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| (photo by Estee Huff) |
as a child I loved the post office. I felt it was the center of communication just as the library was the center of information. to me these were sacred buildings as important to my development as our house & my schools.
when I moved to Palm Springs 5 years ago next month I had no house of my own at which to receive mail. I stayd at a friend's. so while looking for my own abode I got a post office box at the main p.o. downtown. I learnd later that this was once the p. o. box of actress Bonnie Bedelia whose film "Sordid Lives" is part of the city's history.
the post office opend in 1970 -- an example of "New Formalism." & it's officially closing at 3 this afternoon. the building is on tribal land & the local tribe will demolish it just as they did the historic hotel & spa. to honor its existence I knew I had to do a piece. I remember I had some address labels from my year as a box holder. I decided to put them on the postcards USPS gives out to send to friends & businesses. but when I came to the p.o. to get a batch I learnd that in this digital age they are no longer printd. my idea for the piece stalld. but then I rememberd I still had a cache of the envelopes I had printd for my mother's autograph collection. & this wd add another layer to the piece because Mom who loved mail wd be 100 this year.
then I recalld I had a sheet of the Marilyn Monroe stamps from 1995. I found the sheet & took it to town where I placed it on both her star on the Walk of Fame & the base for the returning & now controversial "Forever Marilyn." & then I put the stamps on the envelopes.
this morning I brought the 18 labels & 18 envelopes to the post office. I "performd" this documentation on the front portico for friends. then I went inside.I put the labels on the envelopes. in front of my old box -- #1525 -- I made a circle of the envelopes around myself (an homage to "85 Envelopes" which I did for Mom's birthday). after being photographd I scoopd up the circle & began distributing the envelopes.
tomorrow is moving day for the post office. it changes its address to Sunrise Way -- the thoroughfare off which I live.
3 comments:
how wonderful and fitting. i love how it came together from the many layers. i wish i could have been in attendance.
gary
thx Gary. you are one of the few people I know who were at my reading at the Palm Springs Art Museum. so somewhere you may still have one of my "85 Envelopes" which I handed out that nite.
lovely pics of your performance. i do love your marilyn mask! strange to think of things that we took for granted growing up in the 20th C, like printed usps postcards, are gone. these are indeed new days, a different world. the one we knew is gone. supplanted by ongoing deep structural changes into who knows what?
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