12ozProphet

The Going Postal book launch was off the hook. About 40 artists created special pieces that related to their
art on postal stickers. We spent all day hanging the show and truthfully I was clueless about how much skill,
effort and time would be involved. What was I thinking?? Luckily I had generous assistance from an energetic
and enthusiastic gang of volunteers. There is no way adequately to thank them. Cosbe tirelessly contacted and
emailed artists and took off 2 days from work to help install.  Chris Stain was in charge of the measuring, leveling,
drilling and hanging. Faust kept a close watch on the aesthetics, layout and spacing along with Chris of RWK
and Celso. Many of the artists brought in their work as we were hanging the show.  I had had no idea what pieces
would look like, but blind faith that everything would turn out great.  So we spent the morning exclaiming over new
art as we tried to keep track of everything and decide where to hang what.

We had a wonderful surprise entry offered the day before the show opened. Brett Webb, one of the original
founders of Art Crimes, got in touch to say that he had stored 10 panels of vintage postal stickers from a
show in Philly organized by Change in 1999 and would we like to show them. WOW!! Of course we would.
Coincidentally that show had also been called “Going Postal”—so although I found out that my book title wasn’t
original, it seemed that some kind of serendipity was at work. The panels were gorgeous—full of the most
amazing art on the old style, elongated postal labels. We hung the panels near the ceiling to keep them out
of harm’s way and they made a wonderful frieze around the room unifying the whole show.

In the midst of hanging, a super special piece arrived—an actual newspaper box from Philly totally covered
with postals by Bob, Nose, Sae42, Cbeauty, El Toro, Blip and Under Water Pirates . Breathtaking!! Philly has
an especially strong character postal sticker scene. I had explored Philly with Malic and Morg and Malic and
Ticky’s collaborative sticker is on the front cover of my Going Postal book.  Sti Kman, Bloopa, UWP, Morg,
Cable, WTF and others are in the book so I was especially happy to have art from Philly in the show and the
postal box made an exceptional centerpiece.
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In addition to the larger pieces, many artists brought a stack of stickers to sell for $5.00 each, an incredible
deal. We hung them with clothespins on “laundry” lines and Heather, my cousin Sally and her daughter Leah
tried their best to keep track of the brisk sales at the launch. I think a lot of people got turned onto the beauty
and variety of art on postal stickers and will start keeping a sharper eye out for them when they’re walking
around the city.

Ad Hoc was packed for the launch. I carried my camera around all evening and didn’t manage to take any
photos. Luckily plenty of other people did and you can check out lots of their photos on Flickr and Brooklyn Street Art
Of course in addition to the art on the walls and the stickers, we were also selling books ‘cause this was a
book launch. The folks from the publisher, Mark Batty, were out in force including Mark himself and his wife
Cynthia.  Going Postal editor Buzz kept watch over the books assisted by Carolyn and Jake. Christopher,
the designer was vacationing in Mexico. Bet he’s sorry he missed the event! We sold out of the 100 books
we brought but they are available at book and museum shops and on Amazon and are a steal at just $10.00.
Sadly the exhibit is only up for 3 days. I’m headed out to Bushwick now and will take it all down this evening.
It was an amazing night.!!! MUCH LOVE TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED OUT AND CAME TO CELEBRATE
GOING POSTAL!!!!! I’ll put some more photos up soon.