John's Story: How it All Started
The hippie years were waning in 1975. I was in my mid-twenties, married with a two-year-old son, working at Tower Records in San Francisco and living in Marin County. Life was pretty cool. I had attended the San Francisco Art Institute a couple of years prior to this and I was passionate about photography. I carried a camera with me at all times just in case something of interest presented itself, which it often did I am pleased to say! On most afternoons I would take my lunch break at a friend’s flat just up Columbus Avenue from Tower. He was Captain Colourz, a painter of very abstract, large canvasses. He was a close friend, someone I enjoyed spending time with. His tattoos were beautiful Tibetan Gods, serpents and all manner of colorful things. We listened to a vast array of music and did little art projects, just for our own edification. On one particular afternoon I walked the four blocks up from Columbus and Bay to visit with Colourz and there I met a rather imposing
figure of a man with a full beard and booming voice. This was Peter Blind.
I took some casual pictures of all of us and that’s all I remember about our first encounter other than Peter asking me if I would be interested in sending things to each other through the mail. I said something to the effect of, “Yes, that sounds interesting.” I got something from Peter almost immediately; a poster from a radio station with a busy black ink and brush painting. I answered back with some sort of photograph/collage postcard and we’re off! Thus began our through-the-mail game of visual tag. We soon found we had only one rule; there are no rules. This gave us tremendous freedom and we both took advantage of this fact. In the past 29 years we have sent thousands of images and words back and forth to each other, occasionally hand-delivering items. We did not see or speak to each other, for a number of years other than a couple of times when I was caught at his front door trying to sneakily drop something in the mail box. Peter has lived at only two addresses during this span of time and I have lived in dozens of places in many different locations. Credit must go to the U.S. Postal Service for finding me. The first things I sent were to an address in Daly City, just south of San Francisco, but in 1976, Peter and Judy moved to San Leandro, near Oakland, where they live to this day.
From the start we both noticed the “ESP” way in which we communicated. We played off of each other with much of the work being tongue-in-cheek and messages always train-wrecks of words. This also launched me into constantly looking on the ground and in gutters for interesting bits of paper or other suitable material for the collage work that I am more than ever involved in. Collage is my identity today.
It has been a privilege to be at the receiving end of all these glimpses into someone’s life for all these years. It has also been a privilege to have someone on the receiving end, someone I can and have sent just about “anything” to.
John Maxwell, Sherman Oaks, California
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