This piece is haptic, curious, moving and strong. It has a slightly funny smell which I think is ink. The back of the A3 image is black with memories of paper clips, pressed onto the surface. I muse that Mike has painted a color print on the back with ink and it has seeped through to create something bleak.
Pelican island, I think, is home to Alcatraz. I used to live in the Bay area and went to Altcatraz in about 2006 with my family, maybe before when I was lived nearby. I have a (false) memory of driving around the island in a boat with Stanford friends. We loved the visit, but it was creepy. I wasn't really sure why I was there.
The letter feels like a message in a bottle. The ink is watery. The text is confessional. Not every mail artist is willing or able to conjure real emotion. Is that what Mike - conceptual Art is? So here we are in isolation, not quite like Alcatraz, at least not for me, but maybe for Mike?
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