Community Art: Email to Friends

Hello Friends,

            My name is Michael Varley, and all of you know me. For those of you that don’t know me from the name, I’ve attached a nifty photo of myself in all my curly-haired glory. If, after observing my awesome soccer pants and devil-may-care attitude, you still don’t recognize me, feel free to delete this email having gained the knowledge that someone you have no recollection of emailed you to ask a favor. Creepy, huh?

            So, for those of you that made it past the first paragraph, please allow me to explain. All 150 of you receiving this letter encompass nearly every single person I’ve made a connection with while at Geneseo. I say nearly because I’m not including friends that have since moved on from Geneseo, but only those that are still members of the Geneseo community. Some of these connections are stronger than others. There are those of you I just met last semester and those of you I’ve barely spoken to since freshman year. The point is, all of you add up to the sum of my college experience, just as sure as I’m a single digit in the ledger of your life.

            Now to the heart of the issue: I need assistance from all of you for a little art project I’m doing. It’s a two-part sculpture project, with the primary theme of the work being the concept of community. The first part requires the help of the community I’ve formed while at Geneseo and the second part directly involves every single student and faculty member on campus. Before you delete this email, let me assure you that I don’t need you to dance naked on the college green or anything. All I need from you is a headshot and a kind word.

            Part one of this project, at it’s basest level, is a fundraiser. It also functions as an interest generator and community builder necessary for part two of the project, but I’m already running too long in this email to go into the subtler points at present. Up until spring break, I will be asking all members of the Geneseo community to donate money to a guy they don’t know for a project I’m intentionally leaving a mystery until after spring break. You see, trust is an intrinsic characteristic of any true community, and that’s exactly what I’m both testing and hoping to build with this phase of the project.

But I’m not naïve enough to think I can go up to each student and professor in the school and expect a handout. This is where all of you come in. For the next two weeks or so, I’ll be meeting with each of you (at your convenience, of course) to take a photograph of you and receive a one-sentence testimonial from you. That’s all I need. But what would you say? Here are some examples of questions I came up with that you could respond to:

Here’s (Your name here):

…On why you should trust Mike Varley:
…With a little known fact about Mike Varley:
…With a favorite Mike Varley moment:
…Speculating on what the second part of this project will be like based on what they know about Mike Varley:
…With a Haiku that best encapsulates Mike Varley:
*Create your own question*

From there, I’ll take the photo and the comment and make signs to hang up all over campus. Each week, I plan on having ‘scavenger hunts’ that I’ll run out of a booth I’m currently trying to secure in Milne library. The new week will bring a list of ten new testimonials to be found all over campus, with prizes coming from various businesses around Geneseo (I also plan to involve every business I’ve ever patroned in Geneseo in this project).

So that’s pretty much the gist of it. Before I conclude, I just want to qualify something because I’m pretty paranoid about it: I don’t want this all to be seen as some ultra-narcissistic venture, where my sole goal is to become a Geneseo cult figure. While I can’t deny that it would be gratifying to achieve such a status, the gratification would come from successfully achieving one of my goals for the project: turning myself into a commodity for the sake of a community. Realizing ‘popularity’ is not apart of my mindset. After all, I’m leaving in three months.

If you’re not interested in helping, which is fine, please send me an email back so I know not to ask you if I see you around campus. For those that are willing to help me out, I’m sure I’ll run into many of you by happenstance over the next couple of weeks, so I’ll keep a camera and a writing tablet ready. I would appreciate, however, an email back with some times you might be free over the next couple of weeks, just in case we don’t run into each other.

I really, truly, sincerely thank you for your time and hope to see you all in the coming weeks.

Warmest Regards,

Michael Varley