Oral history · transcribed 2026

The Stories That Were Mine

Jeffrey F. S. Neumann · Born 1955, Cleveland, Ohio · Fifty years of making

Twelve sections of testimony, recorded and transcribed in 2026. 194 words below are his, verbatim — everything set in quotation marks and set large. Everything else is connective prose, written by software to place his words in order, set smaller and grey so it is never mistaken for his voice. This is fifty years of making, told the way he actually told it.

Chapter I · 1 of 12

The Beginning

Cleveland Institute of Art · period not stated in testimony

“Wanted to be a fine artist.”

On what he expected from art school

Rauschenberg was on the walls. The idea that found material was as valid as paint.

Chapter II · 2 of 12

The Rauschenberg Realization

A realization that came slowly, over decades — no fixed place or date given in testimony

Over decades, he discovered that Robert Rauschenberg had already explored much of the territory he thought was his own. This was not a single moment. It crept in slowly — through books, research, exposure over time.

The realization: the work he was making was not groundbreaking. Someone had already been there.

This did not stop him.

“Kept going.”

When asked why he didn’t stop

Chapter III · 3 of 12

Why He Kept Going

Place and period not stated in testimony — described as a belief held constantly, not tied to one moment

The most important unanswered question in the archive: Why did he keep going after the Rauschenberg realization?

Q: Would you still have spent fifty years making it if nobody had ever seen it?

A: “yes, it might be worth it in the end =)”

Q: Worth it for what?

A: “money/fame?”

Q: Did you ever actually want those things, or does it feel like you were supposed to want them?

A: “you were supposed to want them”

Q: So what was it actually for?

A: “i thought I was always good at it / had an eye for it”

Not external validation. Just knowing himself.

“Just knowing yourself.”

On where the belief in his eye came from

This belief sustains one work directly: “Buy Me (Targets and Planes)” carries his own voice as annotation — “not selling anything / trying to” — in direct contradiction to its title.

Chapter IV · 4 of 12

Thirty Years at the Margins

Career and family years · period not stated

Marriage. Children. Bills. Career as a designer and creative director. The studio work moved to the gaps — evenings, weekends, whatever time was left.

“Art supplies were always too expensive.”

On what he used instead

CDs. Computer floppies. Keyboards. Dollar store finds. Tape. Prism paper from school that he never stopped loving. Things that still had a life left in them.

“Something that still had a life left in it.”

On his philosophy of materials

“Ha Ha Ha — 30 odd years ago and still making artwork.”

How he remembers those decades now

Six of the 600 works in this catalogue that carry a compact disc, taken at even intervals across the catalogue and shown oldest first. The motif is a machine reading of the photograph, not his description — but it is checkable by looking.

Chapter V · 5 of 12

Nothing Finishes

Not tied to a specific place or period in testimony — described as structural to how he works, not a moment

When asked whether he ever finished a piece and thought it wasn’t good:

“Always have the option to add/subtract — could be unfinished till the end.”

On closure and the return

Nothing receives a final verdict. The option to return is always open.

Chapter VI · 6 of 12

One Direction, Thirty Years

1990–2020

He read a book about Picasso making Guernica. He considered it the most important painting of the twentieth century. He used it as a direction. A structure to work against. The series ran for thirty years and produced 232 works. He is still reworking old Guernica pieces today.

“Nice and big. Used it as a direction, a structure to work against.”

Why Guernica

Why Guernica specifically, over thirty years, remains unknown. This deserves its own conversation.

See a work from the series →

Six of the 232 works in the Guernica series, taken at even intervals across it and shown oldest first — the 1990s to the 2020s, the thirty years the series ran.

Context, not testimony

On 26 April 1937, the Basque town of Guernica was bombed by German and Italian aircraft during the Spanish Civil War, in support of Francisco Franco’s Nationalist forces — one of the first aerial bombings of a European civilian population, and an act that shocked international opinion at the time. Picasso’s mural, completed later that year for the Paris World’s Fair, was his response. Jeff’s own series takes its name and reference from the painting, not from the bombing directly — his testimony above is about what the artwork gave him as “a structure to work against,” not an account of the historical event itself. Casualty estimates for the bombing vary widely between sources and remain disputed; none is stated here for that reason.

Chapter VII · 7 of 12

What Didn’t Survive

Storage location and date not recorded

A friend called. Jeff went to see if he could save anything. He was told to stay away — bed bugs. He saw the work on the curb.

“Saw it out front waiting for the garbage men to take them all away.”

On the day he lost 500 to 1,000 pieces

“From around six feet away on the sidewalk.”

How close he could get

“Sad. Enough.”

How he describes that feeling

“I made some great large pieces and I thought they were really good.”

On the work that was lost

“Only in one picture.”

All that remains of some pieces

No inventory. No photographs of most of them. No record. An estimated 500 to 1,000 works disappeared. Some exist now only in a single photograph.

The Register of Loss — what is known, and what isn’t →

Chapter VIII · 8 of 12

Why This Archive Exists

Cleveland · since retirement, c. 2020

After retirement, he started wondering whether any of it mattered. Whether anyone would want to see it. That wondering led here — 1,087 works, fifty years, as much of it as could be saved.

“Took a fucking long time. Moments of doubt in the middle.”

On building this archive alone

Built so his daughters’ families would know what existed, including the pieces that are only in one photograph now.

The design principles behind how it’s built →

Chapter IX · 9 of 12

Getting Hard to Tell

Approximately the last four years

For the past four years, his grandchildren have been making alongside him. Their drawings end up in pieces. The boundary between contributions has become unclear.

“Whatever they want to make, and whatever I want to do with it.”

On collaboration with the grandchildren

“Getting hard to tell where they end and I begin.”

On the pieces that contain both

“I think that’s right.”

On whether this is the way it should be

Chapter X · 10 of 12

What He Wants a Grandchild to Know

Not tied to a specific place or period in testimony

“That they would be very impressed if they had the chance to see all the works in one space.”

Asked what he wants his grandchildren to understand

The physical experience of scale — every work together, in one room. That is what he wants them to know.

The room does not exist. One Space is the closest this archive can get: all 1,087 surviving works on a single plane, at once.

Interlude · not testimony

Made with a grandson

Sebastian · v1 · 2018–2020

Between 2018 and 2020 he made a website with his grandson, Sebastian. Its sections were Legos, K’nex, Aquabeads, Tutorials and Miscellaneous. These photographs come from the first three.

None of it is in the catalogue. Two plates carry Sebastian’s name — Pl. 187 and Pl. 1,087 — and the rest of what the two of them made is kept as it was, on the site itself.

A child’s black crayon drawing of a dragon with green eyes, with a photograph of a small black Lego dragon laid over it. — Taken from the Sebastian · v1 site as preserved in Working History. Captions describe what each photograph shows, except “Dragon team: Toothless”, which is the caption on the original page. Who drew, who built, and when each piece was made are not recorded here.

Two red Lego pieces and one teal one beside a red and blue crayon drawing of a creature. — Taken from the Sebastian · v1 site as preserved in Working History. Captions describe what each photograph shows, except “Dragon team: Toothless”, which is the caption on the original page. Who drew, who built, and when each piece was made are not recorded here.

Chapter XI · 11 of 12

A Specific Lost Work

Cleveland Institute of Art · late 1970s

One work he described in detail. A sculpture, made at the Cleveland Institute of Art in the late 1970s: prism paper applied to sections of iron gridwork found in a junkyard, with something torn from a magazine worked in. About 38 inches wide, 24 tall and 3 to 4 deep. It hung on a wall. It was shown at a student show, and it sold.

No image of it exists. Someone has lived with this piece for nearly fifty years, and he does not know where it is.

The Register of Loss — what is known, and what isn’t →

Chapter XII · 12 of 12

Still Making. Still in Cleveland.

Cleveland, Ohio · now

He lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and is still making work most days.

What making things meant to him — the full answer to why he kept going — remains to be asked. The sessions are ongoing.

Working History — the sites he built himself, still standing →