Blue Mary

Check out the latest addition to my Reference Links list over in the sidebar: American Antiquarian Society. I found it earlier this morning via Letterology. I've just started browsing there, and came across a lovely image of "The Sorrowful Mother" which I have displayed above. It reminds me so much of a religious card I found a few years ago in a dump book, which I used to create a collage titled Mary Quilt, now in the collection of my friend Gail.

Here's a link to another version I just found on eBay. Can anyone explain the significance of the finger tip?

OK, I found a bit of information here.

Old Gold Visits New Mexico

I've recently discovered the Prelinger Archives, now a new Reference Link in the sidebar, and I blogged about it on The Temporary Blog yesterday. I've been browsing their Subject Heading list every time I get a spare moment. It's a fascinating collection of video material.

I just found an interesting one called Pueblo Heritage (1950) presented by the P. Lorillard Company, the manufacturer of Old Gold Cigarettes:

In gratitude to the people who gave tobacco to the world, the P. Lorillard Company presents this film, one in a series on the American Indian, as a public service.

Now I'll admit to enjoying the images of the Zuni and Acoma pottery, as well as the marvelous sterling silver jewelry. But the turquoise and silver covered wagon (at 07:08) containing Old Gold cigarettes is a serious Madison Avenue plug.

I was reminded of their advertisement in a 1951 Saturday Evening Post which I had written about here in an earlier post. The incredible tag line reads: No medical war whoops from Old Gold... We're tobacco men... not medicine men! Smoke OLD GOLD for a TREAT instead of a TREATMENT!

I even found a copy on Ebay going for $10.99.

Blowing Things Up & Shooting Stuff

I discovered a great archive of the Du Pont Company periodicals via Things Magazine. There is much to read in the full text of 640 issues dating from the period 1913 to 2003. I'm going to enjoy exploring the Hagley Digital Archives in its entirety! I've added the link to my sidebar list of Reference Links.

Below is some of my favorite Du Pont cover art.

Reference Links No. 62 & 63

I've been adding to my list of Reference Links lately. It's winter, the world of retail is frozen in limbo in my area of New Hampshire, so I'm spending more time searching the web. As a result I am finding more and more inspiring visual material! This morning I started off on the site of boxed assemblage artist Frank Turek. (Frank is out of Portland, Maine and I know him through participation in his contemporary clown art show at Ubu Studio.) Frank's site led me to Early Visual Media, which has become link number 62. on my reference list.

From there I visited Cornell University Library's site (link number 63.) on The Fantastic in Art and Literature. Here's an excerpt from their introductory page:

Because of its rich and varied modes of representation the Fantastic also lends itself quite easily to interdisciplinary approaches. Psychology and sociology, art and literary history, anthropology and folklore among other disciplines, can provide avenues of investigation useful in the study of such basic critical or analytical concepts for the Fantastic as repression, the uncanny, indeterminacy, or the postmodern. The image bank may thus also be useful for broadening discussions in areas of study quite removed from the Fantastic per se, and it is indeed our hope that it will do so.

First I discovered the marvelous wood engravings of Bernard Zuber. Then I found their complete book list of 75 or so titles which you will not find on the shelves of your local public library! Down near the bottom of the list I noticed this book with images from one of my favorite Mexican artists, Jose Guadalupe Posada. The image illustrating the top of this post is by Posada-- from a 35mm copy stand photo I took for a library school project on the art of Edward Gorey where I attempted to show Posada as a possible influence.

And I could not resist cropping the dot below from Plate 7. of Sphaera Coelestis Mystica, a hand-colored geometrical diagram of biblical passages.

Beautiful Book Bindings 1830-1910

I added two new reference links today. One is to a fabulous collection of book bindings--the University of Rochester's Rare Books and Special Collections online exhibit titled Beauty for Commerce: Publisher's Bindings 1830-1910. I added it to my list of reference links under Bindings 1830-1910. I love the way their photographs show both the front cover and the spine together.

So much so that I gave similar treatment to an interesting dump find from my collection. Below are two pages from Samantha in Europe by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) and illustrated by C. DeGrimm (NY: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1896).

I've also added a second new reference link to a site called Gallery of Graphic Design. It's an amazing collection of magazine advertisements, dating 1930 -1969, conveniently sorted by advertiser (3121 of them!), illustrator, magazine, product and keyword. Check out this one by Salvador Dali illustrating for De Beers Diamonds.

Here the product is industrial chemicals but the artwork is anything but industrial. The tag line for this one is "No Sibling Rivalry" and the illustration reminds me of a Rorschach inkblot test! And here's a third one for the same company, Celanese, that's also got eye-catching artwork.

And finally, here's a very dramatic advertisment for Drano. Don't let this happen to you!

Centennial Exhibition Digital Collection

Season's Greetings! to everyone. (I have taken some time off from this blog due to personal reasons which will be brought to light soon in a new collage series!)

I have just added a new reference link: 1876 Centennial Exhibition . The Centennial Exhibition Digital Collection and web site were developed by the Free Library of Philadelphia with a National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. I've just begun exploring the site which documents one of my favorite events in American History.


Images are from Phillip T. Sandhurst's beautifully illustrated book: The Great Centennial Exhibition Critically Described and Illustrated (Philadelphia: P.W. Ziegler, 1876).

American Council of Learned Societies

I've recently added some new links to the reference section. Two are to the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Humanities E-Book. You can browse through their subject headings or search by chosen key words on their search page. Options in addition to a basic search include boolian, proximity or bibliographic searches.

Although a subscription is required to access full text, citations, table of contents, pictures of document covers, and sometimes links to publisher's web site are provided free of charge.

Unfolding the Salem Register

I've just added something new to the Reference Links in the right hand column of this blog. The U.S. Dept. of Interior - National Parks Service has a series of publications on conservation titled Conserve O Gram. They provide full and printable text in PDF format to a large number of pamphlets detailing guidelines on the conservation of books and other printed documents, photographs, works of art, and other collectible items. They even have one on safe handling and display of radioactive minerals.

One which I hope to make immediate use of (I'm printing a copy of it right now) is titled: How to Flatten Folded Paper Documents. I've had these old newspaper issues of the Salem Register dating January 16, 1888 to October 21, 1889 in their original folded state for about 30 years. They came from a Sunday flea market that used to be held at the Revere Drive-In.

Published on Mondays & Thursdays at Essex Street, cor. of Central, Salem by C.W. Palfray and E. N. Walton.

Also worth visiting is Caring for Your Collections by the Library of Congress. Thanks to OldImprints.com for pointing the way.

And one more new addition to the Reference Links: LC Newspapers. Check out the historic newspapers available to read online in Chronicling America at the Library of Congress.

The Online Books Page

I've just added three new reference links from a site called The Online Books Page: Online Books Page: Archives, Online Books Page: Books, and Online Books Page: Serials. From the "Archives" page I discovered a site with full text of Rare Books on Calligraphy and Penmanship.

The first link under Archives that I tried is broken. Here's a better one for American Natural Science in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century (from Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences). Above is: Plate 13. Coluber constrictor. From: John Edwards Holbrook's North American herpetology: or, a description of the reptiles inhabiting the United States.

Scientific American

With my love of old scientific apparatus, I was excited to find a couple of sites showing pages from 19th century issues of Scientific American: A Weekly Publication of Information, Art, Science, Mechanics, Chemistry and Manufacturers. The first Scientific American was issued August 28, 1845.

One of the sites is MagazineArt.org (vintage magazine cover and advertising art from the golden age of American illustration), and if my link works it should take you to an amazing illustration of an early machine gun cleverly mounted to the back of a camel from the first page of the March 2, 1872 issue.

The second site is called Scientific American Past. Issues date from 1870 to 1931 with a few gaps. There you can read the history of Scientific American extracted from the five volume A History of American Magazines by Frank Luther Mott. There is a .99 cent per image fee for high resolution printable image files and articles.

Book Collector's Terminology

I just discovered Traditions & Culture of Collecting: A Course in Correct Cataloging, or Notes to the Neophyte and A Second Course in Correct Cataloging on Jeremy Norman's site about the history of science, medicine and technology:

These two humorous handbooks or glossaries of terms for antiquarian booksellers, originally written and published in 1958 and 1962 by San Francisco antiquarian bookseller David Magee, should still evoke howls of delight from any dealer, collector or librarian familiar with the day-to-day problems of the book trade.

The illustrations above are from my oldest book find. All but pages 145-376 are missing. The edges are extremely worn. Or, I should say: “show extreme evidence of great devotional love by former owner.” Some of the words have "f" in place of "s" as in the word "fin" [for sin] and the first word of the next page appears at the bottom of the one previous. The sermons are dated 1688-1691.

More Whoosh

Here's one I don't have from a very cool and well indexed Gallery of Graphic Design. Extremely thorough documentation (I'm so ashamed to admit I neglected this) is given for each image! The site is a product of TJS Labs, and I've added their blog, The Retro Press, to my list.

Also found this one. Don't let this happen to you!

More Digital Galleries

The research library of The Art Institute of Chicago has published a great annotated list of digital image collections from around the world. While some are limited to subscribers, there are many "free and open to the public" that would make Andrew Carnegie proud!

Writing With Images

One of the most informative resources for critical discussion of contemporary collage on the web is Writing with Images: Toward a Semiotics of the Web by George L. Dillon who is professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Washington. Here is a link to the Table of Contents although starting with the Conclusion is not a bad idea. His section on Animated, Interactive, Multimedia, and Randomized Collage is of great interest to me due to my latest tangent. From here I have explored the work of Ian Campbell whose ambiant multimedia collages combine inspiration from Kurt Schwitters and Joseph Cornell in his own richly surreal textural reality. I especially like Push (click the lens to view the series) and Glimpses of an Afternoon (make sure you have sound on for this one). I had to look up "semiotics." Good word.