A deep dive into using chance operations to alter the randomly-ordered boxed exhibition catalog Rolywholyover: A Circus by John Cage— yes, the Chance Operations Guru himself — published by MOCA Los Angeles in 1993. Rehoused in a vintage four-drawer library card catalog, Count, Breathe, Begin: A Rolywholyover Re-do marks the most recent in a series of artist books created in tribute to John Cage, beginning in 2001, with Slurring at bottom.

“The purpose of art is to sober and quiet the mind, so that it is in accord with what happens,” Cage famously wrote and said, his adaptation of a definition of music said to him by an Indian tabla player, “the purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences.” In making this work, as I was tracing seashells onto a chance-determined number of Rolywholyover items — an echo of Cage’s visual art practice of tracing rocks — I began to feel in kinship with both definitions. That alignment now guides my own creative process, essential for the recent years of adapting to a brain injury. 

Count, Breathe, Begin includes altered versions of all 53 items originally issued in the catalog, interspersed with remnants from my own press books inspired by Cage, an additional Guidebook (conceived as an extensive impromptu colophon, with ephemera sewn in), an O/P copy of As You Continue — the text of which is a quotation by Cage — along with five die, a red wooden mouse car, a yellow plastic jumping frog, and a blue monkey from my vintage Barrel of Monkeys. Those colorful items previously used for chance operations in my studio and in teaching, and used again to help me make this new work, are provided for reference. Included separately: the original metal box container, refitted for hanging from the ceiling in the airspace above the cabinet.

Created for the invitational exhibition “RE-covery II: 43 Artists Re-imagine 43 Books” at Art Around Books, Bellows Falls, VT, 2022