=mail art received=

::Richard Canard, Carbondale, IL::

Describing something as the "Zen of this" or the "Zen of that" has got to be one of the most tired and overused tropes in existence. Even worse, it's one of the most misapplied. Do we doubt that one day we'll see The Zen of Imprisonment without Due Process? The Zen of Enforced Conformity, Mandatory Compliance and Suppression of All Dissent? The Zen of Total Surveillance? The Zen of Empire? The Zen of Mindless Patriotism? 

Before the phrase is degraded to the absolute limits of absurdity, I'd like to say that Richard Canard exemplifies the Zen of Mail Art. He is continuously surprising me with the ordinary; in this instance, a simple index card becomes a handsome, pinstriped postcard with a subversive message all the more powerful for its understatement. A cultural critique disguised in a comic image: the ostrich with its head in the sand. Not to be overlooked is the return address, which locates Richard in the United States of Attention Deficit Disorder. 

And I'm not quite done yet using that already overstretched  "Zen of (in this case, Mail Art") phrase either to describe this piece. Because, for once, it's accurate. Richard's card reminds me of a traditional zen rock garden with its raked rows of gravel and its simple gray stones placed, as if by chance, just-so. Everything about this piece looks so casual, so natural, like the Zen archer pulling the bow and hitting the bulls-eye in one fluid motion, hardly seeming to take aim, which is the mark of someone whose long years of practice makes their present mastery look utterly effortless.