Wedged between cardboard and steel: Oldenburg and me

1968—Claes Oldenburg—Typewriter Eraser (cardboard)

1976—Claes Oldenburg—Typewriter Eraser (steel)

1972-on … During my college days I discovered and became preoccupied with what I called “correct-o-types”—the correction papers used to erase (lift off) typed text from typed paper documents. These found objects quickly became the objects of my desire. While I was an admirer of Oldenburg from the first time I found his work in person at a show in Los Angeles in the early ‘70s, my correct-o-types belonged to a different genre of art, initially probably closer to Duchamp and Dada found objects than to the work of Oldenburg. Nonetheless, I found myself feeling an accidental kinship to Oldenburg when I inadvertently wandered into an art gallery via the emergency exit due to a construction site rerouting of traffic. It was at Pepperdine University’s Frederick R. Weisman Museum in the Summer of 2004. I literally backed into the exhibition Claes Oldenburg: Drawings and quickly found myself walking along the outside edge of the room with my nose six inches from the wall captivated by the early drawings/sketches of his future sculpture pieces. It wasn’t until I reached the fourth wall of images that I finally turned around and was surprised that behind me in the center of the gallery space were some early cardboard models of what would later become his wonderful Typewriter Eraser sculptures in various forms and various materials. A few years ago, I was fortunate to see his Typewriter Eraser, Scale X at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, D.C.

My own correct-o-types, While initially found objects, they quickly became illustrations of texture, motion, unique “fingerprints” of their respective typists’ style and approach as both typists and editors. Historically, now, years later after multiple technological evolutionary steps, these correct-o-types also serve as artifacts of a bygone era of error making and error solving. Correct-o-types provide a trail of mistakes like outtakes of a recording session, those multiple takes that lead to the eventual final release. Now, however, in this present day of the digital age, though we can't see the deleted mistakes, the mistakes appear to have disappeared, and I wonder if they are really hiding, waiting to come back and get us when we least expect it. Now, while we can so effortlessly and conveniently delete text from our digital documents, where does it really go? My correct-o-types make the mistakes visible and re-present them back to me as visual art from which I cannot look away.

So it seems that mistakes have inadvertently brought me to Oldenburg, and that typewriters and their utilities have created a bridge that I could cross. Additionally, I have been able to realize my college dreams of ten foot high correct-o-types as I’ve reproduced giant prints large enough to drape the body of a beautiful woman, which I did.

No mistake there, even though sometimes my mistakes are the best part of me.