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As a 22-year-old college student attending what was then the Cornish Institute in 1980 or 1981, and/or gave me my first opportunity to present my work in a public arts venue. The evening length music-theater piece I scored for string orchestra, percussion (Matt Kocmieroski), and tenor (Rinde Eckert) was a learning experience for me, and I have always been indebted to Anne Focke and the board and staff at and/or for giving me that opportunity, and a small artist grant — which if memory serves me correctly was $500 — that gave me the encouragement and external validation I needed to produce the work. Some 40+ years later, I still have one page of the orchestral manuscript of that piece framed and hanging on the wall of my office, now as president of Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, to remind me of where my journey started. I heard and saw so many amazing performances, installations, and exhibitions at and/or during those years I was in Seattle — Frederick Rzewski performing “The People United will Never be Defeated” was just one such memorable performance. Thank you Anne, David, and everyone who was involved in and/or during those years.
Buster Simpson and I curated the Seat and Read show that included chairs found and fabricated by artists. Buster and I selected reading material for each chair. I will never forget the phone call from Norie Sato telling me that the fire department just left and/or. They put out a fire that consumed Judy Kleinberg’s gigantic crocheted newsprint sofa that caught fire from a spotlight that backlit the sofa. What a mess cleaning up the fire-suppressing foam that landed everywhere. So glad that and/or did not burn down.
My and/origins, Artfully Clouded by a Half Century
David Mahler
1. How and/or and I connected
One day in the summer of 1974 I read in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a space named and/or. That article’s description spurred me to find 1525 10th Avenue, open the front door of and/or, and ask for Anne. “Not here today,” said whoever was there.
“May I leave this for her?” I asked. On her desk I placed a brief bio, at the bottom of which I scribbled my hope that and/or would be interested in having me present a concert. Leaving Anne’s office, I glanced at the main gallery space. I think there was an exhibition up, but in my mind all I saw was me sharing my vocal pieces, works on tape, and keyboard music with a few listeners. I loved that inviting box of a space.
By the time I returned to and/or a few days later, Anne had read my proposal. We met, chatted, and agreed on a concert date in September. It was that easy.
The 9:30 p.m. concert took place two days before September 16th, the birth day of my daughter Aviva. Among the pieces I performed, and whose titles my wife Irene painted on a wall of and/or’s space, one was called “Aviva.” Without knowing the gender of the babe that Irene carried, I made this “call her out of the womb” piece, and two days later, there she was.
The composer Thomas Peterson attended the concert, and afterward introduced himself, initiating a thirty-one year long deep friendship, ended only by Tom’s death.
A few months after that concert I presented a participatory workshop that included singing, improvisatory activities, and rhythmic play. Apparently I was making a home for myself at and/or.
2. Here to there
and/or grew like the pattypan squashes in my wife Julie’s garden here at our Pittsburgh home. New faces—staff, artists, and friends—seemed to suddenly shoot up. An enriching mix of ideas and their realizations grew out of the many makers always dropping in at and/or. Some came from a distance. Relationships evolved.
Draw lines from and/or to Site and to New Langton Arts in San Francisco; and/or to Portland Center for the Visual Arts; and/or to Centrum in Port Townsend; and/or to The Western Front in Vancouver; and/or to The Kitchen in New York. There. That’s a start.
3. The neighborhood
and/or‘s neighbors enlivened the scene in the mid 1970s. Literal neighbors were Bert and Hattie, live-in caretakers of the Odd Fellows building. KRAB radio, Empty Space Theatre, and Burnley School of Art fleshed out the cultural picture.
For food there was, well, KFC. But for genuine food there was the Mexican restaurant on 10th and Pike, and the other place. At 11th and Pike? Emil’s? Middle Eastern offerings were available nearby at the Bagdad. And when did Seattle Central Community College begin? Their culinary program provided sit-down dining. Some of us and/or staffers sometimes dined on the student prepared and served food. Cheers to such education!
At the bar at The Broadway Tavern was where I watched on TV the for-the-ages finish of game six of the 1975 World Series. Bill’s Off Broadway, a beer joint, took Tom Peterson and me in many a night. Beer? The inaugural edition of Ballard’s Red Hook reached our lips as we sat at the bar at Bill’s one evening. At that time Tom and I had never discovered such a thing as local craft beer.
“Hmm. Well, we might as well try it,” Tom said. A few sips led to Tom’s furrowed brow and considered assessment. “Well, Dave, it kind of tastes like meat.” But on the truly comforting side, Bill’s Off Broadway was a rare purveyor of the memorable Aass Bock. Tom: “Mmm. Now that’s a beer.”
What is currently Bobby Morris Playfield, part of Cal Anderson Park, was more or less a large vacant lot in the mid 1970s. Twenty years later, a Puget Sound Senior Baseball League team that I managed, called the Newark Eagles, played a game at the neatly manicured field. Before the game I mentioned to my teammates, all in their 50s or 60s, and most of whom came from Seattle’s suburbs and had never been to Capitol Hill, that I used to work in “that building,” pointing to the Odd Fellows. They looked at the building and continued warming up.
“And this Sunday, I’ll be substituting on organ at that church,” I said, pointing to Central Lutheran on 11th Avenue. “In case you want to come. Ten-thirty.”
4. The annex
No, I haven’t forgotten the Comet Tavern. Let’s call it the and/or annex. A full pitcher of Rainier came down hard and heavy on the board table, and just as decisively the frothy brew was poured into six or more glasses for the assembled. I can’t recall ever drinking alone at the Comet, only at a welcoming table joined by and/or staff, friends, and visiting artists. Let’s lift one in honor of Ethyl!
The Comet wasn’t known only for beer, however. Those of us used to buying our 25¢ workday coffee at the Comet were invited to move up to espresso when the Comet installed an early bean steamer behind the bar. Strong cuppa Joe! But seriously, a whole dollar for a weensy cup of coffee? As Anne Gerber loved to say, get used to it!
5. Employed
In early 1975 Anne offered me the opportunity to be a member of the developing and/or staff, specifically to program music events.
I was aware that, not related to and/or, a Buchla synthesizer resided around the corner in a basement space under the Comet on Pike Street. The Buchla had belonged to New Dimensions in Music, an ensemble which had recently “disbanded.” Jerry Jensen had charge of that sound maker/modifier, and once it became apparent to him that I had a Buchla background, he gave me a key to the underground studio. It was a fact that no one else used that equipment, and knowing that, I “borrowed” it and loaded it in my van and headed south, where I had a gig teaching a week-long summer workshop in electronic music at the University of Portland, an institution that had no synthesizer of its own.
I returned to Seattle from Portland and reinstalled the Buchla on Pike Street, though not for long. Soon the synthesizer was officially given to and/or, and with that Buchla and attendant recording equipment, the and/or electronic music studio was born. Originally housed in a back room of and/or‘s space, after a few years the studio moved to a second floor balcony space of the Odd Fellows building. Of special note in that space was the broadly checked carpet, apparently made of old suits belonging to Spike Jones.
6. It worked!
Before moving to Seattle in the fall of 1972, I spent two student years at California Institute of the Arts, which were the storied first two years of that school’s existence. Music, theater, dance, visual art, writing, and more (yes, this was the era of “happenings”), were tossed together in a stew of let’s-try-this activities. It’s not difficult to imagine my surprise and pleasure at discovering that Anne Focke and other staffers embraced the Cal Arts notion.
Scraps of and/or events clutter the flat surfaces of my mind. My life was changed when I viewed Mary Ashley’s “Eat Your Totems Mary Ashley,” as it was when Jack Baker contributed to and/or‘s piano christening by playing “Dusty Fingers.” To name just two events in ten years.
— — — —
Today, and for most of September, main water lines are being replaced below the streets of our neighborhood. My daily thought is that I can’t wait for this noisy, dirty, traffic clogging work to be over.
This is not the way I felt about and/or when Anne decided to end its existence in its tenth year. Yes, I was ready to move on. and/or had changed, and I felt out of touch with the corporateness of the art world that had grown up around and/or, and arts and artists in those ten years. But I remember writing something about and/or being my daily Disneyland, a fantasy lived every day, and I mourned my life without the inspiration of regularly living in concert with other creative souls.
Ah! Turns out that life goes on! E. B. White’s aunt Caroline once said to him, when he was bemoaning a lack of photos of some event or other, “My dear, remembrance is sufficient of the beauties we have seen.”
Congratulations to And/Or on the occasion of celebrating the anniversary of their founding 50 years ago! And/Or was a unique venue and resource center on the cutting edge of programming, publishing, exhibiting and supporting multiple arts and artistic disciplines. They hosted touring artists, musicians, and performers, published regional writers, exhibited artists, and supported writers and artists. I’m especially grateful to have benefitted from their support for my early experimental work that encouraged me to develop and expand my oeuvre.
Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend the 50th Reunion Celebration of And/Or but I can share info about a seminal performance art work of mine (Night Crossings) that was sponsored by And/Or. I’ll also share info on two of my literary art works that were published in two And/Or sponsored publications:
And/Or Notes 1980, an early community journal, published Wholly Cow a collage and visual poem from my ongoing collage series of time and place-based visual ephemera, a series that I was inspired to continue that now spans 40 years and includes international exhibitons and publications. Here’s a link to my collage.
In 1982, And/Or sponsored an artist residency by Jerome Rothenberg who presented a talk Ethnopoetics and Performance and a workshop on Total Translation that encouraged the introduction of various indigenous cultures and traditions into a writer’s work. In And/Or’s publication Spar: A Challenge for the Contemporary Artist, No. 5, the entire issue featured reflections of writers and artists who attended the residency. Jerome Rothenberg became an important mentor who shared his multidisciplinary work and introduced me to ethnopoetics. My piece “Parallelisms” which appeared in Spar, was inspired by Rothenberg’s ideas. Here’s a link.
My first And/Or performance work Night Crossings allowed me the opportunity to further explore multiple ideas that were inspired by my travels in the Himalayas where I spent seven years in my twenties as an independent researcher studying Tibetan art, calligraphy, ritual and cultural practices. Attaching a Press Release for Night Crossings, the 1985 mixed media performance staged at On the Boards where I was lucky to receive a performance art grant that allowed me to use the performance space and work with professionals like Ed Mast, dramaturg and Lee Harris, a sound and audiovisual producer who incorporated taped music, slides (of my collage travel notebooks) and audiovisual experimentations. I was thrilled to explore themes related to Indian and Tibetan art and culture such as using Tibetan cymbals, creating a Nepalese woodblock print/prayer flag installation, chanting and slides of original commissioned paintings of iconographic Bardo deities from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The text was derived from my recently published book of The Census Taker: Tales of a Traveler in India and Nepal (Madrona Publishers, 1984).
The Night Crossings performance inspired me to explore radio and television gigs, as well develop an innovative outdoor performance AutoText: Poems, Bullhorns, Streets, a poetic collaboration funded by a grant where I joined another poet to read our poems through bullhorns from the back of a pickup truck as we crusied the streets of Capitol Hill, Seattle, during an Arts Festival.
These experiences enabled me to continue to expand my oeuvre and collaborate with musicians, dancers, and artists not only in Seattle but in the next two decades I continued to produce performance works in Woodstock, New York, Houston, Texas, Albuquerque, New Mexico and in shows that toured in Belfast, Ireland, Athens, Greece and elsewhere.
In reviewing my files, ephemera, collages, and slides I uncovered slides of the Night Crossings performance that I need to digitalize. And I’m finalizing an eclectic memoir (in search of a publisher) for a manuscript titled:
Bullhorn Poetics & Other Subversive Acts
A Paper Retrospective of 1980s Performance Art in Seattle and Beyond
Seat and Read was a show that Buster Simpson and I curated. We invited artists to submit a chair for the show and we matched reading material for each chair. All went well until the day that Norie Sato called to say, “The fire department just left. Judy Kleinberg’s crocheted newsprint sofa caught on fire from the spotlight that illuminated it.” What a mess to clean up all the foam residue that was used to put out the fire. Anyway, we did clean it up and the show went on.
Joyce Moty, co-curator
and/or was always eyeopening, hats off to Anne Focke! So glad I got to be a tiny part of this mecca, including running the second year of the and/or store, following in Judy and Sheila’s footsteps.
Here is Polar Awareness, the window display I created for 911 Pine in December 1982. I cannot tell you much about this artwork with its rotating pole (!) and foamy snowball, but maybe it planted seeds – I became an eco designer 7 years later and pretty much have focused my creative energy on climate and community change ever since.
Reflections on and/or
My involvement with and/or may have been 50 years ago, but its impact on my life has been lasting and profound. As a 20-something, Soundwork gave me my first real opportunity to compose electronic music. While I was still learning the ropes, I was constantly inspired by figures like David Mahler. Who could forget his composition “I Want a Good Cup of Coffee”? Or the unforgettable performances by Alvin Lucier, Laurie Anderson, Frederic Rzewski (who, as I recall, balked at playing the “people’s protest” variations on a proletarian piano), and Ellen Furhman? And of course, there was David Mahler’s Valentine’s event—a night when my single BFFs and I experienced one of our most memorable Valentine’s Days.
After my time with Soundwork, I pursued music more formally—first with a tutor, then at SCC and SUNY Albany, where I studied with Joel Chadabe and Leonard Kastle. Eventually, I earned a Special Individualized Ph.D. in Cognitive Science and Music from the University of Washington. My brief stint teaching the Psychology of Music came to an end when Apple hired me, but I credit Soundwork with igniting a passion for music that helped me push through barriers I faced as a child with limited access to musical opportunities. These days, I still dabble in composing music as a hobby and I’m on the board of Symphony San Jose.
The exhibits at and/or, featuring artists like Nam June Paik and Nori Sato, also sparked my interest in alternative video. During my return to SUNY Albany for a year of music study, I connected with a videographer. Through a grant from ZBS Foundation, we created a series of alternative videos with soundtracks composed from everyday objects like egg beaters and bottles. That journey would have never begun without the inspiration I found at and/or. Last year, I had the chance to revisit those memories at a Nam June Paik retrospective at the Tate Modern.
I thought my old reel-to-reel tapes had long been lost to time. Then, just this year, a college friend reached out and said, “Hey, I have a tape of yours.” Sure enough, it contains some of my Soundwork compositions and ZBS soundtracks. They’re now with a restoration company, hoping to bring those sounds back to life.
Congratulations on the archive and on all the projects that and/or has birthed over the years. You have inspired thousands to embrace their creativity, and I am grateful to be among them.
“Stuffing Envelopes”
It was a typical rainy Winter evening in 1977 when I arrived at and/or to stuff envelopes. I wasn’t a staff member–had no clue I would become one. And the idea that I’d become an artist would’ve seemed ridiculous to me at the time. I was working at a residential treatment center in Ballard for court-committed heroin addicts. Before that, I spent several years as a shift supervisor at a suicide intervention center in Akron, Ohio. I was completely burnt out. And on top of that, a two year marriage had ended a couple of days earlier.
David (Mahler) had introduced me to Anne a few days before, so I knew she was and/or’s Director. When she greeted me that evening with a genuinely welcoming smile, followed by an energetic introduction to several staff members and volunteers whose names didn’t imprint back then; I was taken by surprise (the organization’s director is stuffing envelopes?). While the work table was being set up, I looked at the exhibition, a solo show of the work of Don Scott. It wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. Anne explained that it was inspired by the ideas of Buckminster Fuller.
As we stuffed the envelopes, the conversation among the friends around the table made me feel like I was watching it in a movie. Don Scott arrived to help shortly after we started. Anne made sure I felt a part of the group. I began to realize that this gathering was more than just about stuffing envelopes. It was a community event. The conversations about life and art made me think to myself: I love this place; I Love being around these artists–I hope they don’t find out that I’m not one of them. What I didn’t count on, was that they, and many others in the and/or community, would help me discover that I too was an artist who did belong there.
As for the archive, getting a large community of artists to collaborate on the scale of a phenomenon like and/or makes herding cats seem like a walk in the park. Anne’s archive is so important because it’s from the perspective of a person who accomplished that, and much more.
Love to all my old friends
Kleinberg postcard, 1979
the Space Needle show
needle au natural
and/or store, December 1979
curated by Sheila Klein and Judy Kleinberg
Seat and Read, 1979
curated by Joyce Moty & Buster Simpson
This 45-second panorama was made by Michael Peterson in 1976. It’s of the people who came to And/Or to see Dennis Evans and Nancy Mee in performance. https://youtu.be/hd9sLppXZtY
There was an auction in 2005, a celebration of Anne’s work. We were invited to make something for the auction. I made an Artistamp Clock. It sold, and then I made one for myself, with its own provenance. Here is a video I made for my archive. https://youtu.be/-HvvWkISUq0
I loved performing at and/or in our so&so&so&so concert; plus a fabulous movement workshop with Simone Forti (and a trip to observe bears at the Seattle Zoo), and performing in Chris Knowles’ and Cindy Lubar’s “Emily Likes the TV” i think we were naked carrying a baby? Gloria B?
and/ored v.t. v.i.
infected with art; encouraged to create
“When she found discarded oyster shells nearby a stash of
press type, she was and/ored.
Video art was a huge focus…and here is a still from a PSA Alan Lande made with Buster Simpson’s image.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxuVlOlsPEE
Miss you folks. It hasn’t been the same since.
— Ed Comet
Review of the Cowboy / Bozo show by Richard Campbell