Happy Birthday

A standard brick with a yellow adhesive note attached to one face, hand-lettered HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

The brick is singular and enduring. The note is neither. Once a year, on a fixed date, it is replaced by hand, and the note it replaces is kept. The work requires this annual act in order to remain itself, an obligation the owner assumes on acquisition and which is set out in the accompanying certificate.

Each retained note accumulates as a record of the work's own upkeep, so the piece grows a paper history at exactly the passing rate of birthdays. 

The greeting survives only for as long as somebody keeps writing it.

This is the gift that keeps on taking.