Some photos courtesy of Philadelphia Inquirer
http://inquirer.philly.com/slideshows/Features/20060516soap/

Monthly Statement:
May 2006

*I will continue collecting soap indefinitely after the official ending of this project in September. If you are interested in contributing soap or stories to my continued efforts, please email jillgreenberg27@hotmail.com or mail slivers to the address at the bottom of this text.

I Manic panic!
The opening of the School 33 Studio Artists’ Biennial Exhibition was in two days, and all I had done was to sort the slivers and mock up a rudimentary paisley outline on a piece of black fabric on my studio floor. (Ah, the next in my lifetime series of wing-and-a-prayer productions.) The first order of business was some basic housekeeping; old soap slivers stored in boxes produce a fine powder that causes violent sneezing attacks. In addition, I planned to arrange the slivers on black velvet, which shows everything, so a necessary first step was to run a damp cloth over the slivers to remove the powdery residue. Though tedious, dusting the slivers individually gave me a chance to appreciate the distinctive features of each. I noticed that when I shuffled the thicker slivers together they made a clinking sound indistinguishable from that of shuffling ceramic tiles. This was satisfying since it lent authenticity to the idea that this piece would be a mosaic.

I built my platform in place on the gallery floor. It measured 54” x 70”, its top surface neatly upholstered in black velvet. But there was lint on it—better take care of that. So…off to the strip mall, where I appraised several orders of lint brush. Will it be the adhesive roller type, or that red plush fabric one that traps lint within its surface fibers? Why not get both? And should I spend the extra $2.98 for the 3M brand or am I just being a sucka, when the Savings Plus one’ll do just fine? And… oooh there’s a sale next door at Goodwill, and since I’m out, I might as well pick up some decent food for dinner, instead of desperately heading to the Pto Mein Palace for a carton of Buddha’s Blight at 11 PM, and by the way, aren’t my books on tape overdue? Maybe I should get one more, and…and…..Oh yeah, the terror of the proverbial blank canvas—it choreographs an elaborate, yet familiar dance routine!

Getting a grip, I returned to my studio and started ferrying soap into the gallery space down the hall. The slivers were sorted into numerous small containers mainly by color, but with consideration for size, shape and texture as well. I set them around the platform in soap’s best approximation of a ROY G BIV spectrum, with the warm colors on one side and the cooler ones on the other. Glancing into the batch of blue and white marbled specimens, I noticed that the majority had white stripes swirling through a blue ground, however, a handful actually had a white base with blue veining that resembled bleu cheese mold. I wondered if the bleu cheese soaps should have a category to themselves. And what was I thinking when I put all the oatmeal soaps in one group? Some were cream and some were tan, and some were practically butterscotch! And what was that lemon yellow doing in there with the golds? By this time I was convinced I should rush up the street to that storefront psychic before closing and have her channel Carolus Linnaeus to help me sort through this taxonomic nightmare! The obsessive lifestyle is a high maintenance proposition.

then I stopped…and breathed....and looked….and tried to grasp the task in front of me: OK there was a black background on which I would arrange a paisley design of soap slivers in a beautiful array of colors, shapes, sizes and textures. It would have to work hard to look bad, so where was the problem?

Feeling a degree of relief, I got the ball rolling, as planned, by using the 11-pound box of half-used bars of Irish Spring contributed by Sheldon Goldthwait to “draw” the outlines of the paisley shapes. He found this odd collection in 1996 among the possessions of his deceased mother, Ruth, (see statement 12/05).
Once the outlines were laid out, I needed to come up with an organized scheme for “coloring them in” that took into account the relative abundance of some hues versus the scarcity of others. Creating the right combination of rhythmic contrast and smooth transitions between the colors, shapes, and sizes was key.
What emerged during the next 48 hours were two paisleys: the larger was filled in with a gradually transitioning scale of warmer colors with accents of deep blue, and the smaller contained cooler colors, mostly greens, blues and the rare assortment of lavenders. I used whites and off-whites with random chips of colored soap to define the spaces surrounding the paisleys. It did not bother me that I didn’t have enough white soap to evenly cover the space between the paisleys. Since this was a work in progress it made sense to show that there was room for more donations. However, to finish the dotted pattern I had begun in this sparsely covered area, I grabbed about a dozen brand new round white hotel soaps did a little obsessive-compulsive hand washing ritual over a bowl of warm water in the middle of the gallery floor to shrink them down to a more used look. When I was done, the sudsy water in the bowl had a gooey consistency like whipped dessert topping left out on the counter for a half day. By some ridiculous hour of the morning, I considered the piece as finished as it was gonna get.

II A Soap Star
For all my efforts, attendance at the opening was unexpectedly low, however, this disappointment was quelled by the fact that I had an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer (see statement 4/06) a few days later for a story they would run on my project in advance of its scheduled exhibition in July at the Bebe Benoliel Gallery in Philly. With any luck, the article would bring in an influx of soap from the Philly environs.

I knew the reporter—quick witted and genial Dianna Marder, and the photographer, my good buddy, David M Warren (AKA Cap’n Quirk) from my days, years ago, as a shooter there. We chatted over lunch and returned to the gallery to take photos.

Dave’s quirky eye immediately lighted on a small chunk of soap that strongly resembled a cameo of a pilgrim woman in her starched, puritanical bonnet. He immediately dropped to his knees to shoot her. Looking at the photo now, I’m starting to wonder if she might actually be an earthly manifestation of “Our Lady of Nasal Protuberance,” in which case I might do well to target publicity of her future appearances to the appropriate religious communities and see what kind of crowd she draws, or at least, list her on E Bay. For the main photo of me with the piece, we figured out a way of magically levitating me about 3 feet above the work lying on my back (with the help of a hidden 2 x 4 supporting me from beneath.) It was no coincidence that I wore my favorite paisley shirt. We broke open the bottle of cheap merlot prior to my performing the promised washing-the-mouth-out-with-soap pose for Dr. Dave’s sadistic camera, (and just for the record, I do my own stunts!) I had several brand new bars of soap selected for the purpose, and we discussed which color and shape would photograph best wedged in of my mouth. The fuchsia bar of strawberry scented glycerin soap was the first course, but it failed to deliver sufficient alkaline zing to produce a grimace that satisfied Dave’s art directorial vision, so we switched to a bar of peach colored Tropical Fresh Zest, which terrorized my taste buds for hours afterwards, but Dave got the picture, and that’s what counts.

The story came out great! It sparkled with Dianna’s humor and Dave’s fantastic photo on the section front. And the responses were immediate. The first email I received was from Larry Buzby of Ocean City, NJ:
“Your project is one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Showed it to kids on the schoolbus this morning, telling them that true ART can come from anywhere.
Buzz”

That he recognized the potential of quotidian objects to become “true ART” and shared this notion with a bus full of students filled me with joy. I emailed him back, asking if he might post a flyer about the project and put a collection basket on his bus. He responded, mentioning the impracticalities of this plan: the school year was almost over, and that the bus, on which he was an aide, was for special-ed students, of whom there were only 6. So no soap there, but still, the idea that this piece reaches people outside of the rarified realm of Art thrills me!
I got my first west coast soap from Leena Kwon of Lathrop, CA, so now I can officially say that contributions to this project come from Maine to California. It touched me that Lena sent her homemade soap slivers in a small box covered in delicately patterned gift-wrap. Some of the slivers were from soap she made with chocolate milk, and others, made with mostly oatmeal with just enough soap to bind it together were for exfoliating. The latter looked kind of like some kind of cookie one might feed to a good little pony.

When Ruth C. Mullaney of Williamsburg, VA saw the article, it reminded her of a poem she had written years ago about used VS new soap:
“On Soap
A new cake of soap is a thing of delight,
Its smoothness and shape, a form just right
There’s something brand new, a promise of fresh start
In its unmarred state bringing joy to the heart.
The lettering there is sharp and clear
In its way a sculpture (transient, but here,)
The moment of newness to treasure not mar
Is what we can do on opening the bar.
So much for the new, now consider the old…
Seems better to melt away doing its job
Than be carried along an unsightly blob.”

It tickled me that Ruth took the time to share this, and I immediately called her on the phone to thank her.

Dorothy Levin, an 85 year old artist from Elkins Park, PA, saw the article and wrote me a note that made my ego purrrrrrr: “I think of Van Gogh’s brush strokes when I see your work.” I was so flattered by this compliment I immediately sent her my right ear. OK, not really, but I did call her and we chatted. She makes constructions with found objects on wood, and had enclosed a Polaroid of one of her recent pieces. I admire her work as well as her spirit, and hope to visit her sometime.

I received a mother lode of multi-colored slivers from Jean Robinson of Wayne, PA. Sadly, the collector was her recently deceased husband, Jason Guy Robinson. A policeman who worked in gang control and drug abuse prevention, Jason Robinson was a renaissance man; he studied art and theater, hosted several Philly radio shows, read avidly, and even recorded “two albums of poetry read to original jazz compositions.” Jean wrote: “he would have been thrilled about your work. We collected contemporary art.” She mentioned that she used to soften her husbands soap slivers and mold them into little hand soaps using a soap press she had ordered from a catalog. Thus Jean confirmed that soap presses, about which the prisoners of the Milwaukee County Jail had joked (see statement 10/06), actually exist. Jason Guy Robinson is the third person whom I’ve had the honor of memorializing in this work.

III Testing the Bath Water
An RA from the Maryland Institute College of Art dormitories convinced me that I would collect oodles of soap from the students as they were moving out of the dorms for the summer and casting off possessions willy nilly. I put a couple of collection baskets in the dorm entrances, along with a bag of candy. The candy lasted nearly 30 minutes, and was replaced by only a paltry handful of soaps over the next couple of days. I think most students are too wrapped up in their own projects to offer much assistance with mine.

For months since learning about my project, my uncle, a world traveler, has been sending me LOADS of brand new hotel soap from all over Europe. Its obvious he’s sending far more unused soap than he gets from his room alone. I have visions of him raiding the maid’s cart in the hallway while she’s changing the sheets in the room next door, but I’m hoping that he asks first. Months ago, I had the idea of distributing these bars to the men living in The Ready Willing and Able residential program of the Doe Fund, Inc. in Philadelphia, some of whom I had met at a community gathering way back in October (see statement 10/6.) It took until the middle of May before I could present the project to the whole group of guys at their weekly Wednesday meeting. They seemed amused by my nervously delivered spiel about the Accumulation Project, but I had no idea what to expect when I left them a box of about 50 hotel bars.

IV The Trials of an Ass Soap Deputy
I have a confession to make: though this is the May statement, I am writing this on Thanksgiving weekend. Yeah, I got a little behind on the task. For those who have not read my earlier monthly statements, Jeff (see 10/06, 11/06, 12/06, 2/06, 4/06) is a Deputy Sheriff at the Milwaukee County Jail with a sense of humor and of community service. He read about the project and responded to my cause by starting a collection of the prisoners’ discarded soap. He had sent me a 5 lb. box in December, but reported in February, that the prison had switched to liquid soap. He also mentioned to me under conditions of strict confidentiality that he was in some deep doo doo at work. Since he couldn’t talk about it, he referred me to a news article that I could Google, and I learned that Jeff’s partner had gotten into an altercation with a prisoner, who claimed she was abused during the ensuing struggle. Jeff witnessed this and his account stressed that he did not feel his partner used undue force in subduing the prisoner. Shortly thereafter, Jeff’s supervisor “The Sergeant,” whom the article suggested had some problems with Jeff’s partner and may have seen this as a convenient way to get rid of her, asked him to change certain areas of the report. Jeff refused. The Sergeant persisted. Again Jeff refused to change his account. The Sergeant continued to pressure Jeff. Since Jeff was friends with The Sergeant, he decided to use humor to get the point across to his superior that he would not deviate from his truthful testimony. So, from his initial report, that read: “….she (the prisoner) was yelling and screaming unintelligibly from cell 6…” Jeff removes the word “unintelligibly” and composes a colorful and, I must say, inspired script of obscenities that he has the prisoner direct at the Sergeant, the content of which suggested that certain constrictive muscles of the Sergeant’s body essential to control of excretory functions had become more relaxed than perhaps was desirable. This altered report was a mere joke intended to force his then buddy, The Sergeant, to finally get the message that Jeff refused to falsify his statement. It was never signed or made official, nonetheless, Jeff was required to read it in court during his partner’s felony “abuse of residents of a penal facility” case. OUCH!!! Needless to say, Jeff embarrassed the family, and this could not go unpunished. Jeff had a disciplinary hearing scheduled for late February, meanwhile he broke his ankle on the job, keeping him out of work and delaying the proceedings. When he returned 6 weeks later, the prisoners were back to showering with bar soap (they had switched to liquid for awhile) so I thought he’d be back in business as “Ass Soap Deputy” providing me with soap (see statement 11/05,) but not long after returning to work, he was put on paid suspension pending a termination hearing. Apparently refusing to change your written testimony when your superior asks you to, and then telling a jury that you were asked to do so is grounds for dismissal in certain sectors of law enforcement. I exchanged a few emails with Jeff during this time, offering support, since I still considered him a friend even though I assumed our prison shower soap collecting days were over. It was not until September 18 that I learned the results of his termination hearing. To Jeff’s amazement, justice prevailed: most of the charges against him were dropped and he received a 30 day unpaid suspension. When he hit me with the Word that he was still a Deputy Sheriff, he also surprised me with the Good News that during the short interval last spring when he was back at work (after the ankle injury and before his first suspension) he had managed to collect a BIG BAG of soap. The Bad News was that because of this new suspension, he would not be able to retrieve the goods from the floor of his locker until mid-November.

Yo Dep! The Turkey’s on the table and the punkin pie’s in the oven— Do I have to wait for Santa to deliver my package?

May’s contributor/collaborators include:
Jean Robinson and the late Guy Robinson of Wayne, PA; David M Warren, Collingswood, NJ; Dianna Marder, Elkins Park, PA; Roberta Porter of Cherry Hill, NJ; Rochelle Haines of Cherry Hill, NJ; Jennifer Fanning of Hoboken, NJ; the DeHavens of Unionville, PA; Joy Berenfield, Arlington, MA;
the Slotkins of New York City; Dan Levine, Tampa FL; Pete Hayes of Philadelphia, PA; Helen Parke of Philadelphia, PA; Lena Kwon of Lathrop, CA; and anonymous students from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD; Dorothy Levin, Elkins Park, PA; Larry Buzby, Ocean City, NJ; Ruth Mullaney, Williamsburg, VA

To contribute soap, you may mail it to:
Jill Greenberg
1440 E. Baltimore St. Apt. 3A
Baltimore, MD 21231
Padding or a small box is suggested for thin or delicate slivers.
Many thanks,
Jill

Feel free to email me at jillgreenberg27@hotmail.com if you wish to contribute soap slivers to the project or to send a comment.

Washington Post article available here.

Process: I will be accumulating remnants of used bars of soap by soliciting contributions through networks of friends and acquaintances. I am also looking into receiving donations through local hotels and collection boxes set up in various locales.