Joanna Priestley

I have been blogging for almost a year now. Looking back I found 19 of my posts are labeled animation. The National Film Board of Canada has produced some of my old favorites: Richard Condie's "The Big Snit," Co Hoedeman's "The Sand Castle" and Norman McLaren's "The Star and George."

And just recently I have discovered the amazing animated films of Joanna Priestley.

I first found Fighting Gravity on Netflicks and actually mailed it back before I had a chance to view the Bonus Features. I was happy to discover Relative Orbits on Joanna Priestley's website. The extra interviews and studio tours on both DVD's made me want to move west and take her classes. Joanna is a collage artist, too, and has employed collage techniques in a number of her films. The occasional glimpse of the physical set-up (pay close attention to that woman behind the curtain!) reveals the mechanics involved.

I also find it educational to watch segments in slow motion (the dots and squares shifting around in "Surface Dive" or the figure-8 loop of dancing stars near the end of "The Rubber Stamp Film") without the distraction of sound. The music and sound effects are delightful, by the way, as is the extra interview with the sound engineer.

I received an original drawing from "After the Fall" (on Relative Orbits) with my order. As you can see by the date inscribed on it, I'm very tardy in expressing this: Thank you so much, Joanna! I'm looking forward to your next compilation.

Blog Action Day 2009

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. This year the issue is: Climate Change. Blog Action Day 2009 could be the largest-ever social change event on the web.

I just learned about this from ephemera. It's already 5:14 in the afternoon and the deadline pressure is on. Can I think of something constructive? I'm technically not supposed to say anything. My rule is I have to collage about it to talk about it. Too late, I'm already typing. So I'm going to look at it from both sides (making the gross simplification that there are only two, for and against) in lieu of a thoughtfully designed illustration. Here goes. First I'll say something for it:

Am I the only sane person for Climate Change? Nothing can stay the same, especially when you want it to. Learn to love your climate, whatever it does. Mine's getting a little cold right now but it still looks pretty. Think about what actions could contribute to positive Climate Change. I'm going to plant a tree.

Now I'll say something against it:

Not only am I against Climate Change, I am against change, period, end of sentence. This negative attitude regarding change in general is maturity onset. I've been around long enough to recognize the pattern: things do not change for the better. Therefore it is better not to. It's the reason I'm living here.

Old and Odd

I love odd photographs. The black and white work of Jerry Uelsmann fascinates me. I'm also attracted to old photos. I've had these stereo views since the 80's. I credit my appreciation of the format to a photo archives course I took in library school. It involved research at such notable Boston institutions as SPNEA (The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities) which has now adopted Historic New England as its public identity.

All of that was pre-internet. Now I can visit any number of visually rich sites without leaving the comfort of my chair! Here's a good one that I just discovered today: Stereoviews.com .

Chemical Apparatus

This was an extremely cool dump find. It's something Max Ernst would have made good use of in a surrealistic collaged novel. [Second part here.]

I've always loved microscopes. My first view of microscopic pond life hooked me on science. I never figured out until it was too late that what I really enjoyed was keeping the illustrated lab notebook. Judging by his painting titled The Gramineous Bicycle Garnished with Bells the Dappled Fire Damps and the Echinoderms Bending the Spine to Look for Caresses, Max Ernst liked microscopes too.

Look at the price of these balances. . . only $125.00 and $96.00 for such exquisite workmanship! They would make wonderful hermetically sealed stages.

When I look at this last one I think about designs for jewelry clasps and bracelet links!

Safer Than a Haystack

I love the illustrations on these old needle books. Happy Home was a gift from my friend Peter, who owns Abate Art & Antiques and has a barn full of neat old stuff.

Woolco is another nice one from Patti at Catskill Paper:

Vernacular Collage

"What is vernacular photography? . . . It could be understood as an oppositional photography - outside technical or artistic histories, . . . it could also be entirely conventionalized, a manifestation of visual banalities, or an image so enigmatic that its meaning or genesis is entirely obscured. It is mistakes & failures as much as it may not be. & how we understand the images may or may not be separate from their initial intents. Is this a category we are making up?"

The above quotation was taken from the blog article "Vernacular Photography" published on One Way Street. I was interested to read it initially because I have been enjoying the blog, Dull Tool Dim Bulb, so much recently.

Then I started to consider the vernacular in terms of collage. (And visa-versa.)

But I was going somewhere else with this. Here's another quote, this one from Robert Genn's Twice-Weekly Letter [to painters]: "Some artists have a sense of preciousness about every squiggle or splodge they make. They hang onto stuff with tenacity, even building archives to rival The Ark of the Covenant. I've always put this down to poor toilet training, but it may also have something to do with ego blow or the expectation of a place in the history of art."

Ouch. My toilet training was above reproach. I can't help myself. I'm a pack-rat trained as a librarian. And, come to think about it, I consider myself to be a vernacular collage artist!

Frida Kahlo Meets Tony Fitzpatrick

While I was visiting the Carl Hammer Gallery, I couldn't help noticing the work of Elizabeth Shreve. A couple of my favorites are: Homelife and Kiss My Shoe. The birds and color wheels are wonderful!

Cameron Gray

I credit fellow Art Group-er Charles Kartsonis with influencing me to design with tiles. It's such a natural progression from my quilting days.

I just happened upon the amazing compositions of Cameron Gray over at the Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago. At first I thought they were made up of painstakingly cropped found images, carefully chosen for their color. But actually, each tile is an original oil painting produced specifically for the work.

New Frida Kahlo Book

A new book, Finding Frida Kahlo sounds great. The editorial review on Amazon is fascinating!

I learned about it from a cool site called project b which is owned by the book's author, Barbara Levine. She is also a collage artist. My kind of gal! Lot's of circular elements in her work.

Her gallery of curiosities includes Frida's teeth, in addition to pages from the Desk Book of Printing Types (1898: American Type Founders Company). I had published the same hands here along with some reprints from the Handbook of Early Advertising Art - Typographical and Ornamental Volume by Clarence P. Hornung. It's nice to know their original source.

Had I known those "Your Future Husband" cards from the vending machine at Salem Willows would be worth something today I would have kept all mine!

Every Single Day

There are two "collage-a-day" blogs that I admire: Randel Plowman's A Collage A Day and Dilar Pereira's Daily Collage Project. I'm starting to give some serious thought to the "work-a-day" regimen. It has served me well so far regarding bracelets. My tools are always out where I can find them and I know where all of my materials are. Maybe the same synchronized work environment would evolve for collage.

Wow, I may have stumbled upon the key to it.

Modess Goddess

Still looking around TJS Lab's neat vintage advertising site and I came across the "Modess. . . because" series of advertisements that inspired collage artist Jess. His iconic collages include: Goddess Because Is Is Falling Asleep (1954) and Goddess. . . because. . . because (c. 1954).

You can see a few of the original advertisements here, here, here, and here.

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!

The Whoosh Women

I couldn't help noticing one of my favorite "whoosh" women over on the End of Suburbia site. I started a collection of them a while back, filed them away, and then forgot about them. I didn't have time to track them down yesterday, but after about a half hour of searching this evening I managed to locate them!

Awakening from the Consensus Trance

I watched a documentary last night called The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream and I came away feeling gratitude for the ability to sustain myself in such a beautiful area of New Hampshire. The film's bonus features include two vintage shorts: [Black and White and Color] In the Suburbs (1957: Redbook Magazine) and Destination Earth (1956: American Petroleum Institute).

I was raised in suburbia during the 50's and 60's (and was subsequently force-fed the American Dream of two cars, two bathrooms, wall-to-wall carpeting and a weed-free lawn) so the first viewing of In the Suburbs held me spellbound. . . there was my aunt's dining-room wallpaper and my parent's station wagon. So many memories were dredged up that I had a funny feeling in my stomach, as if Redbook's PR department got their hands on some of my Uncle Al's home movies.

Credits include: Jean Sharpe, Carlo Arcamone, Joseph Cole, Tracy Wood, Herbert Hagers and Bert Spielvogel. I wonder who created the films collaged title screen:

There were some interesting social messages in API's animated short on the miracles of oil, as well. Here are Destination Earth's production credits:

Although The End of Suburbia's extras invoke nostalgia, the combination serves as an extremely perturbing wake-up call. I've been looking at my state of car-lessness as the result of temporary poverty up until now. But perhaps, like world oil supply, my ability to invest in material goods has peaked. Consumerism as an antidote to boredom has now been surpassed by "the thrill of waiting up for the end of the world."

A blog called Survival Acres provides this fascinating take on The Consensus Trance.