Monday, September 22, 2014


Addnpass from Dennis Gergel, Brandon Haney &

The Haddock
2760 Willamette St. #205
Eugene, OR
97405
USA

related link: YOUTUBE: LET'S PAINT TV



26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gotta know when to hold 'em.

Anonymous said...

the latest fad is a third implant. keeping up with the jones'.

Anonymous said...

The House Of Three Boobs!

Anonymous said...

The woman in this piece of art is Madison Stone. She was an adult and B-horror movie actress. Today she owns a tattoo shop and the Madison piercing is named after her.

Anonymous said...

I did the Madison Stone part of this mail art and started it going in the mail. A few years ago the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art/Florida State University Police made out "5 Florida warrants for Use of Personal ID Info by Use of Harassment with a $5000 bond" for my mail art activities at the time. That led to my arrest and put me in jail for a night, it also ended up costing me thousands of dollars in fines and fees and a probation term. The arresting officer advised me to do a different kind of art from now on. So be warned my fellow mail artists, it seems The John and Mable Ringling Musuem of Art would rather put artists like us in jails rather then display our mail art on their walls. I never thought when I graduated art college many years ago that my artwork would lead me to a jail cell and my mugshot online for all to see and shame me with. But as you can see, I still do mail art and I still try keep an edge to it.

Dennis James Gergel Jr.
dennisgergel@aol.com
232 34th Ave. Dr. East
Bradenton, FL 34208

Anonymous said...

i don't find it 'flattering' to be honest
do not use me in any of your subject material again, thank you

From Madison Stone to Dennis Gergel via 2 emails.


Anonymous said...

Madison Stone does not seem to understand that this piece is by 3different artists. Clearly Brandon's art over her face was not meant to be flattering. I think it was meant to contrast what was under it. The art of her underneath was done by Dennis and yet she attacks him when you can not even see all that he did. You can not see how he showed her face originally. She attacks Dennis for parts that he did not do and what right does she have to even try to censor him in the first place? He should be able to use her in his art if he wants to. And Brandon should have the right to make unflattering art if he wants to. Art is meant to disturb is what Georges Braque famously said. Art is meant to challenge the way in which we look at the world and our perceptions. All good art is challenging. The irony is that Madison Stone herself does visual art for profit, it is a shame she does not understand that art requires freedom. She might not like this piece of art, but she does not have the right to stop it from being created or the right to stop Dennis, Brandon or anyone else from creating other works of art with her as the subject matter in them.

Anonymous said...

A man who worked at The John and Mable Ringling Musuem of Art (now a part of the Florida State University system) named Joe McKennon self-published a book called "Rape of an Estate" which recorded widespread abuse and misuse at the Musuem (before FSU control.) The Musuem was so threatened by it, that they tried to get all the published copies and still today stores them underlock and alarm in their circus musuem. There are stacks of the book in a circus archive room that the public is not allowed into. Only the security attendants on the 2nd and 3rd shift during patrols are allowed in that room and circus musuem employees. This is another example of The John and Mable Ringling Musuem of Art's censorship tactics.

Anonymous said...

Since 1987, there has been documented Asbestos problems in the air and basement of the Ca d'Zan at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. On the first floor, between the stairs and the door into the great hall there is a bathroom not for public use. Next to that bathroom is a door with steps that go down to the basement level which only employees see. There is a large warning sign in the basement that instructs to enter only when wearing full protective gear. On the second floor office area, off limits to the public, are panels that monitor the Asbestos level in the air and warn if it rises. Second and third shift security attendants are required to do several daily patrols down in the basement (without protection) and to go check the alarm panel to make sure it is not sounding or otherwise in an alarm state.
About 5 or 6 years ago some ancient fuel storage tanks were removed from below the ground in front of the Ca d'Zan. They were contaminated with Asbestos, the excuse the museum gave for their removal was that they were fixing and making more flat the sidewalks and pavement that lead up to the Ca d'Zan. A few years prior to storage tanks actually being removed, I was working at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art on a day when an employee sent out an email to all other employees reading that he was being fired on that day for trying to address this Asbestos problem of the tanks contaminating the ground and get it addressed. He sent this email just before being escorted off the property by security. A little time later in the day, an email was sent reading that he was not fired for this but, that his position had simply been eliminated.
During the last restoration of the mansion, the restoration team was unaware and not told of the Asbestos issue and worked without protection. When the air level of Asbestos raised, work had to be delayed and as a result, that team won a settlement so it can now receive free chest x-rays for as long as each member is alive because they were not warned before they started work on the project.
So it appears that the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art has a history of cover ups and censorship. They are trying to control their image by using the wrong means to do so. They try to lock away as many copies of Rape of an Estate as they can, they try to not disclose the truth about the Asbestos issue at the Ca d'Zan and they have Dennis James Gergel Jr. arrested for doing art that they do not approve of.

Anonymous said...

The mail art that got Dennis Gergel arrested by the John and Mable Ringling Musuem of Art was pretty interesting actually. I had received one in the mail myself. What he did was this: He took names of employees like Derek Ross and Douglas Kingsley and made silly puns on them like Betsy Ross and Douglas Kinksley. He wrote those on magazine subscription cards and then added those magazine subscription cards to his collages on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper and then mailed those collages out to his mail art friends. Those friends that received his collages would sometimes remove the subscription cards and send those in to the actual magazines. Dennis wrote me that when the FSU Police came to his front door the officer made a point of saying that he would have a handwriting expert prove that the handwriting on Dennis's art was his own and that he would have the state crime lab prove that Dennis's fingerprints were on Dennis's art. It all seemed so stupid. This was clearly was an art project, but they charged him with 5 counts of using other people's personal ID. I mean Betsy Ross!!!, come on? One of the problems that the John and Mable Ringling Musuem/FSU was trying to not let come to light was that it had recently made an out of court settlement of a large sum of money to a female employee because security supervisor Douglas Kingsley had forced her to remain in his office against her will and kept the door closed as he verbally scolded her due to her vehicle being broken into by a construction worker on the property and he did not want her to report this. So anything with Douglas Kingsley's name involved got their attention, as they did not want the settlement sum and other details to get out to the public. Mr. Kingsley was not terminated or demoted for his actions with the female under his supervision.

Anonymous said...

This museum really seems to have some major problems. On Election Day back in 2012 one of its bronze sculptures was cut from its base and taken away. Security did not notice a thing and the stolen piece of art named Endogenae by A. Arlie Sinaiko has never been seen again. I think someone should really investigate this. Maybe it was an inside job?

Anonymous said...

More about the problems at the John and Mable Ringling Musuem of Art can be found at:

http://ericandles.blogspot.com/2012/12/ringling-museum.html

http://www.jarredwilson.com/?p=408

http://pirosmailart.blogspot.com/2012/11/i-got-today-this-add-and-pass-from.html?showComment=1421448386864#c7788157270438006859

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Director of Security, Russell (Russ) Pillifant no longer is employed by the Florida State University system. Ringling security supervisor, Bill Pennington, walked into Mr. Pillifant’s office trailer after an event at the museum and reported Mr. Pillifant drunk and passed out along with one of Mr. Pillifant’s male FSU event staff members, Claude. They were surrounded by empty bottles of wine. Later, on Sunday January 31, 2010 while working the Forks and Corks event at the museum, FSU employee Robert (Bob) Reyes reported that Mr. Pillifant was directing vehicle traffic at the event with one hand, while drinking from a bottle of beer in his other hand. Mr. Reyes observed that he got the specialty brewed beer bottle from one of the vendors at the event.

Before being forced out of the Sarasota Police Department in Florida for making racist statements, there is this story online of Russell (Russ) Pillifant lieing to and entrapping a young woman.
It reads:
Deputy Chief Russell (Russ) Pillifant was driving with Capt. James Fulton on North Tamiami Trail in Sarasota, Florida at about 11 a.m. one morning. A brown-haired woman simply waved at them. The officers, not in uniform, pulled right over to her. The woman just asked for a ride. “You tricking?” Mr. Pillifant leadingly asked her. “Are you guys cops or associated with any type of law enforcement agency?” she asked. “No!” Mr. Pillifant lied to her. Mr. Fulton sat next to him with a duffel bag marked “POLICE” between his legs and did not offer the truth to her either. The woman offered oral sex for $20 or “something a little more” for $50. They could go to her place, she said. “We’ve got to be careful; there’s a lot of cops around here”, she told them during the encounter, but again they did not offer the truth to her that they were both officers. Mr. Pillifant told the woman to wait a few yards from the car. He then radioed for other officers to come and arrest her and went to talk to her. It is not reported what he told her at that point after already being dishonest and lieing to her in addition to leading her to offer him sexual services for money.

Anonymous said...

In or around 2010, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art/Florida State University security attendant Henry (Hank) Vial was terminated for theft.

Mr. Vial while on duty told his coworkers that he used to be a still photographer and was once at a porn shoot and was offered to participate in it, to have sex on camera with the models. He told of a time that he and his lawyer sued someone that got into a car accident with him. In order to win the lawsuit, Mr. Vial said he faked an injury and actually went to physical treatment for it when in fact there was really nothing wrong with him at all. He said that he really did not get along well with women. He lived alone and only cared about women when he “needed a little.” He said that then he would give them what they wanted (money, gifts or dinner out) in exchange for what he wanted (sex.) He had been married 3 times and engaged 4 times.

At one time, Mr. Vial had been a motorcycle police officer and he said that his biggest regret was that he got into a fight with a man with a knife that he pulled over and he had wished he would have just killed the man. There was an assault lawsuit after the fight against Mr. Vial and the police force that he was working for that went on for years afterwards. Mr. Vial told the story of a time when as a policeman he responded to a woman who had gotten a glass Coca Cola bottle stuck in her vagina while she was masturbating with it. While he was there, other officers arrived and the bottle was removed. He said that all he wanted to tell her while he was there with her was to offer to have sex with her so she would not have to use a bottle. Mr. Vial said that it was all he could do to hold himself back from asking her if she wanted to have sex with him after the bottle was removed.

Mr. Vial upset his coworkers and made them uncomfortable with his comments about the middle school aged Sarasota Ballet of Florida female students that would come to class at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, because he would talk about their make up and how it made them look older and sexy. He would ask what their ages were. He would also make sexual comments about the female FSU students and the female cast members of the Asolo Rep Company. Of one female FSU graduate student, he said that his fantasy of her is something that no one can take away from him, not even Derek Ross (his direct supervisor and the person that hired him.)
Mr. Vial complained to his coworkers about having to work with Glenda Fellows. He said that he thought she was going to come in with a gun one day and start shooting. He said, of all the people there, she was the one that probably had and carried a gun. He said that they got into arguments because he would order her what to do and that he would raise his voice at her when telling her what to do.

On Wednesday February 24, 2010, Mr. Vial used the label “dyke” when speaking about female police officers that he had worked with in the past. On another occasion while also on duty he said that there were a lot of “faggots” working at the Asolo Rep Company. On both of these occasions, passersby heard him and wrote letters of protest to the Sarasota Ballet of Florida and the Asolo Rep Company. Those letters were then passed on to Mitch Ladewski, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art/FSU Coordinator of Safety and Security. Mr. Vial reported to his coworkers that Mitch Ladewski took him into his office, had the letters spread out on his desk and questioned if he had used those two words. Mr. Vial lied and said no and denied it. Mr. Vial said that Mr. Ladewski had “read him the riot act.” Mr. Vial said that Mr. Ladewski had come on hot and heavy about it because since Mr. Ladewski was a short man, he had a “Napoleon Complex.” Mr. Vial said he was “pissed” that Mr. Ladewski had brought him into his office about this. He admitted to his coworkers that “If Mitch (Ladewski) knew what he talked about, he would be fired.”

Anonymous said...

Russell (Russ) Lynn Pillifant no longer is employed by Florida State University/John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and is the Regional Investigator at Bealls, Inc.
Information about his racist/sexist comments that led to his leaving the Sarasota Police can be read here:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19990406&id=G0EgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6X0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6653,530443&hl=en
Posted by Robert Reyes on March 26, 2015

drosspriddle said...

sounds like a fuckin' circus!

Anonymous said...

Robert (Bob) Reyes is a former employee of the John and Mable Ringling Musuem of Art/Florida State University.

While on duty at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts at the Ringling Musuem, Mr. Reyes often proudly told the story of a dead female body he once found. He was able to determine her name and she was a known prostitute. He transported her remains in his police car and found that some of it had stained his rear carpet. Instead of cleaning it, he left it alone so it would smell very bad. This way no other officer would want to ride in his vehicle. He enjoyed riding alone. He said he got used to the smell and each morning he would get in his police car and say out loud hello to her by name. When his shift was over, he would tell her out loud goodnight by name when he left his car. He said that his commander finally had to order him to clean out his car after hearing so many reports of this strange behavior and complaints of the disgusting smell of Mr. Reye's vehicle.

I hope her ghost haunted Mr. Reyes for his horrible actions and behavior. He was a truly sick person. How does the Ringling Musuem/FSU find these twisted people and why do they hire them?


Anonymous said...

Rape of an Estate by the late Joe McKennon is a book critical of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art and I think that is important. I don't think Mr. Ringling's will has been followed as closely as he intended it to be. I know FSU and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art do not want to hear of this criticism, but it is wise to remember that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution codifies the freedom of speech as a constitutional right. The Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791 and it states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Anonymous said...

I wonder why the museum has so many copies of the little 80 page publication buried away at the people of the state of Florida’s expense? Joe McKennon used to peddle this and the other books he wrote (all circus related) on his own. He did not just give almost all of his publication run of Rape of an Estate to the musuem free of cost so they could hide them away from the public. This was a self-published book, so the cost of the entire run in 1986 came out of his own pocket. I have seen signed copies of Rape of an Estate online for sale at just under $100 and unsigned copies for about $20 on Amazon.com.

I have read it and it is a small item actually. It does contain the will of John Ringling and he wanted The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art to be just that, only a museum of art. He did not expect it to turn into a circus museum also. He left it to the people of the State of Florida, he would have not guessed it would become part of the Florida State University. In the book, Joe McKennon admits to his part in helping to turn the art museum into a art/circus museum. He was a circus curator and because of his lifetime experience with many carnivals and circuses (including the Ringling company) was an expert in restoring the circus wagons at the museum. Due to its title and the many jabs at the museum inside, the museum clearly tried to get as many copies as it could and hide them away forever. It is called censorship. Yes, in reality they could not get every copy, but they got as many as they could. It is time to hear their side of the story though. Why do they have hundreds of copies of this book that clearly shows them in a negative fashion? It should be interesting to see what excuse they come up with. Maybe they should sell their copies in their gift shop if they claim not to be hoarding these away from the public due to its content?

Since the John and Mable Museum of Art does not want anyone to read this book, I recommend they have a good old fashioned Nazi book burning out in the courtyard in front of the David statue to make the books go away forever. As it is, their “out of sight, out of mind” scheme can’t go on forever now that the “cat is out of the bag” in regards to this publication. This reminds me of Watergate in that the museum’s cover up, hoarding and locking away of this book is actually worse then if it had just let people read it all these last 29 years or so. It can’t contain information as damning as to warrent its censorship in this way.

Anonymous said...

The Ring-a-ling Mausoleum of Farts
5401 Bay Shore Road
Sarasota, Florida 34243 USA

Anonymous said...

Robert (Bob) Reyes is a former employee of the John and Mable Ringling Musuem of Art/Florida State University.

While on duty at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts at the Ringling Musuem, Mr. Reyes often proudly told the story of a dead female body he once found while working for the Sarasota Florida Police. He was able to determine her name and she was a known prostitute. He transported her remains in his police car and found that some of it had stained his rear carpet. Instead of cleaning it, he left it alone so it would smell very bad. This way no other officer would want to ride in his vehicle. He enjoyed riding alone. He said he got used to the smell and each morning he would get in his police car and say out loud hello to her by name. When his shift was over, he would tell her out loud goodnight by name when he left his car. He said that his commander finally had to order him to clean out his car after hearing so many reports of this strange behavior and complaints of the disgusting smell of Mr. Reye's vehicle.

I had to work with Mr. Reyes in 2009 at the Ringling Museum and he would go behind me and highlight, change and otherwise alter my official FSU security log paperwork. He had to be told by security supervision (Derek Ross to stop doing this, as he was not a supervisor of anybody. On Thursday 1/22/09 at 5pm he complained to me that my handwriting was "too big" and that I sometimes used more then 1 line per sentence which he didn't like. During this conversation with me he used profanity: "mother fucker", "piss", "pissed his pants" directly in front of persons entering and exiting the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.

Mr. Reyes acted like he knew more then everyone else and thought he was above everyone else because he was a former NYPD police officer. He loved to use profanity alot and would constantly talk of hating and the President of the Unitied States of America. Needless to say, I did not think very highly of him nor could I respect his morals. As an employee, I do not think he represented the Florida State University very well at all.

Anonymous said...

Back in the mid-2000’s I donated a few original K-Line Electric Train pieces of artwork of its officially licensed Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus model trains to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art/FSU. I thought they would appreciate this because of their circus museum and for the fact that in their gift shop they actually sold K-Line by Lionel Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey officially licensed model circus trains. The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art/FSU never contacted me back and acknowledged my gift, they never thanked me and I have no idea what they did with the original artwork that I donated to them. I was very disappointed in the total lack of respect they showed me and my gift to them. I wish I had the artwork back and I am very sorry I ever donated it to them.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Regarding the Ulla R. and Arthur F. Searing Wing of the Ringling Museum of Art, I have a letter from Ulla R. Searing, 500 South Palm Avenue #72, Sarasota, Florida 34236 dated May 25, 2009 and in it she writes that "after all of these years" nobody "has actually come up and thanked me personally" so to me it seems that she did not feel that her help was appreciated in a personal way. It is too bad that after giving millions away, she was not thanked while she was alive. Shame on the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art/Florida State University and others for not thanking her while she lived.