The Toiletters
"The first time I was invited to the Zend home, in October 2013, Janine led me to the dining room table, where there was a box full of cardboard toilet paper rolls on which Robert Zend had drawn poems and designs. In his usual punning humour, he called these found objects 'toiletters.' He created scores of these, also drawing on tape rolls, paper towel rolls, and mailing tubes. If it was cardboard and tubular, he drew on it. I knew that he was aesthetically versatile, but these took the notion to a new level. I immediately loved them.
"His choice of found object, the humble cardboard tube, rings true in the context of his writing and other visual works. The toiletters bespeak an absurdist (and scatalogical) sense of humour and a love of doodling. And he was drawn to the circularity of the tubes as he was drawn to themes involving cyclical processes of creation and destruction as well as images of the uroboros. On reflection, the ultimate household throwaway seems a natural canvas for Zend.
"I selected a few toiletters to give an idea of their variety and filmed them on a turntable." [See below.]
- excerpted from Camille Martin, "Robert Zend: Poet without Borders, Part 13. Gaskets, Thumbtacks, Toilet Paper Rolls...and Doodles," rogueembryo.com, March 15, 2014)
"His choice of found object, the humble cardboard tube, rings true in the context of his writing and other visual works. The toiletters bespeak an absurdist (and scatalogical) sense of humour and a love of doodling. And he was drawn to the circularity of the tubes as he was drawn to themes involving cyclical processes of creation and destruction as well as images of the uroboros. On reflection, the ultimate household throwaway seems a natural canvas for Zend.
"I selected a few toiletters to give an idea of their variety and filmed them on a turntable." [See below.]
- excerpted from Camille Martin, "Robert Zend: Poet without Borders, Part 13. Gaskets, Thumbtacks, Toilet Paper Rolls...and Doodles," rogueembryo.com, March 15, 2014)
Robert Zend, videotaped selection of Toiletters, n.d., ink on toilet paper rolls, Janine Zend's private collection. Prepared by Camille Martin. Copyright © Janine Zend, all rights reserved, reproduced under license.
