THE MAIL-INTERVIEW WITH JOHN HELD JR. (PART-2)
(the SAN FRANSISCO period)

68

Started on 2-5-1996

RJ : Well John, I think it is time now to start the second part of our interview. During the first part of the interview you were living in Dallas, and now you are already some time in San Francisco. How big is the difference between Dallas and San Francisco?

Reply on 25-5-1996

JH : As I write this Ruud, I am in Helena, Montana, to open the Faux Post artist stamp exhibition on another of its travels, which will continue until 1998. I’m not sure if the European newspapers have reported much about it, but there is a man imprisoned here called the Unabomber. For twenty years he was sending bombs through the mail. So he’s like an extremist mail artist, right? I’m not sure mail art is as dangerous an activity as the actions of this terrorist (whose target was a technological society), but it is still my firm believe that mail art can be an agent of change, a subversive activity, a way of examining the society in which we live.

There is an exhibition now being formed in Germany, which is exploring the effect mail art had on the East German intellectual and artistic community. And just recently I’ve received a letter from Alexandor Jovanovic, documenting his Cage magazine, and the anti-embargo actions of himself and Tisma, Kamperelic, Bogdanovic, and Gogolyk in Yugoslavia. So here are but two instances of mail art playing an important role in the public sector, and the power it has to effect ideas. Between my move from Dallas to San Francisco, I have not changed my ideas about the importance of mail art in my life, and in that of society.

What changes have occured since my move from Dallas to San Francisco? Ruud, this has been the happiest and most productive period of my life. The differences of living in the two cities are great, and I’ll try to explain it to you.

You have to understand that the cultural climate in the United States has become more and more conservative in the nineties. Dallas is a particularly traditional city with its emphasis on business and as a stronghold of conservative religious feeling. When I left the city, I had a retrospective show of my years there and I was called an essentric in the critical reviews. Of course, I welcome the controversy. I would have been disapointed if all my ideas were totally embraced. I like to think of myself as an artist out of the mainstream, dealing with issues that most artists don’t even know exist, but still this reaction to my work was indicative of my stay in Dallas. I was an outsider. So I, like many of my fellow mail artists, reached out through the postal system to others that were more sympathetic to our view of life.

The artistic climate is completely different in San Francisco. It is one of the last bastions of liberal thought in the United States, and has a long history of tolerance (beatniks, the drug culture, gays). There is a whole community here that is engaged in the alternative arts.

As you know, I moved into an apartment with Ashley Parker Owens, the editor of “Global Mail”, and the subject of one of your Mail Interviews. When I lived in Dallas, I had very few people to talk to about mail art. Ashley and I are in constant dialogue about it. And with Ashley I have built in social life because we go to dinner together, for walks, and to events around the city. Ashley and I are very different people, but we understand each other. Ashley doesn’t save things like I do. After she enters her mail for listings in “Global Mail”, she passes it on to me. Ashley is concerned with the process of mail art, while I am also concerned with the preservation of its history. Ashley doesn’t believe in history, because it singles out certain people, to the exclusion of others. I don’t think that I operate in this way, although certain people are connected with ideas that I find interesting and deserve mention.

Ashley also has a broad reach into the zine community, and we’ve met a lot of people in this field. She sets up little dinners were we meet people who publish. I’m also reviewing for “Factsheet Five”, which is the big zine that reviews other zines. Seth Friedman is the editor, and I go over to his apartment to enter my reviews. I get to see the zines sent in for review and have gained a perspective on this huge publishing phenomena. Seth takes much of the really good stuff for himself to review, but I’ve become very interested in the sex zines, which is a whole sub-culture of various fetishes. I’m really curious about the sex subcultures of San Francisco. It’s a fascinating world that is at the forefront of preserving freedom of expression.

I haven’t even mentioned my work with Picasso Gaglione at the Stamp Art Gallery, which is really my main focus in San Francisco. Gaglione and I have corresponded since the mid seventies, when I first discovered mail art. We are on the same wavelength. We know the same people and are very much interested in the history of mail art.
Bill and I are hard workers. We know that we have an unique situation and we want to take advantage of it. Bill is a famous graphic artist, and his catalogs have always been real interesting. But now I am here to add some written texts to his design skills, and is’t just a perfect situation. We have two or three shows a month and we put together catalogs for many of them. So far we’ve done catalogs on Yves Klein (his “Blue Stamp” of 1957), Robert Watts (the Fluxus Artist), Andrej Tisma, M.B. Corbett, Yugoslavian Networkers, a travel diary of our trip to “Alternative Artfest” in Seattle and a visit to Western Front in Vancouver, Canada, Paulo Bruscky, Cavellini, and Ken Friedman. We’ve also done artistamp portfolios for E.F. Higgins, Donald Evans, and Harley. And since the gallery is connected with Stamp Fransisco rubber stamp company, we have done boxed sets of rubber stamps on the works of Tisma, Friedman, Corbett, Endre Tot, and Luce Fierens. We are going to New York City very soon to show all this work at Printed Matters bookstore, one of the leading artist book stores in the world.

Gaglione and I have also curated a show of “Our Fifty Favorite Mail Art Exhibition Catalogs” for the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art Library. It was a great show, and the first show that I know of that focused on this particular aspect of mail art.

Every month we organize performances of classic Fluxus works by people like Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Ben Vautier, and Robert Watts as part of the gallerys’ “Fluxfest 96”. We also have classes at the gallery and have featured Seth Friedman, about making zines, Mick Mather on eraser carving, and I gave a class on rubber stamp publications.

I’ve have also many friends in San Fransciso! Joolee Peeslee has just moved here from Boulder, Colorado. She’s a long time correspondent. Barbara Cooper is another correspondent I like very much also. Mike Dyar is a wonderful friend, and there are many others like Patricia Tavenner, Diana Mars (who works with Gaglione and me at the Gallery), Ted Purves, and Seth Mason.

There is an opportunity to meet interesting people here in San Fransisco, which I didn’t have in Dallas. I met Timothy Leary at a book signing party, and I did an interview with V. Vale of Re/Search publications, who is doing a two volume set on zines. I talked to him about the international zine scene, and the important role played by the mail art community.

RJ : Well, a long answer that triggers a lot of questions in my head. But first a question about the previous interview (Part-1). Did you get any reactions on the answers you gave?

Reply on 29-6-96

JH : Sorry for the very long answer to your first question. I was on a trip and was trapped on a plane. I had to do something. It’s hard for me to sit still.

I had some people mention that they read the interview. But I don’t have any specific memories about their response. It’s enough for me to put out signals, hoping that they will land in a place where it’s appreciated. You never know exactly what words will effect some people. I get enough indications that my work is appreciated to satisfy me, and I also get my fair share of criticism. I don’t let the good words me too high, or the negative ones too low. I do my work because it’s what interests me. I try not to get sidetracked by the opinions of people who don’t really know me or my work. I have very specific goals, both long range and short, which take a very sharp focus to complete.
RJ : Never say sorry for a long answer. I enjoyed reading about the changes because I am about to see San Francisco/USA for the first time myself. You mentioned that you have quite specif goals, both long range and short. You might guess I am curious about these goals….., especially the long range ones.

Reply on 1-8-1996

JH : Right now I’m very involved in the day-to-day activities of the Stamp Art Gallery, and we are half-way through our schedule for the year. In the next months we will be showing Guy Bleus, yourself, Pawel Petasz, and G