Union Gallery Show

City Art Review of Copy Art at Studio 718

Umbrella Review of Copy Art Exhibition

Flash - Copy Art Show Review - Click to enlarge

Artweek, June 19, 1982/Volume 13, Number 22

Early Computer Graphic Art & Artistamps

In the earlier post “Copy Art Exhibition” I wrote:   

I used to spend hours late into the night working on Fortran programs for a class, using teletype and keypunch cards. The computer geeks – the ones working night shift running the mainframe so large it was housed in a separate building - would invite me into the inner sanctum to show me early computer graphics capabilities, enthusiastically discussing little known developments and inventions in the works such as the Cray super computer. They told me of the day when everyone would have their own computer and we would be able to create art on computer systems. I believed them!

This was back in the 70s before computers were on every desk and computer graphics became commonplace.  The word processors with small (minute according to today’s standards) memory chips were the closest thing to desktop computers. I’m sure this sounds like the stone age to kids today.

Having access to anything computer related was limited to very few university researchers and large corporate employees. One such researcher was Dr. Wolfgang Bauer, a physicist at UC Berkeley, who had left the university and had started a business developing a high end graphical system he called Gravitronics.
 

When I met Dr. Bauer in 1980 he was looking for an artist who could use computers or at least understood what computers could do to help him by testing the graphical possibilities, to try to find the limits. He’d had been running into walls just trying to find an artist not afraid of nor timid with computers. I described my limited background, including some of the things I wanted to try to accomplish in my art work. I sounded like a match to him.

I would meet with him at his place of business and we would test the computer. From that work I was able to create three issues of artistamps, called my Gravitronics Series, and postcards. To give you a perspective each of the manipulations of the stamp imagery was created from the same one image per issue. Sometimes entering in numbers on the image's axis was a shot in the dark but eventually I started to be able to predict an outcome.

Wolf as a person was a very interesting man in that he was friendly and open minded about art. Plus we would discuss what is now known as quantum physics at our meetings. I was invited to his home a few times to visit his large family and wife.

The system eventually went on to become the real-time meteorological graphic systems we see on the weather channel.
 

I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to work with Wolf for this led to larger opportunities such as: a space residency (to be written about), teaching computer graphics at a college (CAD, PC paint, and Macintosh desktop publishing) and training many of the company employees of the numerous startups and corporations in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay Area.

Today using the computer to make artistamps is commonplace. In the history of computer graphics you may find early artists using computers but in the history of artistamps I’m recognized as the first artist to use computer graphics to make artistamps (per Artpool Research Center and Rod Summers collection).

Character in Dark Secrets 1: Legacy of Lies/Don't Tell (Dark Secrets Series) by Elizabeth Chandler

Read an Excerpt
(As you read take note that I'm from an old line Eastern Shore of Maryland family, and had a storefront in SF, CA. I've become a character in this novel.)
one

Last night I visited the house again. It looked as it did ten years ago, when I dreamed about it often. I've never seen the house in real life, at least not that I can remember. It is tall, three stories of paned windows, all brick with a shingle roof. The part I remember most clearly is the covered porch. No wider than the front steps, it has facing benches that I like to sit on. I guess I was never shy, not even at six; in the dream I always opened the door, walked inside, and played with the toys.

Last night the door was locked. That's how I awoke, trying with all my strength to open it, desperate to get inside. Something was wrong, but now I can't say what. Was there something dangerous outside the house from which I was fleeing? Was there a person in the house who needed my help? It was as if the first part of my dream was missing. But one thing I knew for sure: Someone on the other side of the door was trying hard to keep me out.

"I'm not going," I had told my father back in June. "She's a mean old lady. She disowned Mom and won't speak to you. She has never had anything to do with Pete, Dave, or me. Why should I have anything to do with her?"

"For your mother's sake," he'd said.

Several months later I was on a flight from Arizona to Maryland, still resisting my grandmother's royal command to visit. I took out her invitation, the first message I'd received from her in my life, and reread it — two sentences, sounding as stiff as a textbook exercise.

Dear Megan,


This summer I will see you at Scarborough House. I have enclosed a check to cover airfare.


Regards,
Helen Scarborough Barnes

Well, I hadn't expected "love and kisses" from a woman who cut off her only daughter when she had decided to marry someone of a different race. My mother, coming from a deeprooted Eastern Shore family, has more English blood in her than Prince Charles. My father, also from an old Maryland family, is African-American. After trying to have children of their own, they adopted me, then my two brothers. It would be naive to expect warmth from a person who refused to consider adopted kids her grandchildren.

Now that I thought about it, the meaning of my dream the night before was pretty obvious, even the feeling that something was wrong. The door to my mother's family had always been closed to me; when a door kept locked for sixteen years suddenly, without explanation, opens, you can't help but wonder what you're walking into.

"Megan? You made it!" the woman said, crumpling up the sign with my name on it, then giving me a big hug. "I'm Ginny Lloyd, your mother's best old friend." She laughed. "I guess you figured that out."

When Ginny heard I was coming, she'd insisted on meeting me at the airport close to Baltimore. That October day we loaded my luggage into the back of her ancient green station wagon, pushing aside bags of old sweaters, skirts, shoes, and purses — items she had picked up to sell in her vintage clothes shop.

"I hope you don't mind the smell of mothballs," Ginny said.

"No problem," I replied.

"How about the smell of a car burning oil?"

"That's okay, too."

"We can open the windows," she told me. "Of course, the muffler's near gone."

I laughed. Blond and freckled, she had the same southernish accent as my mother. I felt comfortable with her right away.

When I was buckled in, Ginny handed me a map so I could follow our progress toward Wisteria, which is on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

"It's about a two-hour drive," she said. "I told Mrs. Barnes I'd have you at Scarborough House well before dark."

"I'm getting curious," I told her. "When Mom left Maryland, she didn't bring any pictures with her. I've seen a few photos that my uncle Paul sent, showing him and Mom playing when they were little, but you can't see the house in them. What's it like?"

"What has your mother told you about it?" Ginny asked.

"Not much. There's a main house with a back wing. It's old."

"That's about it," Ginny said.

It was a short answer from a person who had spent a lot of time there as a child and teenager — nearly as short as my mother's answers about the place.

"Oh, and it's haunted," I added.

"People say that," Ginny replied.

I looked at her, surprised. I had been joking.

"Of course, every old house on the Shore has its ghost stories," she added quickly. "Just keep the lights on if it feels spooky."

This trip might turn out to be more interesting than I thought.

Ginny turned on the radio, punching in a country station. I opened the map she had given me and studied it. The Sycamore River cut into the Eastern Shore at an angle. If you were traveling up the Chesapeake Bay, you'd enter the wide river mouth of the Sycamore and head in a northeasterly direction. On the right, close to the mouth, you'd see a large creek named Wist. The next creek up is Oyster. The town of Wisteria sits between them, nearly surrounded by water, the Sycamore River on one side and the creeks on the other two. As for my grandmother's property, it was the large point of land below the town, washed on one side by Wist Creek and on the other side by the Sycamore.

We crossed two sets of railroad tracks. I watched the scenery change from outlet stores to fields of corn and soy and low horizons of trees. The sky was half the world on the Eastern Shore. Ginny asked a lot of questions and seemed more interested in talking about life in Tucson than life in Wisteria.

"What's my grandmother like?" I asked at last.

For a full minute the only response was the roar of the car engine.

"She's, uh, different," Ginny said. "We're coming up on Oyster Creek. Wisteria's just on the other side."

"Different how?" I persisted.

"She has her own way of seeing things. She can be fierce at times."

"Do people like her?"

Ginny hesitated. "Have you spent much time in a small town?" she asked.

"No."

"Small-town folks are like a big family living in one house. They can be real friendly and helpful, but they can also say nasty things about each other and squabble a lot."

She hadn't answered my question about how others saw my grandmother, but I could figure it out. She wasn't the town favorite.

We rumbled over the metal grating of the drawbridge. I hung my head out the window for a moment. In Tucson, creeks were often just trickles. This one was the width of a river.

"We're on Scarborough Street now," Ginny said. "The streets off to our right lead down to the commercial docks, where the oyster and crab boats are. The streets to the left border the college. In a few blocks we'll be crossing over High Street, which is Main Street for us. Want to drive down it?"

"Sure."

We passed a school, went a block farther, then took a right onto High. The street had a mix of houses, churches, and small shops, all of the buildings made of brick or wood. Some of the houses edged right up to the sidewalk; a few had tiny plots of grass in front of them. Pots of bright chrysanthemums perched on windowsills and steps. The sidewalks on both sides of High Street were brick and ripply, especially around the roots of the sycamore trees that lined the street. But even where there weren't roots, the brick looked softened, as if the footprints of two and a half centuries had been worn into it.

"It's pretty," I said. "Are there a lot of wisteria vines around here?"

"People grow it," she said, "but actually, the parcel of land that became the town was won in a card game called whist. That was the town's original name. Some upright folks in the 1800s, who didn't approve of gambling, added to it. I guess we're lucky they weren't playing Crazy Eights."

I laughed.

"There's my shop, Yesterdaze." Ginny slowed down and pointed to a storefront with a large, paned window that bowed out over the sidewalk. "Next door is Tea Leaves. Jamie, the owner, makes pastries to die for.

"The town harbor is ahead of us," she went on. "Only pleasure boats dock there now. I'm going to swing around to Bayview Avenue and show you where I live. You know you're welcome to stay with me if things get difficult."

"Difficult how?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I find it isolated out there on the other side of the Wist. And Scarborough House seems awfully big without a family to fill it up."

"Is that why my grandmother invited me? She can't get anybody else to come?"

"I doubt that's the reason. Mrs. Barnes has never liked company — whoa!" Ginny exclaimed, hitting her brakes hard, sending shoe boxes tumbling over the seat from the back of the station wagon.

A guy in an open-topped Jeep, impatient to get around a car making a turn, had suddenly cut in front of us. The backseat passengers of the red Jeep, two girls and a guy, held on to one another and hooted. The girl in the front seat turned briefly to look at us, laughing and tossing her long hair. The driver didn't acknowledge his near miss.

"Jerk," I said aloud.

Ginny looked amused. "That was your cousin."

"My cousin?" I twisted in my seat, to look down the side street where the Jeep had made another sudden turn.

"Matt Barnes," she replied.

"I thought he was in Chicago."

"Your uncle moved there, and Matt's mother is somewhere in the North, I believe."

"Boston," I told her. It had been an ugly divorce, I knew that much.

"Matt has spent nearly every summer in Wisteria. He transferred to the high school here last winter and is living full-time with your grandmother. You didn't know that?"

I shook my head.

"She bought him the Jeep this past summer. Rumor has it he's getting his own boat. Matt's usually carting around jocks or girls."

Spoiled and wild, I thought. But things were looking up. No matter what he was like, spending two weeks with a guy my own age was better than being alone with a fierce seventy-six-year-old. I'd just fasten my seat belt and go along for the ride.

"Does my grandmother drive?" I asked.

"Pretty much like Matt," Ginny replied, laughing.

When we got to Bayview, she pointed out her house, a soft yellow cottage with gray shutters, then returned to Scarborough Road.

We crossed the Wist, rumbling over an old bridge, drove about a quarter mile more, then turned right between two brick pillars. The private road that led to my grandmother's started out paved, but crumbled into gravel and dirt. Tall, conical cedar trees lined both sides. They did not bend gracefully over the drive, as trees do in pictures of southern mansions, but stood upright, like giant green game pieces. At the end of the double row of trees I saw sections of sloping gray roof and brick chimneys, four of them.

"We're coming up behind the house," Ginny said. "The driveway loops around to the front. You're seeing the back wing. That picket fence runs along the herb garden by the kitchen."

"The house is huge."

"Remember that you are welcome to stay with me," she said.

"Thanks, but I'll be fine."

Now that I was here, I was looking forward to the next two weeks. I mean, how much of a terror could one little old woman be? It'd be fun to explore the old house and its land, especially with a cousin my age. Four hundred acres of fields and woods and waterfront — it seemed unbelievable that I didn't have to share them with other hikers in a state park. A wave of excitement and confidence washed over me. Then Ginny circled the house and parked in front.

"Megan," she said, after a moment of silence, "Megan, are you all right?"

I nodded.

"I'll help you with your luggage."

"Thanks."

I climbed out of the car slowly, staring up at Grandmother's house. Three stories of paned windows, brick with a shingled roof, a small covered porch with facing benches — it was the house in my dreams.

I took my luggage from Ginny, feeling a little shaky. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I walked up the steps of the house. This time the door swung open.

Simon Pulse edition August 2009

My Early Artistamp History

Like many people who get into making artistamps my first encounter with the wonderful world of stamps started as a kid reading the ads in the comics I would buy. I ordered some with my allowance and used to enjoy looking at them. I even traded with the other neighborhood kids at times. I didn’t know what to do with them though and no one in my family knew either so it seemed.

Later in the 60’s as an adult I married the son of Frederick William Doolittle, Jr. who did know about stamps. An ardent stamp collector, specializing in U.S. Parcel Post and Tobago collections, my past father in-law won numerous medals in international competitions. He published many articles and lectured on the subject. He served as president and librarian of the Baltimore Philatelic Society, one of the oldest in the United States and host to many annual conventions and meetings for United States and international organizations.

He thought I was humoring him when I showed an interest in his collection. The one thing I wondered about was who made the stamps and how. He thought it was a bit of a fantasy when I said I would one day make some of my own.

“What could you use them for?” he asked one day.

“I didn’t know, perhaps showing them as framed art.”

So these were the seeds that would sprout into a full blown obsession, at times it seems, to make my own artistamps. One day in the 70’s I encountered an ad in a catalog that offered, for a small fee, to turn a photograph into stamps. They had gummed backs and could be used to decorate gift wrapping, envelops, stationary, scrapbook pages or anything you could imagine. They came in sheets of multiples. So it went to the photobooth and sent in a photo from the strip. I used the resulting stamps in one-of-a-kind pieces and for my mail art.

Then in 79 I began to organize the Copy Art Exhibition. Artists from all over the world sent in art made with copy machines including sheets of artistamps, mostly using the color copier but some in black and white, with fictitious countries, made up names and elaborate stories to go with them. This is when I started using Gina Lotta Post with my artistamps.

At that time there were only two other women I knew of who were making artistamps.  However with the men there were many more participants. With some of the men there was a lot of jockeying for power based on unwritten rules of who did what, when, including elaborations on or even out rate inventions of dates. Stories ran rampant, and generally operated upon what I call the rule of firsts was commonplace. The rule of firsts was a game of who left the starting gate first or who had the most issues or who did something first, much like guys returning from a fishing trip. This determined the pecking order in a small circle for quite awhile.

Being a woman, unless I had made artistamps back when women still suckled children in the cave, there was very little respect nor mention of my work and accomplishments in the field. When I asked one artist why he never mentioned me in his writings about the history of artistamps, his answer was - I needed him more than he needed me. This was after we had traded several full sheets and he’d made three different portraits of me for his own editions.

People ask why I stopped for about 18 years from participating in the mail art and artistamp networks. By the end of the 80s I’d observed elaborate kill the competition behaviors amonst several of the participants. I didn’t want to be around this energy anymore. Only a handful of people were spoiling my fun in a very competitive environment but I retired from the scene as I needed the time for my spiritual pursuits. I continued to make artistamps and did a lot of photography during this time, traveling when possible, running a consulting firm and most importantly getting my spiritual life on track. This was all before the artistamp museums, Artistamp Mailing List and IUOMA existed. Now I sell my work to collectors and institutions while actively trade with other artistampers.

If you want to know more about artistamps check my blog Gina Lotta Post Artistamp Museum blog,  the Wikipedia page or Google the other resources mentioned here.