bern porter international

Ducmanhaha, Vo. 1, No. 2

2006-02-23T10:42:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Bern Porter Birthday, to all!!
More soon,
Sheila Holtz
18 Benner Road
Royersford, PA
19468

DUCMANHAHA! Vol. 1 No.1

2006-01-24T11:45:00.000-08:00

DUCMANHAHA, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2006 has made its debut with the turning of the calendar year. In response to its masthead which reads: This periodical is published monthly with the artisitc, moral and financial support of Nguyen Ducmanh under the auspices of the Bern Porter Institute of Advanced Thinking. Contact: Sheila Holtz, 18 Benner Road, Royersford, PA 19468, nducmanh @ aol. com wrote:

Cara Sheila,
I am pleased with the format layout design and only the breadth to perpetuate the creativity of human spirit and the vision of B. Porter but I am not the voice nor direction for its political, religions and moral of the editorial contents; this gazette is for free speech for whom has something to express. "The mysteries of life is in the art," Oscar Wilde said, therefore I learnt after doing art for over 50 years that I only can change myself. Take care, x. Duke

In response, holtzholtzholtz @ yahoo. com wrote

Dear Duke:
Thank you for your insightful comments and your unflagging support of editorial freedom and the First Amendment. You are a mensch. Of course the moral support to which I referred in the masthead of Vol. 1, No. 1 was and is merely my knowledge that somewhere, someone is backing me up with a proverbial "You Go, Girl." That means alot to me. It is what enables me to go on. That, and perhaps the great words of Zen Master Ryokan (1758-1831) who offered this encouragement to a fellow poet:

not for a moment
must you think our voices die
leaving no traces;
truly more that what they are,
our words are equal to our hearts.

Vol.1 No 2 begins to take form in my mind as a compendium of love poems, beginning with Robert Burns, working up to Shakespeare, rounding the bend with the Surrealists, and, finally, culminating with US (you and me). Of course, February 14 being both Bern Porter's birthday AND Valentine's Day, adds to the auspiciousness of the issue.

The heart has its reasons reason cannot know,
Sheila

The First Annual Belfast Poetry Festival, October 7, 8 & 9, 2005

2005-11-15T18:01:00.000-08:00

by Sheila Holtz

The First Annual Belfast Poetry Festival got off to a rousing start Friday Night, October 7, at the Hutchinson Center. Of special note to Bern Porter aficionados was the display of a selection of artworks from the Bern Porter International Memorial Mail Art Show, which remained hanging at The Hutchinson Center for the duration of the three-day event.

After many thanks and self-congratulatory remarks (well-deserved!) by the organizers (“Festivo” and its steering committee) we heard poems by three readers. The first was Maine’s poet laureate, Baron Wormser. He read from older and newer works, including his most recent book, Carthage. “Carthage” is, as he said, “a fictional character, a president of the United States.” It is a timely, scathingly funny work and was very well received.

The second reader, Matthew Thorburn, selected as the winner of “The Festivo Prize,” read his winning poem, “Loneliness in Jersey City,” named after the Wallace Stephens poem of the same title.

The third and final featured reader was 1990 Pulitzer prize winner, the Yugoslavian poet, Charles Simic. As I told a friend later, “He is really good … in a bleak, existential way.” Don’t get me wrong, I love bleak existential poets. In fact, the bleaker, the better. And Europeans, in my opinion, have mastered the art of bleakness in a way that Americans never will. Yet, along with that, his poems expressed tenderness and an appreciation of the broad range of human experience that only such mature and worldly writers can convey.

Saturday, the Festival continued during the day with a workshop, and numerous other readers in the Hutchinson Center auditorium, as well as on-going displays featuring local Maine publishers, booksellers and literary organizations. I myself missed these events, but I did have the good fortune to catch the Open Mic and featured poet Robert Duffy that evening at the “Dreamland” cinema in the downtown Colonial Theatre. This event also included a delightful and heartfelt rendering of a selection from Allen Ginsberg’s monumental ouvre, HOWL, presented by Weslea Sidon. Another highlight was Mayor Mike Hurley’s naming of Belfast’s new “Poet Laureate,” Elizabeth Garber. She succeeds Bob Ryan in that position, and also, of course, succeeds Belfast’s first poet laureate— a position instituted by executive proclamation … and under much pressure from the recipient—Bern Porter!

Sunday afternoon, the three-day event culminated with a “Poetry Walk.” Ten downtown galleries hosted readings wherein twenty selected poets, collaborated thematically with twenty selected visual artists. Both the pictures and the words were displayed on the walls, and the poets read to packed rooms, despite three days of almost continual downpour! I was impressed by the turnout! I had the opportunity to attend three of the Poetry Walk events, all excellent and inspiring.

The First Annual Belfast Poetry Festival—whatta DO! As Bern always used to say, “You’re in Belfast now, Dear! Nothing but big time operations!!”

"Luddite?"

2005-09-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

(Message to Ruud Janssen)

Yes. As a member of the "older [mailart] generation"
I do feel that I have been "left in the dust," but
then there is a certain crusty, curmugeonly, Luddite
pride as I say that.

Still, somehow I have managed to acquire a Blogspot
account... which happened almost by accident in
wanting to communicate with YOU!

I agree with Planet Dada that there is nothing like
getting "something tactile in the mail." But I
disagree that email is "cheaper and less time
consuming." Is a $1000.00 computer system cheaper
than a 37 cent stamp? And what about the time it takes
to master the technology? There are those of us still
on the lower end of the class and economic spectrum
who cannot afford our own computers OR the monthly
internet bill for private hookup and are consigned to
public libraries with crowds and bright lights and
waiting lists and time limits. Not exactly conducive
to creative process.

On the other hand I love to cut and paste by
candlelight with atmospheric music in a private alcove
in my room in the middle of the night.

Still.... as the gray hairs continue to sprout... mail
art does take up time. Time that I may not be quite
as willing to spend, now, as I sit and contemplate
human mortality and the ephemeral nature of corporeal
existence.

Well. Keep smiling, y'all.

PS Ruud: How does one become a member of IUOMA?
Please email me at holtzholtzholtz@yahoo.com.

And you are doing a terrific job. Thanks.

Sheila

--
Posted by sheilaholtz to IUOMA - Ruud Janssen - TAM at
9/22/2005 03:53:52 AM

What, I Say, What IS Mail Art?

2005-06-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

BERN PORTER COMMEMORATIVE MAIL ART EXHIBIT OPENS AT THE BELFAST PUBLIC LIBRARY
today, June 15, 2005.

Contributors from all over the globe have offered homage to "The Granddaddy of Mail Art," Belfast’s own, the renowned Bern Porter. Curated by Jacob R. Fricke, Editor of the newsletter, BERN PORTER INTERNATIONAL, the exhibit may be viewed during in the Library’s lower lobby through June 30th . And yes, children and savages are welcome (although pets are prohibited, with the exception of seeing-eye dogs and handicapped-assisting primates.)

WHAT IS MAIL ART?
It has been termed "The Eternal Network," "The D.Y.I. [Do It Yourself] Revolution," and, along with alternative journals called ‘Zines, "Networked Arts." But, ever since Ray Johnson founded the "New York Correspondence School" in 1962, "Mail Art" has defied definition… and… has nearly eluded description.

Nevertheless, at a Mail Art / ‘Zine retrospective exhibit in April, 2005, at The Design Center of Philadelphia University, I read this statement by curators Sean Carton and Gareth Branwyn. They describe Mail Art and ‘Zine culture:

"[Mail Art] and ‘Zine culture [have] always been about more than [disseminating] "sidestream" ideas. [They] have been about building networks of individuals. In the days before the Web, these networks were often invisible to the mainstream. Instead, they were tenuously connected webs of like-minded people joined through existing power structures such as the mail, the telephone, the fax machine. The do-it-yourself aesthetic of taking control of media for one’s own artistic and expressionistic purposes existed outside the mainstream."

In short, Mail Art was–and is—about subverting the dominant paradigm, about taking control of the means of production and dissemination of the Image and the Word in order to overturn the established aesthetic, undermine the prevailing social norms, and destabilize existing political structures. Mail Art creates an underground network, an alternative global community. To what end?

Continuing, Carton and Branwyn describe the historical context of such activity:
"NETWORKED MEDIA: ‘ZINES, MAIL ART, AND CASSETTE CULTURE:
The history of ‘zines proceeds in a convoluted line that encompasses just about every cultural and artistic revolution over the past half-millennium. Martin Luther’s self-published 95 Theses jump started the Reformation in Europe during the 16th century. Benjamin Franklin’s broadsheets of the 18th century American Revolution helped win the propaganda war against the British. Russian samizdat (literally "self publishers") underground newspapers and books kept the voices of resistance alive in Soviet Russia. Dadaist diatribes of the post-WWI era, French Situationist art happenings, and Beat poetry chapbooks of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance in the 1950s helped promote and solidify the avant garde in the United States and Europe. Underground comics and publications of the ‘60s anti-war movement in the United States publicized the cause and changed public opinion during a very turbulent time. They offered an alternative to the mainstream news media that, for a long time, ignored the groundswell of popular opposition to the Vietnam War. Punk flyers distributed on lampposts and city walls in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80s in the UK and US, and ‘zines documenting underground shows and events, were integral to the creation of a new musical and cultural form. On through the late 1990s self-published and printed materials were a vital element of the literary, musical, cultural, and artistic avant garde.

"In the early ‘60s, American artist Ray Johnson was looking for a way to break out of the traditional arts power structures of galleries and critics. He turned to the mail as a way of distributing art to other artists. Johnson founded the New York Correspondence School in 1962 as a way of promoting "mail art," and saw it grow into a vital and comprehensive network of people who sent and received art in the mail. The phenomenon of mail art grew rapidly and gained some acceptance in the art world. The Whitney allowed Johnson and Marcia Tucker to put on a mail art show in 1970, and groups such as Fluxus and the French New Realists grew out of the movement.

"The mail art movement, with its emphasis on networks, jamming the postal system, and subverting power structures in the name of art shares commonalities with ‘zine culture, overlapping in many places. These forms of early-networked media arose out of a need for people to find ways to work around commercial media, a media that was often at odds with the expression of outsider ideas. And while ‘zines and mail art concentrated on printed material, other arts utilizing other forms found ways of stepping outside traditional media distribution networks. Musicians turned to cassettes and 45 records to self publish and distribute their music to those within their scenes, while labels such as Dischord in Washington DC and BOMP! Records in California, were published on shoestring budgets by punks for other punks. In many cases mail art merged with cassette culture when musicians with small audiences handcrafted packaging to ship their recordings to their fans."

The words and images themselves, as produced and distributed by Mail Artists worldwide, often combine aesthetic and political messages. Often, however, the Mail Art Network has provided a venue for the truly idiosyncratic vision. In this sense, it was—as the "Web" has become in recent years—an entirely "democratic" medium. Unlike the established gallery system, it did not, and does not, discriminate on the basis of degrees, credentials, connections, resources, or—even—talent! "NO JURY, NO FEES, DOCUMENTATION TO ALL PARTICIPANTS" was and is the standard banner on calls for entries to Mail Art shows in the ‘70s,’80s, ‘90’s and ‘00s.

Bern Porter’s vision was aesthetic, political, AND idiosyncratic. His "found art" ethos was widely accepted, adopted and adapted in the Network. Never prone to modesty, Bern often claimed, "I invented Mail Art when I was four years old in Houlton, Maine." Like most of Bern’s statements about his artistic activity and personal history, there probably is a kernel of truth amid generous helpings of braggadocio and shameless self-promotion.

But, without a doubt, in the world of Mail Art, Bern Porter was very widely known—often mentioned in the same breath with Ray Johnson himself. Those who place the descriptor "Mail Art Legend" before the name "Bern Porter" are, to my mind, both accurate and appropriate.
This exhibit pays homage to the "Legend" here in his long-time home, Belfast, Maine. Though some might take exception, I can state unequivocally: Bern LOVED Belfast. And, as I have often said, "Bern IS Belfast."

Bern was always telling me, and many others, "You’re in BELFAST, now, DEAR!" …after which he almost always added, "And if you don’t like it in Belfast, You can always go to EAST Belfast!"
But seriously… Many folks in Belfast may not realize the degree to which Bern Porter, by means of his Mail Art activities, put Belfast, Maine, on the global map. I myself came here in 1995—ALL THE WAY from Philadelphia, PA(!)—because of Bern and because of Mail Art. Both have had a life-transforming impact on ME. I think, if one would ask around the world, one might find many others who would say the same. The works presented in the exhibit are evidence of that.

Sheila Holtz
June 15, 2005

…on the occasion of the opening of "R.I.P., DEAR: TO THE GRANDDADDY OF MAIL ART—A Bern Porter Commemorative Exhibit" at the Belfast Public Library June 15 through June 30, 2005, curated by Jacob R. Fricke, Editor, BERN PORTER INTERNATIONAL

WHAT IS MAIL ART?

2005-06-16T11:37:00.000-07:00

Stay tuned and find out as we attempt to define the undefinable, pin down the impenetrable and masticate the unmentionable. Coming soon to this blogpost.

R.I.P., Dear!

2005-06-10T06:46:00.000-07:00

The Bern Porter memorial mail art show is finally here! Behold the press release!

The editorial staff of Bern Porter International, a local newsletter of worldwide fame, have assembled a memorial art show in honor of the late BERN PORTER, government scientist, research physicist, Belfast presence, poet, publisher, and artist. The show, "R.I.P., Dear: A Mail Art Tribute to Bern Porter", was announced as an international call for submissions late last fall. The results, truly, are all over the map! Pieces of bona fide and ex tempore MAIL ART, sent in tribute by through-the-mails artists all over the world, will be on display in the lobby of the Belfast Free Library from Wednesday, June 15th to Thursday, June 30th. Come and commemorate with Eye and with Brain — during regular library hours. Come find the founds that have found their way. Children and savages welcome.

How to Live in Belfast with Scissors

2005-03-16T12:36:00.000-08:00

by Jacob Fricke

When I first met Bern Porter I had not yet been taught about Realism and. Romanticism, was just getting by heart Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, had not rote-learned the European Enlightenment, had never heard the song “Over There” or seen Rosie the Riveter. As a guest speaker one early spring afternoon, Bern dumbfounded our history class with the story of Hiroshima, the surprise of the Manhattan Project, the Banana Rodeo and International Mail Art, poem books made from advertisements and medical manuals, Sciart, the Porter Plantation and the Saturn Moon Rocket, an Institute for Advanced Thinking, the lingering, science–born terrors of radiation, and no sons. The stunned eighth-grade history teacher afterwards pronounced him a real nut and promised us he’d never be called back again. For my part I felt as though the world and all my senses had opened up. My mind, I knew, had been freed as from a long subterranean residence.
Having heard the unheard-of story of this man, like a surreal gospel, I began to notice his shapeless and stately figure, with halo of disheveled white hair, very often about town in the place I had lived all my life, hitherto invisible. Here was this world-renowned physicist who had helped create the modern age looking more like a bag lady than anything else, shuffling along always on foot and bent on collecting scraps of old bread, and children’s toys from the street, destined for unimaginable art—at once a Diogenes and a da Vinci. Often in a bathrobe at public functions, even when playing a part, ready to hammer away his input at city council meetings like an inevitable Nor’easter, and invariably self-possessed, it was clear to my young mind that here was a person who was free. I met with him several times from year to year, once to ask about nuclear energy and radiation, a few times at the spiritualist church recently opened (to hear from his much referred-to departed wife, to brood on inscrutable fate, or just to affirm that the plasma lasts forever, I cannot guess), and once many years later when I accosted him on the street one day trying to pry from him the procedure and names for publishing a book of found art. I had heard that he openly questioned the need for automobiles, and had no car; that he very much lived off of free food taken from public events, that he turned the trash he collected—dolls, parts of cars, gizmos, bottles—into sculpture, books, and assemblages of living art, living literature published with his last dime. To a mind still unreservedly idealistic he embodied, like a kind of Greek philosopher, the boldness of living according to one’s own thoughts, the wealth of self-sufficiency when your treasure flows from the Mind, the uncanny surprise of looking at the world with your eyes and not with your ideas, hand-me-downs nearly every one. I went to the public library and pored over Wastemaker, Sounds That Arouse Me, Sweet End, The Manhattan Telephone Book. His books taught me that freedom from the Reason, from the tired old handshake between Reader and Plot, trimmed with Good Behavior, did not mean freedom from meaning, pertinence, delight. I saw him as a Renaissance man, a relentless and all-wandering innovator, a grandfather of genuine culture tirelessly trying to tend the strange garden of our times. As he said, “Most of My Days Were Spent in Fixing People Who Had Already Spent Considerable Time Fixing Me.” The old thing is over. Did he succeed? Who can tell? Our senses and faculties have limped along for so long now, it may take 200 years to know.

The Life and Times of Bern Porter

2004-12-22T14:40:00.000-08:00

by Sheila Holtz

Bernard Harden Porter, long-time Belfast resident, artist, writer, publisher, and scientist, died Monday June 7, 2004 at Tall Pines Nursing Facility. He was 93.

A well-known local figure and Maine native, Porter traveled widely before settling in Belfast in 1972. From his home at 50 Salmond Street he operated his self-styled "Institute for Advanced Thinking." There he hosted traveling artists and maintained a colorful sculpture garden of multimedia installations and "contemporary artifacts."

Bern was born in Porter Settlement, near Houlton, on February 14, 1911, according to official records, though Bern himself claimed 1910 as his birth date. His parents were Etta (Rogers) and Lewis Porter. He is predeceased by two brothers, Harold and Everett, and a sister, Marion.

After graduating from Colby College, Waterville, Maine, in 1932, Porter pursued a master's degree in atomic physics at Brown University, Providence, RI. He worked in colloidal research on the development of the first black and white graphite television picture tube. In 1940 he was conscripted into civilian service to work in uranium separation on the Manhattan Project.
During the course of his work he made the acquaintance of Robert Oppenheimer, the Project’s director, with whom he was deeply impressed. In laboratories at Oak Ridge, TN, Princeton, and Berkeley, many scientists like Bern unknowingly worked on the top secret military program to create the first atomic bomb. Bern has said, "In Tennessee I supervised barefoot hillbillies who thought they were making radiator fluid." Bern himself did not learn the ultimate result of his labors until he read of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, in The New York Times.

After the nuclear destruction of the Japanese city of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, Bern was devastated. He walked out of his job, disillusioned with research physics. Thereafter, he devoted himself primarily to the pursuit of arts and letters. He ran a gallery of contemporary art in Sausalito, California, and BERN PORTER BOOKS, a small publishing company. He was an associate and early publisher of avant garde writers Henry Miller, Kenneth Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, Robert Duncan, and Parker Tyler. With George Leite he published Circle Magazine (1944-1948.) In San Francisco he met Anais Nin as well as Allen Ginsberg and other Bay Area poets of the Beat Generation. In 1946 he was married briefly to a young student, Helen Elaine Hedren.

Porter worked on various engineering and construction projects in Guam, Tasmania, Guatemala, and Alaska before settling in Belfast with his second wife, Margaret (nee Preston,
d. 1975.) He is also predeceased by a third wife, Lula (Bloom.)

Bern was one of the founders of the Mail Art Network, sending visual poetry, letters, one-of-a-kind postcard art and altered images to international correspondents as early as the 1950s. He was associated with the fluxus, neoist, and situationist art movements of the twentieth century. He was known for his seminal contributions to "found" art, performance art, sound poetry, visual poetry, and xerox collage. In addition, Porter maintained an extensive literary career in which he authored or compiled over one hundred books, chapbooks, pamphlets, and broadsides.

His biography, Where to Go, What to Do When You Are Bern Porter, by James Schevill, and a retrospective collection of his prose and poetry, Sounds That Arouse Me, were published by Tilbury House, Gardiner, ME, under the auspices of Mark Melnicove. In later years, Bern's publisher was Roger Jackson, of Ann Arbor Michigan, with whom he produced more than thirty-four titles. A persevering nonagenarian, Bern continued writing and publishing until his last year of life. In October 2003, he moved to Tall Pines, a nursing home and rehabilitation facility a few blocks from his Salmond Street home in Belfast. He received regular visits from friends and admirers until his death, an eventuality that Bern had often euphemistically referred to as “the final final.”

Collections of Bern's books and artworks are archived at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, at the University of California at Berkeley, at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, and Brown University, RI as well as at Colby, Bowdoin, and Unity Colleges in Maine. Collections can also be seen in the Belfast Public Library and the Museum of the Belfast Historical Society. A vast and unknown number of Bern's signed, limited edition books and original artworks are housed in private collections worldwide.

Bern Porter inspired and mentored many young (and not-so-young) writers, artists and performers. Many of them were frequent or occasional visitors to the Institute – Janelle Viglini, Tamaranda Laeir, Mary Weaver, Amy Flaxman, Carlo Pittore, Phil Nurenberg, Natasha Bernstein, and the late Dan Russell – to name a few. He often advised, "Apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, dear, and confront the page!" Irascible, tyrannical, tender, flamboyant, outrageous, circumspect, abstruse, enigmatic, humorous, probing, and incisive, Bern was…and is…UNIQUE. We will not forget him, or his legacy. In fact, we ARE his legacy.

In conclusion, all we can say, Bern, is "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

it's another beautiful day in belfast, dear

2004-12-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

This blog was created as a forum for those interested in mail art in general and the mail art, life and times of Bern Porter in particular. Some have called Bern "The Granddaddy of Mail Art." He certainly did live a long, unusual, and productive life. (February 14, 1911-June 7, 2004.)

From 1997 to 2002, I and my alter ego, Natasha Bernstein, published an 8-page xeroxed Weekly Reader-style 'zine called Bern Porter International. In 2004 it was resuscitated, and with the help of new co-editor Jacob Fricke, we have, in the last issue, sent out a call for entries to two Bern Porter tribute projects. See Crag Hill's scorecard for details: http://scorecard.typepad.com/crag_hills_poetry_score/2004/09

wow. I just did that to see if I could create a hyperlink. Apparently this stuff actually WORKS!
In any case, here is the same information, below. But check him out anyway.

1."R.I.P., Dear"
A Mail Art Tribute Exhibition
send all entries, any size, any medium
Deadline: December 31, 2004 (THIS IS NOT ENTIRELY ENGRAVED IN STONE. Please send)

2.A Bern Porter International Commemorative Issue
Send text or b&w graphics (up to 8-1/2 x 11")
Deadline: November 15, 2004 (THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT ENGRAVED IN STONE. Do send!)

to:
Sheila Holtz & Jacob Fricke
Editors
Bern Porter International
PO Box 911
Belfast, ME 04914
jacobrf@midmaine.com

Yes. It's true. Bern and I, although several generations apart in age and era, were both born before the invention of computers, and I, like he did, do still harbor a great deal of suspicion about this technology. "Cut and paste" in my vocabulary still evokes an image of scissors and glue! In the past I have, somewhat huffily perhaps, called myself a "luddite." But I am making inroads, and am slowly chipping away at my resistance. Blogging may just be the magic bullet to cure my technophobia, eh? Especially blogging to and with the mail art community, many of whom seem to have slipped below my visual horizon in recent decades.

So, please do send submissions via realmail. Please do post comments here.

greetings blogfans, mail artists and Bern Porter aficionados

2004-12-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

I've found my way to blogging, after much initial resistance... to be continued...