Alan, and the list,
I hope that your time with Alison Knowels has been delightful. Please
tell her that I say Hello.
I feel like I should share a story about my encounters with Alison, so
here it goes.
I met Alison when she came to give a lecture at the University of
Maine-Orono to accompany a Dick Higgins show we had in the gallery.
I believe it was in the year 2000. I was an undergraduate student at
the time and was working on a piece called 'A mile in my shoes' which
was basically a collection of around 300 salt shakers from around the
country and a few few from other places- swiped from restaurants, bars,
hotels, homes and antique shops, etc...
I arranged through Owen to have tea with Alison and we sat and talked
about our projects- it was wonderful. Alison expressed concern about
the way the salt shakers were aquired. She gave her lecture that
evening and talked about some of her projects we had talked about
earlier- for instance: The Identical Lunch. Owen took her to lunch in
Ellsworth, Maine the next day, I believe it was a place called Keagan's
where they ate Lobster. She didn't know but Owen stole the salt shaker
she used to salt her lobster and delivered it to me the next day. So,
I sent her a photo of that saltshaker and a letter about my experiences
with the Identical Lunch and about two weeks later she sent me the salt
shaker from her kitchen. I baked it into a loaf of bread and sent it
back.
What a wonderful two weeks that was.
