Finish strong

Iamnotdeadyet ends (2020)

If anyone cared to read the history of Iamnotdeadyet & Corporate Blues, they would encounter a gadabout of a project spanning 27 years. It has all the trappings of a Shakespeare tragedy, while its raconteur’s bon mots pivot the plot line from art to farce. As I write these words, Iamnotdeadyet is transforming into a museum, never to be touched again by the artist.

It’s with mixed feelings that I lay iamnotdeadyet to rest.  I walk away proud of what I created and wanted to share with the world: my yellowbelly & bluemeanie concepts, virtual canvases that require an investment of thought and time to really appreciate their intent.  

I look Marvelous, the final postcard invite, was a dud. An international pancake flop. After that experience I’m pretty sure I have expunged my compulsion to invite people to my website. This final bonus round was a laser-focused mailing, including 104 museums in the U.S. and other nations, and a sprinkling of galleries. It wasn’t the best timing to mail invites to museums when folks are quarantining at home. Then again, I thought, maybe they would have more free time to discover something new and unique.

I Look Marvelous Postcard. 2020

As the election approached, I switched to loading Instagram with all the new bonus time artwork, which was 33 pieces created from August through October. This resulted in only 2 likes and an occasional 3-5 likes per piece.  Not exactly the analytics I was hoping for.

Best Wishes. 2020

My 2004 artist statement still stands as the centerpiece of my work:  Time to come together.

Truly, best wishes to you all.

Not Deliverable. 2020

Anomie. 2021

Incorporated Gallery

Interactive artwork (February 16, 2004)

iamnotdeadyet was launched in 2004 with the help of Stephen Ludwig as a standalone gallery on the Internet. This Art to be seen website incorporated all of my past experiences into an interactive, international gallery available 24/7.

This web gallery was intended to expedite art quickly and provide easy access to the viewer. I envisioned that guests would roll over the artwork with their cursor and relevant symbols would be revealed, shedding light on the meaning of the digital artwork. Many of the original Corporate Blues pieces were reinterpreted into this new Incorporated Gallery format.

Legal investment

Trademarks (March 24, 2004)

I launched an ad campaign to introduce the world, or at least Los Angeles, to iamnotdeadyet. I was willing to invest both time and money into this venture. First order of business was to secure the website domain name, which I did, and own to this day- iamnotdeadyet.com.

Second order of business was to create all the art, which was an easy transition for me. Using my original shadow box works, I incorporated the same artist statement into corporate-inspired artwork, basically creating my own contemporary symbolic language.

In March of that year, I was referred to Greg Victoroff, a trademark lawyer in Century City. I believe the referral came from the gallery director that offered me the attic sauna (BGH Gallery). So something good came out of that exchange.

I called Greg and introduced myself, mentioned the name of my referral, and got the basics out of the way. He then proceeded to try to talk me into doing my own trademark work, which I found quite odd. That would be like dropping your car off at the mechanic only for him to tell you to fix your own car. 

Greg then asked me if I was a fax-guy or a phone-guy. I said I was an “in-person-guy” and that caught him off guard. I said I’d love to come meet him, and we made an appointment. When I arrived, he kept me waiting in his lobby for some time and finally brought me into his office. It was obvious by all of the stuff lying across his chairs that nobody else he worked with was an in-person guy. I think I was the only one. He spent several minutes carving out a spot for me to sit down. I wondered if I was being charged for that service. I was nervous because I had a piece in my portfolio that had two devils on a lawyer’s shoulders. He flipped through my works and didn’t mention that one. I liked him and was glad to meet him and shake his hand. How old school was that?

I wanted to trademark several things. First was the C.O.L.L.E.C.T.I.V.E., which was my fake company acronym representing each company partner’s name: Cohen, Lemky, Lemky and so on. Included in this package deal were the Company Logo and the tagline Art to be Seen. This was a pricy first step.

All the proposed words and artwork had to go through a comprehensive search of previous and existing marks. I received two books of information which stacked together were around 2 inches thick. Looking at my notes, I think the research alone was around $1,270.00. The good news was that I could trademark my stuff. The total investment to protect the aforementioned was around $4,500 dollars. The first round sent to the government was rejected, which I was getting used to, but pushed the actual approval of usage into 2005.

Advertising

Mini-art Visa card Obsolete (March 2004) 

My very first Incorporated Gallery art piece was entitled Obsolete. To this day it’s still one of my favorite pieces. The bathroom sign template I was using seemed to jell with an advertising concept I wanted to try: placing Obsolete onto a plastic card the same size as a Visa credit card.  I found International Plastic Cards (IPC) in El Segundo, CA, a company that made plastic cards.  They said no problem, and in March of 2004 I made my first plastic art card. I spent just over 1,000 dollars for 5,000 two-color mini-art cards.

When I got home with my bounty, I was so excited to see them that I opened them up in my car lift-back and they fell out all over my garage.  Both the static charge of the plastic cards and the fact I lived a half block from the beach made for quite the disaster.  The micro-sized sand in my garage scraped the card surface like diamonds on glass.

I created another restroom sign-shaped card as backing for my Obsolete Visa card. Each base card plus Visa card was placed into a clear vellum envelope and sent out to museum curators, gallery directors and art critics. This first wave of advertising was sent out en masse to zero interest. I guess that crowd saw Visa-card art all the time and an interactive social commentary website was old news.

 Postcard

The farm (September 6, 2004)

I was toying with the idea of making my living in advertising. I targeted the same reluctant audience with another piece of art, this time on a postcard with an invite to the website. 

When I lived in Westwood near UCLA circa 1987 and rode my motorcycle past Los Angeles National Cemetery I was emotionally moved by all of the veteran's tombstones, especially on holidays when flags were placed in front of them. One day I saw men cutting the grass and watering the grounds and thought it would be a good visual for an ad raising awareness and funds for living veterans.  The headline that would go along with the image would say “It’s a little late to be taking care of them now.”

It would take me years to finally shoot the image and get it onto my Farm postcard. I used the grave marker for an unknown soldier. There was zero response to this ad concept, and the mailing list dwindled to 725 “in the business” contacts.

 Photostamps.com

 Make your own stamps (September 10, 2004)

I ordered a “make your own stamp” from Photostamps.com. I placed my unknown soldier piece, The Farm, on the stamp. Here’s their response below:

Because PhotoStamps are postage they are held to a very high set of standards that includes rules regarding images of political, sexual, religious and similar subject matters deemed to be inappropriate per our content guidelines. PhotoStamps are an exciting new product, but please understand that there are limits to what we can feature on them.

I reluctantly went with an Andy Warhol stamp on my farm postcard.

 The web

In the Spotlight (November 7, 2004)

Galleryguide.org-Spotlight featured moi in November of 2004. I plopped all the stuff I was working on into this featurette, including another “test project” called Find Fatbob. The premise of Fatbob was just a parody where I would place Fatbob into famous pieces of art and rewrite what was said about them. I would send Fatbob Lounge Members cool free stuff in the mail, which included items like Fatbob cookies, T-shirts, music CDs, wine, and a movement book (quotes from Fatbob) complete with toilet paper. Basically, members could receive anything at any time to stimulate their senses. Unfortunately, Fatbob went into a coma in 2003 where he remains to this day. Just shy of $14,000 dollars was spent during the Fatbob project from 2002-2008. Find Fatbob was a precursor to iamnotdeadyet.com.

Other pieces highlighted in the Galleryguide.org were: Lego my Ego, Structure, Promotion and Critic. There was zero feedback or interest from this publicity.

Structure. Circa 1995

 Gallery Guide

Up shit’s creek without a paddle (December 2004)

Well, with over 1,000 invites in the ether and zero interest I thought about spending my time doing something else.  I mean, if I was doing social commentary-type artwork in an original way, and nobody was listening, then what was the point?

Then I thought, screw it; I’ll take ads out on the back cover of the Gallery Guide! Double down, so to speak. I got a package deal! I landed the full-page back cover of the South West guide for December 2004, (page 63) and a full-page plus quarter-page in the West Coast guide. Bam! That should get a reaction.

This blitzkrieg of promotion yielded a big fat zip.

 iamnotdeadyet.com

T.I.M.E. to come together 2004-2017

The website was expanded to 4 galleries (2004) with the following new artist statement: T.I.M.E. to come together.

The four galleries are: Terrorism/Incorporated/Moral values/Environment

The active home page had bathroom-type figure icons with active counters. The Terrorism Gallery had a bomb timer. The Incorporated Gallery counter tallied the rapidly increasing national debt.  The Moral Values Gallery counted down (quickly). The Environment Gallery counted species as they became extinct. These introductions to the galleries were called the four horsemen.

 Showyourreel.com

Music & action (December 13, 2004)

While I was employed at Skechers I met Steve, the technician that would service our Macs. He told me of Showyourreel.com, a website he had created to showcase artists, including Hollywood folks, in the Los Angeles area. I joined his site in late 2004 hoping to expose my work to a new audience and in a new format. I produced a mini-movie on each of the four galleries. I took this opportunity to invite my mailing list to my site for the fourth time.

This endeavor was fun to bring to fruition, but in terms of getting any type of recognition or support for this project, it was a big goose egg again.

I used this new medium to send out Showyourreel.com invites to the same art crowd that I had targeted with the first visa card (Obsolete) and the first postcard (The Farm). I left out those contacts that had come back with “return to sender” from prior mailings. The number of industry people interested at that point was still zero. Showyourreel.com didn’t live too long on the World Wide Web. I guess Steve lost interest in promoting artists.

Return To Sender. 2010

Patriot Chip

Mini-art Visa card II- The Patriot Chip (December 28, 2004)

I went back to IPC to make a new piece of art, The Patriot Chip. This required a four-color process costing me some extra clams - $3,400 for 2,500 cards to be exact. My mailing list was gleaned from Art in America’s August Guide to Museums/Galleries/Artists, along with a mailing list of critics I bought from a source, but it was dwindling in quantity and quality for each invite.

The total investment for just sending out the Visa-art cards was $2,000 dollars, an estimated $1.46 per invite. The mailing list included 425 curators, 810 galleries, and 209 critics for a grand total of 1,444 invited. Return on investment was zero.

 Absolut Byrne

Postcard invite (January 17, 2005)

I bought “Absolut Book: The Absolut Vodka Advertising Story,” written by Richard W. Lewis, on one of my research stops at Hennessey + Ingalls in Santa Monica CA.

I was inspired to parody the Absolut art campaign that was nurtured back in 1985 by two characters: Michel Roux, the President and CEO of Carillon Importers (Absolut’s US distributor), and Andy Warhol. Warhol loved the Absolut bottle and a deal was struck commissioning Andy to create art incorporating its iconic image. Many artists followed in Andy’s footsteps, including names like Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Ed Ruscha, and Romero Britto to name a few, but it was the piece by one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., that inspired me to do my Absolut Byrne parody.

So I’m not a famous artist, so what. I created my own iamnotdeadyet interpretation of the Absolut bottle and solicited my friend and photographer, Bruce Kurosaki, to shoot the bottle professionally, like an ad. I designed a postcard including the image and sent this piece out as my follow up to my Patriot Chip piece. The number of interested museum curators, gallery directors and art critics still leveled out at the zero mark.

Art in America

Absolut Byrne (February 7, 2005)

I wanted to take the Absolut parody a step further by taking out my own ad in Art in America magazine. It would be a 4-color full-page of my Absolut Byrne piece. Their circulation was estimated at 73,811 and this ad would cost me $5,200 dollars to run. We signed the contract on 1.11.05.

Then I received this email from Art in America account executive Cara Barrese:

February 22nd 2005

Dear Bob,

We regret that we will be unable to place your proposed advertisement in Art in America. Our legal counsel has advised that running the ad would not be without risk with respect to your use of the Absolut Trademark and copyrights.

Sincerely,

Cara Barrese

Art in America

I created a new piece of art with the above email included, titled Total Submission, for my Incorporated Gallery.

I resubmitted another version of the ad in which I masked the name of the product, which was also rejected with the following email:

 March 8th 2005

Dear Bob:

We are unable to run this ad as well. Once again our legal counsel has advised that running the ad would not be without risk with respect to your use of Absolut trademark and copyrights.

Sincerely,

Cara Barrese

Art in America

 I included this new masked artwork, which included the above email, on my iamnotdeadyet site. I titled it Art in America Sucks.

 Footnote: 

Actually acquired the TM officially in January of 2005.

Otis

Interested? (February 16, 2005)

Finally, I landed a hit. The gallery director at Otis College in Los Angeles was interested in talking with me about my art.  She invited me to a current show. I can’t remember the artist showing, but the work reminded me of the art you see in Juxtapoz. This just wasn’t my crowd. 

When I arrived, the director said she saw some graffiti on a bridge underpass that looked like my work. I said, “No, I don’t do graffiti.” That seemed to kill the mood. She never invited me to another show, but she was interested in one of my pieces, Self-Righteous. I was intrigued with her choice, given the librarian-type first impression she had made. I could print my own work with a quality printer at the time, so I gave her a 13x19 print for free. She thanked me via email and told me she was going to hang it in her dining room, which was another fascinating piece of information. I’m not sure I’d want to see Self-Righteous every time I ate a meal.

 ‘What is the Truth Now’ clip

Another mini-movie (April 10, 2005)

Trying to train focus on the new Patriot Chip visa card, I produced another mini-movie in April of 2005 cued up to Creed’s Who’s Got My Back. Included were The Four Horseman Galleries and my bonus photography.

 Santa Fe

Huh? (July 2005)

I was vacationing in Santa Fe after a long lacrosse tournament in Vail Colorado. It’s a beautiful drive from Vail to Santa Fe if you take the back roads. I was checking out all the local galleries and ran across one specializing in contemporary art. I wandered in, introduced myself to the gallery director and handed him my Obsolete credit card.

He said that the card looked familiar. I said, “Maybe you saw it on the back of the Gallery Guide.” I figured that had to lead to a conversation about my art for sure. I mean, a cool Visa-like art card, a full-page Gallery Guide ad and the artist wanders into your obscure Santa Fe contemporary gallery. I was dumbfounded when he handed the card back to me and said he needed to attend to a couple that was perusing some artwork on the other side of the gallery. Huh! I guess you can’t advertise yourself in this business.

BTW, this was the LewAllen Contemporary Gallery. I researched the LewAllen Gallery recently for two reasons. First, I wanted to include it in my update to this website. The second reason wasn’t actually about the LewAllen at all.  You see, in 2012 I was hoping to find its neighbor, another gallery I had visited in 2005. I was getting married and wanted to show my fiancée a jewelry artisan’s work I had seen there which had totally enthralled me. I discovered the gallery in question was still alive and breathing and found the artist, a third generation metal forger named Robin Martin-Cust. We commissioned her to combine gold and steel together in a way my soon-to-be-wife and I found breathtaking, beautiful and perfect for us.

I had to use Google Earth to retrace my steps I took from my hotel to a handful of contemporary art galleries in the area. Bingo! Nothing happened for me in 2005 with all of my advertising efforts, but I was able to remember the Patina Gallery on Palace Avenue, allowing me to secure our wedding rings in May of 2012.

 JAVA MAN

Stand in please (August 20, 2005)

I was returning from my cross-country trip from Baltimore to Los Angeles, heading west, when I got the call. There was an opening at the local Hermosa coffee shop. My hopes of visiting Sedona and revisiting Santa Fe were dashed. I had to speed-demon my way along Route 40 back to Hermosa to prepare for a substitution showing at Java Man. Lucky me, someone had canceled at the last minute.

Upon my return I immediately and expediently executed mega-downloads of my Illustrator & Photoshop art and began printing.  Unfortunately, my trustworthy friend, the Epson Stylus Photo 1200 Ink Jet Printer, suddenly decided to just up and quit on me. It was too late for me to pull out of my free art show, so although I was an unemployed guy, I had to go buy another one. It wasn’t cheap. 

The next hurdle for success for my one-free-art-show-in-a-local-coffee-shop was finding out, in quick order, that my new printer’s ink colors didn’t match my original artwork, meaning I had to recalibrate all of my pieces. Every one.

I did enjoy putting my original shadow box pieces alongside my iamnotdeadyet art. Fatbob even made an appearance in the lounge area. I received mixed reviews from patrons and coffee lovers. The one I think worth sharing is titled:

Fourbucks Feedback (8/3/2005)           

Very much loved the initial impact of your work... the design and way to convey the message with symbols and colors is very effective. However I think you missed an excellent opportunity to show a more balanced picture of the struggles between opposing forces and not make the main theme right vs. everyone else. For instance... one could take the template of your work and make it far left vs. everyone else. Just a note from one who strives for balance vs. being right (as in correct) Good work though.

Art4life

I found everything being equal feedback worthless. I’m not a journalist, I’m an artist. I would think it would be odd to have rappers say it like it is and then in the same song tell us how great life is with all of the equality. I’d love to see her far left artwork. Hey, knock yourself out and let your work do the talking.

So this free show cost me, and in a big way, thanks to “the Friend.”  Let me introduce you to “the Friend,” may he rest in peace.

Maitreya “The Friend”

 Sues me (September 28, 2005)

Oh boy, Maitreya Adhyatma Bhagavan Sri Babajhan Al-Kahlil The Friend was suing me. Yes, that’s one person’s name. Seems this guy had a problem with my Crusade/Jihad symbol at Java Man. So much so he wanted to sue me. I received a call from his lawyer on my unlisted phone number. I asked him where he got my number and he told me Godaddy.com. Really? All my personal unlisted info is on Godaddy.com? Huh.

I had to hire my lawyer to quickly dispatch Mr. Maitreya “The Friend” with a five-page retort. This tit-for-tat cost me 2,500 dollars. I figured it was better just to read the letters from “The Friend’s” lawyer, Steven Wohn, and my lawyer, Greg Victoroff. It still makes me smile to read how Greg used the law to rid me of my “free art show” nemesis.

I did enjoy the fact that my crusade symbol represents in Japanese the symbol “ki” (tree). That discovery inspired me to redesign my Crusade logo into my own personal signature and is found throughout this website in a chop print form.

In doing my research for this website, I learned that “The Friend" had passed away in 2012. 

REVEREND MAITREYA BHAGAVAN FRIEND 1943-2012

 Hermosa Shorts Filmfest

Twenty bucks (May 26, 2006)

Entered my time to come together mini-movie…cost me 20 bucks…no response.

 ADbusters Magazine

Most provocative ideas of 2009 (October 20, 2008)

I entered the Adbusters “Big Ideas for 2009” contest while spending time in the Asheville NC Blue Ridge Mountains for a photography sabbatical. I sent the following pieces: Absolut Byrne, Consumption symbol, Crusade symbol, Next Food Exit, Obsolete. 

I guess none of these works were “Big Ideas.” 

Making of a chop

Mr. Henry Li (July 20, 2010)

Mr. Henry Li walks us through the making of my personal chop. I love how a mistake is left in as a teaching moment. Thank you Mr. Li for your efforts on my signature, my chop.

Making Of A Chop. running time 31:43

Showing at the Sandwich Joint  

Many pieces become one (February 19, 2011)

My friend, Scott Sulzer, invited me to show my work at his downtown restaurant. I assembled printed pieces into a kind of mosaic, tiled into a single rectangle. I aligned the symbols used in the art under said rectangle. No sales with this venture, but plenty of free sandwiches.

the Sandwich Joint reprised

The red wall show (February 12, 2012)

I de-mothballed my pieces from the first round at The Sandwich Joint and added a few new ones for a second show almost a year to the day later. This version was in the storefront for better visibility. I gave away some free art prints and that was about it.

 Last Gallery Guide ad

Back page (May 2012)

With ceremonious purpose, I created my last Gallery Guide back cover ad for the West Coast Northern & Southern California issue. In May 2012 that issue was published.  And true to this journey, I did not hear from a single soul.

 Roanoke College second appearance  

Two new ones (October 8, 2013)

After my oh-so-long-ago Roanoke College Alumni Show shipping experience, when pieces returned to me broken and damaged, I ventured out and bought some “break-safe” shipping boxes. They cost a pretty penny, but guaranteed their contents would return safely. There weren’t any free offerings or contests to win Gameboard that go-round.

I created two pieces for the show. One was an update to my Fourbucks piece called Plus tip (12x16). The second was a nod to the obsolete prior version of iamnotdeadyet’s website, which had been running for nine years without Flash capability on handheld devices. That piece was titled Sorry, Not my Fault (12x16).

Sorry, Not my Fault is a play on oh-so-addicting hand-held phones, iPads and Hal (9000) from the 2001 Space Odyssey. It would be a place holder for another 4 years before I would address this flash glitch on my site.

 iamnotdeadyet.com reprised

The journey 1993-2017

I feel that the first Roanoke show in 2003 and this 2013 one are bookends in my journey. If you go back even further to my senior year art show, we are talking 30 years. My journey has been rewarding and soulful. It all started with my senior projects (In, In & Out, and In, Out and All About), where I placed a nice Mac & Bob’s (local college restaurant) Philly-cheese-steak-grease-smear on my “In, Out and All About” piece, and my parents looking at these and surely thinking “WTF.” The school bought one or two of my pieces to offset my framing cost, if I remember. What I do remember is that I created a piece using leftover scraps from my In, In & Out, and In & Out and All About artworks. I dropped them on the floor and glued them together. Must have taken me 15 minutes.

Roanoke College Graduation. 1987

There was a student that had to have that piece of art. Had to have it! I said she could have it for free (since I felt I didn’t try very hard on that one). That seemed to reduce the value it had for this person, so I think I charged twenty dollars for it. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

I do believe in my 30 years of making art that I’ve only sold that one piece. The rest of my “sales” were more like reimbursements for material costs or given as gifts.

One thing’s for sure, I’m going to try and keep iamnotdeadyet going until that final day. You never know with the ever-changing technologies. Maybe my entire website will be obsolete one day.

Everything. 2013

 My art started with exploring airbrushing and shading and depth, to found objects and shadow boxes, to computer-generated imagery. There was some photography thrown in here and there, but that’s an area of exploration for another day. iamnotdeadyet was started because I had something to say. I wanted to find a unique way of communicating though symbolism, colors and themes. I wanted it to be interactive - you roll over the art and symbols pop up. The launch explored the corporate world exclusively at first, but with the inspiration of world events, the site blossomed quickly into four separate galleries. The investment for this endeavor was an estimated $26-30,000 dollars.

Thank you for taking a look at my journey, my work, and I hope you saw something you like or find interesting or funny. A special thank you to my family and friends who have shared this journey with me. I’ve found it very rewarding in a spiritual sense. One thing I can say, I never gave up on my artistic vision.

Selfie. 2014

Epilogue

Trump Joker card delivered

Joke was on me (2017)

I was able to talk my wife into investing in another round of invites to be mailed across the country. I asked her to partner with me on this one-time-only production run of a playing card in 4-color printing with touches of gold. 

To keep the budget somewhat reasonable, we chose to not spec real playing card stock. That option would place the project cost into the thousands and out of reach. Instead we chose a basic card stock and focused on adding a nice gold-leaf finish to the front of the card. We didn’t use real gold leaf; we cheated by using Pantone 7549U and a masking process called Akuafoil that gives you a pretty good gold-sheen look for a good price.

iamnotdeadyet.com Trump Card Invites. 2017

This effort was somewhat of a hyper-focus, guided by Art in America’s 2017 Guide to Museums, Galleries, and Artists.  The total invites numbered around 180 pieces, including galleries and museums around the country.  I received about 15 back, marked “return to sender,” all of which I might add took quite a beating through the postal system.

In keeping with the usual theme on this journey, not one person was interested in what I served up. There was one person, however, who at least felt impelled to respond to my online invite and Trump Joker card.  How lucky was I to get a response from “The Good Luck Gallery”?

The conversation went like this.  I sent out this invite Oct 28th, 2017 5:33pm:

I would like to invite you for an inside look into an outside artist.

Original Email Invite. 2017

I received this email from The Good Luck Gallery on Oct 29th 2017 at 3:53pm.

Hi Robert,

Thanks for sending me the link and the card.

Good luck with your art adventure.

I actually can't tell if this is an advertising agency? Print shop?

I don't see any fine art that I can identify as such and definitely not outsider art.

I do like all the symbols.

All the best,

Paige

I was a little taken aback to hear that this gallery director could not identify anything I’ve created as fine art. Stunned really.  I did agree with her comment about calling my stuff outsider art, which has a different connotation in the art world.  So I looked into this with the help of my editor Andrée Larson, who has two degrees in art history. She spent a lot of time researching and pinpointing what my art is, if it is art.  So what’s my art on iamnotdeadyet.com?  We believe it’s Neo-Conceptualism/ Modern Appropriation.

Based on this one piece of critical feedback, I revised my invite, no longer identifying myself as an outside artist. It didn’t do me much good; I only received messages telling me to remove them from my mailing/email list.

Revised Invite. 2017

My retort to Paige was the following (October 29, 2017 5:16pm):

Paige-

Thank you for taking the time to take a look at my work and giving quick feedback.

Just to clarify, the work in the Corporate Blues gallery is also not fine art?

If you click on the squares in that gallery, original shadow box art pieces will open up.

Glad you liked the symbols.

Regards,

Bob

To which she responded (November 5th 2017 10:24 AM):

Hi Bob,

Yes, sorry I missed those.

Wish you all the best,

Paige

Here’s an excerpt from The Good Luck Gallery’s mission statement:

The Good Luck Gallery, located in the heart of the Chinatown arts district, is the only gallery in Los Angeles to focus on showcasing self-taught art. Whether it is called Outsider, Folk Art or Visionary, the emphasis is on artists who are driven by a compulsive need to create and who work beyond the margins of the traditional art world.

I thought I was a self-taught visionary artist and worked beyond the margins. According to Paige I’m a graphic designer working for an ad agency or print shop.  I certainly didn’t fit into what she’s selling.

To see fine art you can find it with this link: http://www.thegoodluckgallery.com/

Footnote:

As of June 2019 the Good Luck Gallery no longer exists.

So is this the end, my final rejection…the straw that broke the camel’s back, the nail in the coffin so to speak? Good God!  It should be! Why put myself though this going on 15 years now? Why put my wife though this? Am I crazy? These are all good questions. Given our current state of affairs, I was motivated to make a slew of new work spilling into 2019 for a 15th year of my artist statement, T.I.M.E. to come together. 

With renewed energy and sense of purpose, I’ve decided to send out one more invite - my self-inflicted coup de grâce. Lucky you!

Lost & Found & Lost Again

Obsoletes’ final resting place…maybe (2018)

I received this email from my website link: September 18th 2018 10:51 am

Name: Natasha Holmes

Subject: Obsolete Man

Message: Trying to make contact as I am working on a National Gallery archive with an ephemera society and we ran across your Obsolete Card/work and think you may be interested in getting a response all these years later.

My heart immediately jumped into my throat. I even think I hyperventilated a little. I was in the town square of Los Olivos, CA with my dog Baxter, sitting on a bench, waiting for my daughter, looking like a Norman Rockwell painting. I think I read the email a minimum of 20 times trying to guess its true origin. It certainly could not be “The National Gallery” in Washington DC. But then again, the National Gallery Director’s last name was Holmes (serving from to 1906-1932). Could this be a relative?

My response:

September 19th 2018, 3:55PM

Natasha- 

What a wonderful surprise! You made my day. Thank you for reaching out to me. 

Amazing you ran across that card after so many years. I’d love to be involved (and I’d love to hear the story on how it was found). I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Bob 

I received this email two days later. A very long two days.

Hi Bob,

So great to hear from you and get your emails!  I will gather photos of it and send them to you with a story next week, as the gentleman I am working with is out of town until then, and he has the story.

I can say now though, that it is part of a collection from the National Gallery archives, and that we have been doing some research into how events near the millennium, 9/11, and anthrax affected the postal service. And, your cards appear to have been warped by irradiation screening that was taking place then.

Best Regards,

Natasha

I did not hear back from Natasha with her story on how it was found. Nor did I get to see a picture of my zapped card. I would reach out to Natasha three more times over a 3-month period, spaced around a month apart. I didn’t want to seem too desperate, but with this glimmer of hope I was desperate to hear more about why Natasha was contacting me in the first place. Was this real?

I would not hear from her again. I do believe the show they are putting together does tie into what I was seeing back in 2003-2004.  Figures it would be the Obsolete card that would survive the irradiation screening and make an unexpected appearance 14 years later.  It had taken my breath away to hear I might be part of a collection in the National Gallery archives. Let’s hope that’s true.  It would make for a nice ending to it all, don’t you think?

I did have to laugh though.  I got in because I was irradiated.  I mean, what are the odds?

Return To Sender. 2019

I’d have to say, this was not a good sign for my National Gallery story. It doesn’t have a happy ending. Out of all the coins, this is the one I was hoping would not be returned. It was opened up and retaped shut, so someone looked at it. Maybe it was irradiated too. Natasha’s invite was the only return to sender.

Trump Loyalty Coin Final Invite

Heads or Heads Coin (2019)

I’m currently embarking on my final invite in order to find a partner to showcase my Art to be seen work. This path now before me does not include galleries.  I mean, why? I may send a couple out, but I have not decided yet.  There are only 150 coins produced and I’m a little picky on who gets one.  No, my focus here will be contemporary museums in the USA and abroad. Yeah, I’m going international to see if someone in this world gets this artwork.

Loyalty Coins. 2019

The loyalty coin is part of the invite.  Also included is a printed version of MAGA. MAGA is also a limited run of 150. It’s not easy to get through the “no solicitor” barrier for artist submissions; however, I do believe I may be able to sneak under the door with my collectible invite.  I guess we shall see.  The “no solicitor” comment made me think of a quote I came up with in my 2003 Fatbobism: Movement Book that I’d like to share with you at this time:

“Would it be O.K. to sell new & improved “No solicitors” signs door-to-door?”

                                                                                                                             -Fatbob (2003)

I believe it’s apropos to end this journey as it began - with a Fatbob quote - and by the way, he’s still in a coma to this day.

MAGA Card Invite. 2019

Ghosting

In God We Trust (2019)

With great pleasure I received this image from an artist friend of mine after he received his loyalty coin.  There was some ghosting on coins during the minting process. His had a ghosted In God We Trust under No Collusion, which to me is a totally new piece of art.

Photograph by Fox Smith. 2019

Trump Loyalty Coin Internet Invite

Last try. Yawn… (2019)

I created an image of my 150 loyalty coins to be able to invite folks on-line to my site. This was carried out and invites emailed to various institutions. Radio silence.

Truth be told, I’m sure my email with attachment went straight into junk mail.

Final Internet Invite. 2019

Expected feedback

Is there anybody out there? (2019)

It goes without saying that I reserved a block of coins to be sent to friends and family. I would not be forthcoming if I didn’t say I expected at least some kind of response when they received the mailing, since this contingent is used to my iamnotdeadyet shenanigans. Some offered up praise, while others told coin jokes.

The lack of response to my art reminded me of my acting days in drama. My art is like a bad performance in an equally bad play. When friends and family come backstage for the post lame-play meet & greet they feign positive verbal exchanges, but wear their true feelings on their face. At minimum the interaction is awkward and they leave the room briskly as if from suffering from a bout of explosive diarrhea.

And with that, the best response to share with you is more in line with my 15 years of trying to communicate with my art: an all too familiar sense of malaise. My final critique from a friend, who will remain nameless, but has an art background and was in my art major classes at Roanoke College, went as follows:

I reached out via text to cfm she received the invite, which resulted in the following exchange:

BB-“Get your coin yet?” nameless person: “yes.”

Epic Fail

Final act (2019)

Time to wrap up shipments of the final invite letters.  I had received the test letter I sent through the mail to confirm there were no issues, no need for extra postage and that the coin would make it through the USPS system unaffected.  Good to go as far as I was concerned.  My first 25 letters were shipped out via my PO post office in Santa Ynez. I followed up with 25 to US based contemporary museums around the US shipped out from Buellton.

I had one going to a friend in Hawaii and had my wife check postage.  The clerk told her it would be an extra 15 cents and that a “Non Machinable” stamp was required, since the coin would not go through their sorting machines. They were nice enough to plop my friends and family invites back into our PO box in Santa Ynez.  The invites sent from Buellton to museums went through and most likely with postage due upon arrival. Of course I will never know for sure since all coins sent to museums fell into a black hole.

Non Machinable Stamp. 2019

How nice is that? Postage due on my No solicitations solicitation, disguised as an invite. My final invite had become an epic fail.  Thousands spent to be thwarted by the mail service sorting machine.  I’ll never know for sure.

Artist Statement Blotter. 2019

The international invites went out without a glitch.  They were plastered with more postage and the “Non Machinable” stamp and were sent on their way without much fanfare. 

It’s not easy to make art that nobody likes.  Some may look at this as a colossal failure, but not me. Consider this window of time (1993-2019) as this artist’s dormant period. I’ve always been a late bloomer, and more of a raconteur than an artist. I believed I could weave the story and art together.  I just didn’t think the storytelling was going to be all about the artwork nobody likes. Time to put iamnotdeadyet into a time capsule and see if it’s discovered in the future. Godspeed!

Invite History. 1993 - 2019

Not accepting submissions at this time

One response (2019)

It was nice to know that at least one museum received my invite, that they reviewed my work, and that museum was the Smithsonian Institution. We have come a long way from submitting slides of our work as we did back in the early 90’s. Art is now just a click and critique away on personal websites.  The rejection letter was not a form letter and the Chief Curator signed it.  I guess that’s something right?

Oh, and they returned my invite #37 of 150.  Lucky me.

La Fin

6.17.2019

Footnote:

The Artist is currently 55 years old and not dead yet.

la fin. 2019

Stepping Out of retirement

One must comment on our time together (2020)

With the Coronavirus unleashed on the world, and Trump driving off the rails (not that he was ever really on the rails), I felt inspired to capture in real time our journey down this rabbit hole.

I created 2 new galleries and a slew of new symbols for Bonus t.i.m.e., working from home, trying to stay alive despite my underlying health conditions and age bracket.

It’s hard to fathom the depth to which we are being tormented. As chaos ensues, iamnotdeadyet takes an even deeper experiential dive into my art. I’m happy to be alive, pained by all that is happening to lives on Earth. This is what I see while knowing that there are always two sides to every story.