Monthly Statement:
November 2005

OBJECT # 12
DATE SENT: November 30, 2005
SENT TO: Richard Reiss
SENT VIA: US Postal Service
DESCRIPTION OF OBJECT: Hydrographic relief globe, manufactured by T.H. Hubbard Scientific Co., Northbrook, Illinois c. 1962, 13” high and 12 1/2” diameter. Globe is split in two at a center seam, with a clear plastic cover over the oceans, which are in relief. There are no specific countries identified, only continents and oceans. Continents in relief are yellow, above the clear plastic cover and are: South America, Antarctica, Australia, North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia, labeled in blue. Oceans are aqua and also labeled in blue. Currents and drifts are indicated by arrows. Globe is dust covered and slightly smudged and cracked.

ORIGIN AND APPROXIMATE DATE OF POSSESSION OF OBJECT: The globe was in the photography classroom, office and storage area at Jersey City State College/New Jersey City University, Hall, from the time I began teaching there in 1985. When the Art Department’s new building was finished and the Department moved, the globe was to be trashed. I rescued it from a pile of garbage and brought it to my studio.

MOST RECENT LOCATION OF OBJECT: In storage area of my studio, on wooden shelf against southeastern wall.

RELATION OF OBJECT TO RECIPIENT: The globe was used by Tom Reiss, my late colleague, who utilized it as a prop for lighting classes at various times. When we were in the process of designing a catalogue for the Art Department, Tom and I came up with a design that included an illustration of the earth and he used the globe as a model for a dummy of the brochure. That catalogue was never produced. I came to know Richard, Tom’s brother, after Tom’s very tragic and untimely death while teaching in Thailand in the summer of 2002. Richard spent some time at the University where I teach cleaning out Tom’s office, and it was during those times that I had a few conversations with him. Tom had done a fair bit of traveling that year, as he had had a sabbatical and used it to bike through Europe for a number of weeks. I imagine Tom having seen the great expanse of the earth, wondering about the time it might take to traverse it on bike, his preferred form of transportation for all the time I knew him.

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.