• Share this Email Facebook Twitter

The "press release" arrived on a single sheet of white paper with thick capital red letters that read:

ARTIST ED LEEPER HAS CREATED A ZEN KOAN CALLED WATCHING PAINT DRY WITH 576 ART MAGAZINES. HE WILL PERFORM THIS ZEN KOAN ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 13 FROM 2 TO 4PM AT WINDOW ON THE BAY ACROSS FROM EL ESTERO ON DEL MONTE BOULEVARD. IN MONTEREY. PHONE: 373-0823.

It's the latest installment of performance antics the 80-something calls "serial art."

He's also drawn 6 million lines on big pieces of paper with calligraphy pens—yes, 6 million—to better capture just how much life was lost in the Holocaust (the stack reached 5 feet and took more than three years). He's poured cow blood over a soldier mannequin wearing Leeper's medals to protest the Vietnam war. He's covered the county in his old Toyota distributing thousands of books.

Now he's heading down to Window on the Bay.

"I'm going to be in costume," Leeper says. "I'm doing a drip painting thing with sticks and clothes and stuff. It's been quite successful.

"I call it Zen koan pretentiously. What will happen which I like the most. People will come by on the way to the beach and see me watching paint dry and wonder what's going on and whatever."