It would have been nice to sell them but even before COVID 19 took over the daily news it seemed unlikely.
They didn't cost much to make but they didn't cost nothing. They took me 2 and 1/2 years to create. I don't know exactly how much I spent on yellow rubber gloves but each pack cost around $4.00 and came with 2 gloves enclosed. There were 310 gloves in all and some extra packs for weird glitches and very wrinkled inventory. So, let's say 4 x 150 which = $600.00. Then, I paid for photography and for installations in NYC and for special bug prevention envelopes so add another $600.00. I had to buy countless packs of black retractable sharpie pens which were around $6.00 a pack. Maybe 100 packs? So, another $600.00.
We're up to $1800.00 + trips here and there for installations. So let's say an output in money of around $2200.00 which might include the fancy dress I bought for the Rosenbach Gala (which I gave away because the friend who helped me pick it out stopped talking to me and it just made me sad).
And shoes I only wore once. And a pair of stretchy turquoise jeans (what the hell was I thinking?).
And a bus ride from Philly on the day the Newtown shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School happened. I was so so so happy as I had felt like a real artist, hanging with curators and installation people all day. On my Go! bus trip to NYC someone was weeping and that was how I found out that 20 children, 6 adult staff members, the mother of the shooter and the shooter himself were killed.
After an exhibit of the Gloves at the mighty and beautiful Rosenbach they were installed at an art fair in NY called Cutlog which had some nice moments and I hopes of attaining art stardom but instead that installation led to the dissolution of my relationship with my dealer at the time. That's a whole other story, not pretty.
Last they were exhibited at a wonderful antique shop/concert venue called POP Emporium, in Providence, RI. My husband presented me with t-shits he made as a surprise which were remarkably hideous. He'd planned to sell them to make a little money but oops.
And the Ulysses Gloves poster which was beautiful and cost me another $700.00 or so to print and lots did sell but I never made back my money which is also another long story.
Anyway, I didn't create the Ulysses Gloves to make money.
For a few years all the Gloves lived in my bedroom closet in sturdy translucent plastic bins (from Staples or Office Max. Another $500.00 or so). They were not hurting me or anyone but I felt like the time had come to find them a forever home.
Back to John Smith and the R.I.S.D. Museum which is one of my favorite places.
He said he would need to ask the curator, Dominic Malon who loves the novel Ulysses and had seen the Gloves at POP Emporium.
And yes they said yes.
So, now they are in storage but in Museum storage.
I hope someday they will be exhibited at the museum which would make me very proud and happy. It would be a nice coda to the circle of the life of this particular work of art.
Maybe the Museum would make a nice t-shirt to sell.
I dream of a book being made that shows each glove. The gloves would be yellow (of course) and the background of each page would be turquoise. It would be a smallish book and fat, my favorite sort of art book. But that's up to the Museum.
Right now people are busy trying to stay safe from an invisible deadly virus and a very visible sociopath who happens to run our country.
But I thought this blog should have an ending and so here it is.
Thank you to all the people who encouraged me, the Joycean scholars who accepted me, the friends who came to cities to celebrate with me, my friend and mentor Judith Tannenbaum who threw a party for me.
I would thank Yaddo except that I never was accepted there for a residency.
Thank you so so much to the R.I.S.D. Museum and to John and Dominic and poor Ingrid Neuman who has to catalogue and protect each of the 310 rubber gloves from drying out.
By the way, the price for labor, as is often the case, was $0.00.
It was and still is for my late dad and for all the people who love Ulysses and Bloomsday and for my husband Andy and my son Noah.
It was a labor of love.
