New
In Response to the Pandemic
New: over the past few weeks I have been making masks and photographing them as part of my current studio seminar Words As Objects. I am doing this in solidarity with all of my students, who are also working remotely at home. Their semester-long assignment has been to make an artwork that functions like an alphabet or is based on the idea of an alphabet. Many great projects are underway. One student who has built a website where any poem or song lyric entered will automatically be translated into languages corresponding to current national COVID-19 infection rates worldwide.
Here is my project: if you would like me to make you a mask, please request one. I have set up a system where each letter of the alphabet has been assigned a numeric value a have double vowels, and double and triple consonants. When you request a mask, I enter your first and last name into the spreadsheet to determine the price you will pay. The higher number becoming the dollar value and the smaller number the cent value. For example, if Marcel Broodthaers bought a mask it would cost $45.22: M-A-R-C-E-L = 22 and B-R-O-O-D-T-H-A-E-R-S = 45.
I ask you to venmo that dollar amount to me and I will send you a mask made from 100% cotton shirting by van Laack gmbh, laundered and sanitized. All proceeds go to an Asian American senior center in NYC where my friend works as an event coordinator. In response to the pandemic, her duties have shifted to making sure that homebound seniors are getting groceries, including raising money to defray the costs of their purchase and delivery.
purchase a Mask van Laack
visit my student’s COVID-19 data inflected poetry translator