Finding Frantz Ferdinand

I just discovered the coolest animated collage in a music video by Franz Ferdinand called Take Me Out. It was brought to my attention by the Yahoo Group of artist Cecil Touchon. Due to my propensity for living with my head in the sand, I was never exposed to Franz Ferdinand back in 2004 when the video came out. That's OK. Their music is not my cup of tea but I love the animation which as described on Wikipedia was inspired by Dadaism, especially Max Ernst's collage novels Une Semaine de Bonte and The Hundred Headless Woman (La Femme 100 tetes) with a little Busby Berkeley and Russian constructivist design also thrown in.

The video was directed by Jonas Odell, who also did the "Window in the Skies" music video for U2. I found more of Odell's work on YouTube: Revolver, Body Parts, and Lies. And here's a short trailer for his 2010 film, Tussilago. I could really get into YouTube in a big way if I wasn't on slow dial-up!

Metamorphosis

I have three collage pieces on display through May 27th in an art show in North Conway, New Hampshire at the Mt. Washington Valley Arts Association: Divination I, Landscape for Fossils, and Yellow Dots - My Paper. The show is titled "Metamorphosis: An Exhibit of Works Expressing Transformation and Rebirth." The gallery is at 16 Norcross Place in North Conway Village and the hours are 9-3 Monday through Friday, and 10-2 on Saturdays.

Works by the following MWVAA artists are on display: Peter Abate, Peggy Brewster, Karen Brisbois, Elise Edgerton, Jan Eskedal, Jessica Fligg, Kathleen Gilligan, John Girouard, J. P. Goodwin, Valentina Kobilansky, Heather MacLeod, Barbara McEvoy, Frank McLaughlin, Anita Muise, Dick O'Brien, Carl Owen, Sharon Soule, Cindy Spencer, Sean Stull, and Elaine Woodbury. For more information, visit the MWVAA website.

In Progress For Emily

I have recently blogged about the experience of loneliness over on The Temporary Blog, having been inspired by a marvelous book by Clarke E. Moustakas. Check out The Best Books Are Thin and Loneliness: Part 2 to read some passages from this inspiring book.

To me, the most important premise of the book is that the condition known as existential loneliness leads directly to creative expression. Moustakas uses the secluded life of poet Emily Dickinson as an example, and reading about her reminded me of this lovely triptych which has been languishing in my Archive of Indecision. It may be time to dust it off and move forward with it!

Pen Dots

I have been making dots with marking pens to print for a collage based on this tribute to Julio Le Parc. I'm thinking it would be interesting to make one on black. On a 30x30 canvas maybe. The tribute to Le Parc is 20x20 so bigger might be fun. Must locate black paint.

Wow, here's a cool discovery. I've been using this gridded paper for presentations with 2" squares. You can blacken each square individually by hitting it with the paint bucket. This could get interesting.

Breaking Through Non-Creativity

It's been a while. I have been suffering from non-creativity among other things But I recently re-discovered a wonderful book on my shelf: Everyday Osho: 365 Daily Meditations for the Here and Now. Now if, as the title suggests, one is supposed to read only one Meditation a day, I have blown it. For I gulped this book down in two sittings, taking time to mark a few passages that immeasurably moved me so as to easily locate them again:

103. MAKING A PATH - "When there has been a breakthrough, make it a point to relive it again and again. Just sitting silently, remember it; don't just remember it, relive it."

121. DARKNESS - "Don't try to fight with the darkness. There is no way, because the darkness does not exist--how can you fight with it? Just light a candle and the darkness is gone."

170. SADNESS - "When sad, be really sad, sink into sadness. What else can you do? Sadness is needed. . . Accept it, and you will see that the moment you accept sadness, it starts becoming beautiful."

These are just three among many. But the one that really helped me understand creative break-through was this:

257. THE FALSE AND THE TRUE - "You have nothing to compare false love to unless the real happens, so when meditation starts, the illusory love by and by dissipates, disappears. Don't be disheartened, and don't make disappointment a permanent attitude. If someone is a creator and meditates, all creativity will disappear for the time being. . . The false will disappear and that's a basic condition for the real to appear. The false. . . must vacate you completely; only then are you available for the real."

I think I did just fine. I was just making up for so much lost time.

Collage Collections on The Altered Page

Check out Collector's Edition Volume 8 over on Seth Apter's blog The Altered Page. Seth had mentioned two of my collage techniques in his Secret Sunday series a while back and this Sunday he included my statement about collecting old books. Visit his site to see what other collage artists are obsessed with!

And if old books are your interest also, you might enjoy my latest blog called Biblio - Dots.

Scan + Flip + Repeat = Inadvertent Valentine

This is from a drawing made on big graph paper, the kind found at Staples on an easel pad for presentations. There were a few glitches in the original that I fixed with the clone stamp before repeating it. When I focus on the pink areas in the image above, and allow them to merge somewhat with the diamonds, I see X's and O's.

Reading Fingerprints

Here's another advertisement from the August 1944 issue of Popular Mechanics. What can you read in this finger print? There is a secret hidden in it, just as there is in every finger print.

Study the advertisement from the Institute of Applied Science above and you will see the answer: Your Fortune. The words appear twice.

Learn about the History of Fingerprinting and read two books of historical interest on the Internet Archive: Francis Galton's 1895 publication Fingerprint Directories and James Holt's Fingerprints Simplified published c.1920.

The first London printing of Galton's book Finger Prints published by Macmillan in 1892 is commanding the whopping price of $1,500 on Biblio.

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!

Introducing Biblio - Dots!

I started another blog today for showcasing the "old and odd" illustrated books in my collection. The first discussion is on one titled Fascination, or The Philosophy of Charming published by the phrenological Fowler brothers (Lorenzo and Orson) and Samuel Wells in 1885. I thought this would be a good choice since I am currently reading Madeleine B. Stern's Heads & Headlines; The Phrenological Fowlers.

The new blog is called Biblio - Dots. I'm still not done fussing with fonts and colors yet but it's getting there.

Space Race Square

I've been playing with some lovely vintage cover art from an old issue of Popular Mechanics. I love the pinwheel effect when the image is turned and repeated!

Nose Thing Dot

I started getting into my old magazines tonight. These advertisements are from an August, 1944 issue of Popular Mechanics which is missing its cover.

Barbara Kruger Does Barbasol

I just started reading a fabulous book: Barbara Kruger (NY: Rizzoli, 2010). Even if you are not familiar with the name you probably would recognize her signature artwork: black and white photos with bold captions on red backgrounds.

The book is 312 pages and so far I have been skimming and skipping. Imagine my surprise to see that Kruger appropriated one of my favorite Barbasol advertisement images (original ad pictured above; blogged earlier here) from a 1950's Life magazine! I learned from her Wikipedia entry that the typeface she uses is Futura Bold and she studied art and design with Diane Arbus at Parson's School of Design. The entry pointed me to a clever Graphic Standards Manual. And a nice selection of her work can be seen here.