June 26, 2005 Shadow celebration in Brussels, Belgium May 22, our good friend and network artist Marilyn Dammann died after a short fight against a general cancer. Her friends and family invited me for a celebration of her life and art the weekend of June 25-26.
Because I could not afford another trip to the USA I started thinking on how to turn the frustration into a very positive energy wave. So I came up with the idea to turn June 26 into an international memory day to honor Marilyn, aka Shadow. Let's unite in the same time frame all efforts of the mail art network around one person we all loved and admired. So I spread a call in this sense by email and by regular mail and asked also to mail me expressions of grief and love and artistic actions that took place on that day. The intention was to unite them and forward these collections to Marilyn's children and friends. It was Guy De Boeck, a Brussels' poet and Friour zine contributor, who reacted back by saying: "You're not going to do this on your own, hey! Let's all come together" So instead of a personal celebration I started inviting other artists and friends to come to my flat that day. The idea was a simple one. Come and bring something and let's share all what we have. The week preceding that Sunday Belgium suffered from a heat wave but near the end of the week it cooled down and on June 26 the weather was perfect: a sunny day without being too hot. I cleaned my flat in the morning and put all the chairs I had in the garden. The number of chairs was 12: 6 regular ones and 6 garden ones. What if more than 12 people came? I'll improvise. I also organized an exhibition in the flat by putting on the dinner table a selection of Marilyn's art books and journals. Another table became a shrine. I put her picture on a roll of birch bark amongst turtle objects coming from all the continents on the globe. The turtles had come to me as the result of one of my mail art projects: Turtle Visions. I had been burning incense on that table close to her picture since the news she had passed away. Final touch was perhaps to put a feather of a blackbird close to the photo and the incense burner. It was to include David Stone in the celebration. He was grieving like me, aware we all lost a very good friend and mail art contributor. Another American artist was very present in the celebration: Lavona Sherarts. Not only because of the turtle objects (her turtles were amongst the first to arrive) but also because she had made a special book for the occasion, a book in Marilyn's spirit she had called it and she was right about that. The cover of the book was made of birch bark again and the pages inside were blank. Everybody who came to the celebration could leave a personal message in this guest book. I also intended mailing this book to Baraga. Another person who helped me tremendously for the June 26 Day was Rob Grantinks from Australia. First he had created an international logo for that day and then he came up also with the idea of a sticker to glue on our mail. I put his design based on Marilyn's final signature (Love, Light & Magic) in a table for labels and printed them to use them on my own mailings spreading this event. I attached a page on my front door with logo, sticker and a photo of Marilyn. I had also been spreading around in my mail a postcard edition of a collage Marilyn made together with her picture in ATC size. I had been writing to people since weeks. It was a ritual of grief I needed very badly for myself. When I had asked people to document what they did June 26 and to mail me the results, most mail artists did not wait that long. For some it was like a project, so they reacted immediately. For many others the desire to express their own feelings of loss to me and to the family was so overwhelming they needed to react and express themselves right away. Reading all this mail was like a balm, sometimes painful, sometimes an alleviation of pain, healing and comforting, an expression of love for someone who had loved herself so much, saw love as the antidote for fear and hate and war. Marilyn was a generous spirit, in complete balance with nature and her environment. She had had a full life and her goodbye to this earthly existence had been one also in balance and without regrets. Regrets were for those who stayed behind, we cry for ourselves in fact. It was part of her message in the last telephone conversation I had with her in April. I played "non, je ne regrette rien" (a well known Edith Piaf song) right after that phone call. On the table with Marilyn's books and journals I placed a box with all the received mail concerning Shadow's passing. Another box contained contributions to Earth Charter, my latest project and the last one with a contribution from Marilyn, more ways to connect networkers from all around the world with the memento. Around noon the phone started ringing. Miche Vandenbrouck who wanted to come to the gathering with some food and wanted to take the train from Merksplas to Brussels told me that trains did not run, so she could not make it. Because of the heat an upper electrical line broke down and it was not repaired yet. I told her not to worry because she was so sorry she could not be there. Second phone call from Virginie, one of the nuclear medical experts on my job. She lives around the corner and I had invited her and boyfriend to come and visit me that day. She said yes but forgot she had already an appointment for visiting her mum. Third was an email from Wout, local leader of the progressive Spirit party. He had expressed the desire to be there but could also not make it because he was ill. Fourth was another email from Luc Fierens telling me his father had died. So he had his own mourning preparations to go through. Fifth were my Liege friends. Jack Ross wanted to come with her daughters but because of financial and personal problems they also could not make the journey. It was Guy De Boeck who explained me the reasons later during the day. But then people started pouring in till the 12 chairs were filled. I was amazed because it was a perfect match and because of the international character of the gathering. We were with 4 natives from Belgium: Guy, me, Liza Leyla and Geert De Decker. Liza and Geert met Marilyn during her visit to Belgium in 1998. Liza and Marilyn had been very close and they maintained a regular correspondence since the encounter. Liza writes and publishes poetry books and intends to publish a new edition around one of Marilyn's art works. Geert is one of the organizers of the alternative arts and music festival. In 1998 he introduced Marilyn and me to the village of Doel, harbor of one of nuclear power plants in the country, a village doomed to disappear because more docks will be build. Bernd Reichert joined the party as well. Bernd lives in Brussels with his family. They are from former Eastern Germany. Two Italians showed up: Enzo Ferrari and his partner. They are recent correspondents. Enzo was introduced to mail art by Anna Boschi and lives in the same neighborhood as Bernd. So I was able to introduce them to Bernd and to tell them they are neighbors! A mixed couple from Uruguay and Argentina came also to the celebration: Sandra Petrovich and Gervasio. I met Sandra first during an edition of the Brussels' art rally of St Gilles (a 2 yearly event where the public is able to meet artists where they live or work). Later we connected again during the visit of Alicia Zarate. Alicia is from Argentina and is behind the project "Water is Blue Gold", a project on water as a political & economical issue. Of course they all know Clemente Padin. Sandra had done an installation in a Brussels' park to honor Marilyn and emailed me the photo just before going to my flat. She also made a beaut iful object. She surrounded Marilyn's photo with flower petals and glued them on rags she uses to clean her paintbrushes. The result is quite colorful, almost cheerful. Also Marilyn's picture was attached to the image of a balloon. Another object I'm receiving from Marina. She made a pretty ring and asks me to mail this to one of Marilyn's daughters. Marina is from Serbia and a friend of Dobrica Kamperelic. Dobrica stayed the first night at her flat during his visit to Belgium. Second night he stayed with me. Marina is accompanied by 2 friends: another Serbian networker who explains he was part of a movement in Yugoslavia called "shamanism and renaissance". So suddenly I could understand why these people could relate so well to Shadow, a person they never met or knew as correspondent. A second friend explained he has mixed roots: Lebanese and Egyptian but is married to a Flemish woman. So the conversation jumps from Dutch to French to English while we all enjoy in the shades of the garden fruit juices, coca cola, red , rose and white wines. Bowls of Turkish Delight sweets and 2 kind of chips accompany the beverages. The ants in the garden join the party by feasting also on the Turkish delight, a sign to start a conversation on "organic food". The conversation shifts from food issues to mail art to everybody's background to art and poetry to books and the problems of translations to the stories of 1001 nights to the political situation in various countries to existence in general and our own in particular. It's light in tone even when we exchange reflections on serious matters. >From time to time we raise the glass to toast on Marilyn's life and being. Her books are widely admired and everybody's leaving a message in Lavona's guest book. Marina insists I read one of my poems, so I read the first one I wrote connected with Marilyn's passing. It's a poem I wrote in April during Dobrica's visit and that I finished just before phoning to Marilyn for the last time. Afterwards I realized it was a poem on her death, so I knew without knowing. It was also this poem that was read by Marilyn's friend Bonnie at the opening of the first tribute exhibition in Baraga on June 3. We talked for a while on "psychic" things connected with art. Liza was the last person to leave. We continued talking till late in the evening. Later Liza will email me the gathering was really "in Marilyn's spirit". It had been a "perfect" day. Postal Greetings, Guido Vermeulen http://groups.msn.com/POPOPEINT/guidovermeulenartiste.msnw " If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace." - John Lennon - To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mailinglist from Sztuka Fabryka http://www.sztuka-fabryka.be/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ma-network/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
