Moses Lake Special [ August 2001 ]

DLa #006 After the first several issues of DLa, we began planning a special issue which would feature as many artists from Moses Lake as we could dig up. Eventually, after the fifth issue of DLa — Diversity — official plans were made and production began on the Dead Letter Art Moses Lake Special. The ML Special came together as a multi-artist expose in which most of the content unfolds in "gallery" format. For the project, a majority of our work involved contacting an extensive list of ML artists and convincing them to be a part of the "historic" event — a considerable task, especially given the "iron-clad" level of apathy dominating Moses Lake. Beyond this, Westside DLa editors began a collaborative tribute to Jamison DeHerrera, a talented Moses Lake artist who died in 1999. As ThaneC worked through the issue's painstaking design and layout, Perishable hunted down famed Seattle-area sculptor, Tony Kaufmann for an in-depth interview on art, creativity, and life in the Hole. As the issue came together, we very fortunately found ourselves with a diverse abundance of ML artwork, articles, and other fine material. While the issue's obligatory Werdz Page went a little off the deep end, the overall event manifested a showcase of some of the finest underground, obscure, esoteric artwork ever to bask in the Desert Oasis. However satisfying the project, it was most rewarding getting together and catching up again with old friends, artists, and other area chillers from our mutual past. On several occasions, throughout production and also during our extensive issue distribution around Moses Lake, we found ourselves gathered together in variously assembled combinations of old friends, reminiscing and reveling in shared moments, ideas, and art. Worthwhile indeed..