruited other artists, contacting old friends and asking them about their work and interests. My goal is to partially destroy and also partially finish something, to send something that is meant to be both a gift and a curve ball. And now here I am, with fifty envelopes in hand and a mountain of messes in my recent past.

P.S. If I have not contacted you and you would like an envelope, please send your address and the specifics of your request to Dylanmaysick@gmail.com and I’ll do my best to surprise you.

P.P.S. Many/much thanks to Mike Mirza for shooting all those photos. Which I’ll try to post soon.