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Gabriel Melcher, R.E.M. Type 01 [Balsamic Vinegar Potatos], 2020. Cut vinyl graphics ; dimensions variable.
My father’s been writing for a long time, and I suspect he’s been writing shopping lists for even longer. It wasn’t until recently however—when I started running errands for him using these lists—that I really started to look at the pages and words and the letters themselves as a special kind of representation of a person.
This a short shopping list written by my father, Ralph Edward Melcher. It reads, “Balsamic Vinegar Potatos”.
I’ve been thinking for a while about different avenues into a creative collaboration or publishing project with my father. This shopping list (one of many generated over the course of a month and the first to really strike me as an object worth saving) seemed like a great place to start.