Monthly Statement:
January 2006

OBJECT # 19
DATE SENT: January 31, 2006
SENT TO: Marilyn Altamura
SENT VIA: US Postal Service
DESCRIPTION OF OBJECT: Found sea-shell necklace strung on 17” of fishing line with silver clasp tied with knots at either end of line. When clasped, necklace has a diameter of approximately 5”. 128 shells, all with small holes to allow for stringing, are in size order from small to bigger to small again as they loop around the line. Each of the shells is light colored and range in a size from 3/8” - 7/8”. All shells were found with holes already in them.

ORIGIN AND APPROXIMATE DATE OF POSSESSION OF OBJECT: Shells were collected at Hermosa Beach, California during the summer of 1974. Necklace was made by me in late summer of the same year.

MOST RECENT LOCATION OF OBJECT: In a cardboard box with other mementoes from my past. Box is on the floor in front of the first, easternmost window, facing south in my studio.

RELATION OF OBJECT TO RECIPIENT: Marilyn, who was married to my Uncle John, quickly became a close friend to me as well as a relative when she entered our family. While she is close to ten years older, she treated me as an equal particularly since we shared interests in literature and music and movies and a love of things intellectual and cultural. Over the years I spent many weeks, even months, with her and my Uncle during my high school, college and graduate school years. Most of the time I was on vacation or a visit of some sort, although I also worked in John and Marilyn’s pizza and sandwich business (Zeppy’s) one summer. The visits somewhat blur in my memory, but in 1974 I spent about three weeks with them and I believe they were living in Hermosa Beach on The Strand, in a great house that looked out over the Pacific Ocean. Earlier in the summer I had entered what for me seemed like a torrid love affair with a young woman from my neighborhood and most of my thoughts at that time were centered on her and the intensity of what I felt. Marilyn, however, provided perspective and intelligence regarding the issue, and directed me toward longer-lasting issues without ever denying my feelings. We explored areas of downtown LA, went to galleries and museums, saw art films and ate great bistro lunches in the bright sun of Southern California. We discussed novels and love and the whole romantic life of the artist I was trying to be. In fact one afternoon as we were eating in Westwood, near UCLA, an older man sent a note over to our table asking if he could photograph me. I felt recognized, as if he saw I too was a sensitive artist, and in my naiveté didn’t recognize I might be at risk or at least an object of desire. The man turned out to be a somewhat famous art photographer named Edmund Teske, who was known for his male nudes. I refused to pose without my clothes and I never knew if any of the photographs he took that afternoon in his studio became anything more than an exposed roll of film. During this whole trip Marilyn listened to me about my own love, my desire to succeed as an artist, my dreams for a full, real life and always validated what I was saying. She was the only person I talked to about these things at that time. On many of my afternoons on the beach I collected the shells with the intention of making a necklace that I might present to this particular girlfriend. I looked for very small shells with holes, and found a good number over the weeks on the beach. When I returned home I strung it, but perhaps felt it a silly thing and never gave it to her. My affair was on and off for a number of years until it finally ended for good after about five years. But my relationship with Marilyn has continued to grow, surviving her and my uncle’s divorce and all the changes and permutations of life that, if we are lucky, we survive and can look back on with fondness and perhaps even wisdom. Although we don’t see each other that often and even our communication is sporadic, Marilyn is frequently in my thoughts. This necklace, which is so emblematic to me of my youthful idealization of the beach life of Southern California, is a connection to the sand and sea and sun and the leisurely summer weeks I spent there when all life lay out like one great July afternoon. More importantly, it reminds me of the crucial time I was seen and heard, of my being taken seriously by someone I respect and care for.

RESPONSE OF RECIPIENT:
DATE OF RESPONSE:

Process: My plan is to de-accumulate objects I now own during the course of the exhibition year. I will photograph the selected object then send the object with a letter to a person who has some relationship to the object or whom I think might be interested in the object. The letter will discuss the project and tell the receiver they can keep the object, destroy it, give it away, recycle it or anything else they choose. I will ask them to document it in the place they now have it and send their image and/or written description back to me of what they did with it and where it is. I plan on de-accumulating an average of one object per week. The new images/descriptions will be placed in a plastic folder and exhibited along with a photograph of the object as it was in my possession.