Connexions from David Cole thru Roy Arenella

I received the other day a thick envelope, sturdy as a board, about half the size of a legal envelope, emblazoned with my address on a large label, decorated with six stamps roughly cancelled with a thick muddy handstamp, and bearing no identifying cancellation mark or return address. This last point is crucial.

My wife hates it when I receive suspicious mail. (Once she worried we had received a letter bomb, but it was actually a small box of letters printed on plastic film and sent to me by my friend Tim Canny.) I took my trusty letter-opener in hand and sliced this envelope open, and what did I find?

A copy of David Cole's year 2000 retrospective, with a small note on a sticky note that someone has scrawled in pencil and placed beneath the photo of David Cole.

This unsigned handiwork included enough information for me to recognize the creator: Roy Arenella was continuing our "conversation" about David Cole, specifically about my failing to respond to the one note Cole had sent me. A nice gesture, and I enjoy how Roy channels David Cole for the purposes of this piece of art, which encouraged me to write a little memorial to Cole.


Roy Arenella Collaborating
with David Cole after the Fact (Nov 2004)
un violon d'ingres