Medwolf: Mucho Mail Art from Gail D Whitter

Art Call

Please send "Mail Art" re- is the great mail artist David Zack really in the spirit world… all works will be posted at http://www.medwolf.blogspot.com/ This project is on going,no fee,no jury,no returns and the theme is “Zack Sightings“....if u know some one who looks like Zack then send me a pic,create a pic,become a pic etc etc…some have said that Zack was a shape-shifter and may still walk among us not in human form but as an animal or bird..send mail to Zack Sightings c/o Medwolf~RR 7,Site 715,Comp 62,Saskatoon,Saskatchewan,Canada S7K 1N2 …I will send something back..

The David Zack Show

The David Zack Show opened at The New Gallery (TNG) in Calgary,Alberta,Canada october 10/ 2008,it is a retrospective / commemorative installation of zack's work mostly focusing on the 70's and 80's,the show is based on Istvan Kantor`s archival collection extended with contributions from many other artists,he is still collecting material…a book/catalog will be published after the TNG show therefore it will include details of the installation together with essays and additional information and visuals……

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Mucho Mail Art from Gail D Whitter

"Spirit II" From~Gail D Whitter, Unit 7-1735 Riverside Ave., Trail,B.C., Canada V1R 3Z3

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Michael Leigh an artist in the UK says..

A postcard from Dave Zack from Mexico where he lived at the time. Sent in 1984. On the reverse Zack writes- " Michael- This is too vital to my Correspondence History to plan out or prefabricate, let alone prevaricate in any way. I have refused to give the Tapia family the cash Christmas gift they demand. They lowered and I still refused. Three times I went to my parents with the Tapias. These lovable and living ancestors of mine smiled lovably and pointed at me. Cesario refused to take Genovera's last month's pay, holding out for the Christmas present. I said my festival as a ULC minister is not Christmas, but April 1st. He said he never heard of it. I told him to watch out for it, it'd be better than bullfighting. This isn't bad, sometimes people get killed."

~John Dean Says~

"Glad to see that I'm not the only one who has reservations about David Zack´s 'disappearance/ death'. I have been reading accounts of it from 1994 on that are each different. The Mexican prison seems a constant as does some sort of ¨bad paper¨. His ¨crime¨ has been described variously as welfare fraud ,living off his dead parents' retirement checks, claiming dependent children that didn't exist, and failure to pay spawn support for some who did. Sounds like simple fraud or forgery or somthing like that. Would Mexican courts have any jurisdiction or interest in American Social Security, Welfare, or Aid to Dependent Children? So why all these different and incredibly seedy stories?"One report claims that after his release he hobbled across the border into a Texas nursing home to die . (What nursing home? Any death records?) Another states that one of his legs had been amputated in a Mexican dungeon. 'Here' he died in ´85 but 'there' in ´95 ...huh?..."In 1968 when I was a student of Dave´s at S F A I and his neighbor on Stiner Street we sat in the front room at Rainbow House and he told me about the curious disappearances of Arthur Cravan, Ambrose Bierse and B. Travan. THEY had all disappeared in Mexico without a trace. Stories still circulate about them. Seems a very literary way to go, all romantic and mysterious. There is also a reference to the Cravan, Bierse, Travn disappearances on that incredibly dense, link heavy and anti-semantic ¨9 by 9 squares¨ URL that shows up if one runs Zack´s name into Google . What about his life extention center and this Marty Cantsin fellowS? curiouser and curiouser."Certainly no one consistent version of his alleged disreputable demise. He may well be beastlydead. Still, Dave was a prankster and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he pops up again some time. If not perhaps tabloid rumors may surface : AGE´D PROFESSOR THOUGHT TO BE DEAD FOR 20 YEARS FATHERS BRITNEY´S LOVE CHILD !!! To me that doesn't sound any more bizarre than the rest." (John Dean, May 2002)

Jack Kid Said...

Well, I know that our friend David Zack was alive and recovering from a gangreen toe that was amputated while he was staying at a rest home in San Antonio, TX. I believe it was in 1994, but I'd have to check. I have audio exchanges and phone conversations with him from the one or two months he was in Texas. One day I called the "manor" and they said he had checked out. I tried to find out where, but the "intern" who cared for him didn't know. Zack just left the place and didn't leave any address, etc. As I recall, I believe he said that Al Ackerman knew that he was in Texas and perhaps Al had something to do with getting Zack out of prison and finding a place for Zack to stay in the US. Zack was definitely released from prison in Mexico because of his sugar diabetes (sp).....failing health....at least that's what Zack told me. I have that on tape.
He was a good mail art buddy of mine....I have all of his Correspondence Art chapters....just tons of correspondence and some audio cello/banjotapes that we called the Jack Zack Overture.....that project was done while I was working on my MFA at Boston Museum School in the mid 80s.We shared a close mutual friend, my third cousin Roy DeForest. Zack tried very hard connecting Roy and I, but to no avail......well, what did I expect? Zack and Roy were Nuts...."nut artists" according to Zack.
I had a great jam session with Zack and Zona Ben Banfield's audio/collage studio in Greenfield, MA back in 1986. It was a surreal night.Zack brought along some cactus plants that he wanted me to pulp into some form of hand made paper that he could roll his joints in.The stuff was so far gone.....sour cactus.... well, I recall that he wanted me to eat some of it, but the stench was something very wretched and I declined.
So it goes. Sure wish that he would surface, but I'm of the belief that he's been long gone. Al Ackerman probably knows what happened to Zack. Anybody ever ask "Blaster."?
Zack's health was very bad and he'd nearly died while in prison. BTW, that part about his being jailed for forging his deceased father's retirement checks is true.Again, he admitted that in our correspondences. Also, he did have four or five children that he abandoned. Anybody thought about contacting them to find out about their father?
Caio,
Crackerjack Kid

~Fire Child~

It was going to be a cold night out on the land...I built up the fire and laid down beside it... All day I had tracked the two lost boys....I knew now I was very close and would find them in the morning as they had stopped running....
I stared into the fire wondering why lost people always run....The fire became a green dancing flame to my tired brain....I closed my sleepy eyes and could see her....A little girl in a beaded dress sitting on the ancient praying stone which is part of a medicine wheel near my camp....
She held a braid of sweet-grass and looked to the sky worlds....She said, "Hear me elders... I am the spirit of the strings of time....I have come to this place and time because the willow trees are crying...
At one time when mother earth wore the smile of a young woman....elders used to tell us things and shared their knowledge beside the teaching fires....Now the elders are gone....victims of bingo hall spirits they dwell in the arms of casino magic....
No longer do they prepare the young for their journey into tomorrow....No longer do they care that we are dying with needles in our arms....No longer do they care that babies are being eaten by the concrete jungles....Elders, I burn this sacred medicine for you....Elders, hear me mother earth is dying, the greedy ones are killing her....
Elders, please, when earth is gone you also will be gone....Elders, you must help us,you must show us the medicine that will save mother earth....
Elders, listen to me, I am the spirit of the warriors heart....The wolves are gathering in the secret places of the four leggeds, and I have come to run with the pack....I am tired of hiding in bottles of tricksters medicine ....I am tired of dying with shame in my heart ....I no longer like it that the innocent ones fear my foot steps....I have come to take the first shock and buy time with my life so that maybe,just maybe, mother earth will heal....Elders, where are you....who will prepare me for battle....
Elders, where are you hiding??? Who will guide my spirit through the fires of the ancient ones.... Elders, help me....Who will pray for me when I drink the sacred water from the big dipper.... Elders, why have you deserted us...
Elders, leave the shiny coins to the lost ones,mother earth doesn't except credit cards....Elders, we need you....Please come back to us...Elders, don't be afraid...We will teach you....Elders, I am the spirit of the forgotten ones who live beyond your vision, and steal time from the darkness....
Elders, I am the spirit of yesterdays children...I was sent to this place by the forever healing ones...
I carry sweet-grass, it cleans my spirit,I carry sacred sage, it brings good spirits around me,I carry sacred cedar, it keeps bad things away,I carry sacred tobacco, it takes my prayers up to creator....
I come from a time when we were strong,I come from a time where elders are real,I come from a place where those who carry the gift of age share their thoughts,I come from yesterday, a time when our mother was not dying....
Where are you,elders of this place....Why do you embrace the games of trickster.... Can you not see the children's pain...Can you not feel the tears in the wind....Can you not feel their tiny lives slipping away...
Hear me elders, I am the spirit of the rainbow tribe,my father was a soldier who has seen this world through the eyes of a white wolf,My mother was a pow-wow dancer who seen all things through the eyes of a soaring eagle...
I am a mixed blood, I am metis and I have come to teach you how to walk on the clouds,I have come to help you to hear earth breathing...I have come to help you to love the rain,I have come to share the heart beat of my people, for we are children of the sky and earth,our basket also is filled with good dreams...
I have come to teach you the dance of friendship, and to let you know that your struggle is my struggle,until forever ends....
Elders, hear me, I am the spirit of the missing ones,I live in the shadows of your dreams,I have friends who no longer walk in your world,they stopped breathing when the dark one touched their innocence....
Where were you in our time of need...Where were you when we had no place to hide....Elders,you must share this burden,it is our blood on your hands,your silence is your acceptance....
Elders, you didn't take our lives, but you let it happen,we died for your sins,like that white medicine man Jesus...Elders, those alive still need you,don't let our deaths be for nothing...
Elders, look inside your hearts, remember how it felt to be mother earths children,remember elders,all you have to do is remember".
I awoke and looked around me,all I could think of was,what a powerful place I have chosen to place my camp...
Medicine Wolf~in the time when the Rainbow Tribes hear the whispers from the sky...