Clobbering Yoko

I will never forget how excited Janet was that day. Her voice almost jumped through the phone as she told me about what just happened. Found Objects was beginning to get a reputation for cool gifts that used words.

Janet sold the first Magnetic Poetry Kits to friends who ran museum gift stores. Before we started Found Objects, Janet managed the gift shop at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Selling cool gifts back to friends who ran museum shops around the country was a natural. Janet was in New York preparing for the 1999 gift show.

Dave Kapell's kitchen invention (Magnetic Poetry Kit) was one of the "word gifts" Found Objects sold. We also sold work by Jenny Holzer and other artists who used words as their medium. Words were hot. The Internet was just starting to heat up. Gifts with words seemed to be everywhere.

Before Janet left for New York, we discussed other artists we should work with. Yoko Ono came up because, before marrying John Lennon, Yoko was (and is) a powerful conceptual artist. Yoko's use of words was a particular strength.

A famous early work invited patrons to climb a ladder. Once at the top of the 4 step ladder viewers were asked to used a magnifying glass to see a tiny "yes" printed on the ceiling. Another work printed the single word "fly" on a white piece of paper on top of a stepladder. Words and their strange hidden meanings is something Ono's art channeled and challenged.

Yoko's work is most commonly associated with the Fluxus art movement. Fluxus art is strong coffee born from Duchamp and Dada and not easy to understand. Yoko may be cultural icon, but we thought of her as a serious artist whose work we love. We wanted to talk to Yoko about creating gifts from her work.

We had no idea how to go about making that meeting happen. We searched our 6-degrees of separation connections. No one in our immediate group could get us an audience with Yoko. We tabled further conversations about Yoko until after the gift show, or so I thought.

Janet had been walking fast head down and on the phone with me. As she is explaining why we had to put working with Yoko on the back burner she turns a corner and knocks a small Asian woman to the ground. Like Yoko, Janet is tiny, but she sent this small woman reeling. Janet, after regaining her balance, bent down to offer her hand to a sprawled Yoko Ono.

Yoko, who has every right to be angry and upset, is worried about Janet.

Janet is fine and the only one standing (and if I know my ex laughing :). At first Janet is overwhelmed with serendipity. She can't speak. She quickly recovers as Yoko gets to her feet.

She explains that she was just talking about Yoko on the phone.

Janet could tell that statement worried Yoko. Janet explained she was staying at Jenny Holzer's apartment downtown and in New York for the gift show. She told Yoko about Found Objects' representing Jenny to museum stores around the world and that we wanted to speak with Yoko about similar projects.

Janet told Yoko she had just been talking about the idea to talk to Yoko with no idea how to reach her. Hearing Janet's story, Yoko was generous, kind and interested. She gave Janet her assistant's phone number and wished her well at the show.

We never figured out a gift project for Yoko, but that day in New York when Janet clobbered Yoko while talking about the idea of working with her amazing. Yoko was nice and generous. The moment's strange serendipity makes me wonder about how all moments are connected. "Yes" is probably all Yoko would say.

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