Collecting for Eugenia's Tribute

I found a book with a fabulous jacket: Jivaro; Among the Head-shrinkers of the Amazon by Bertrand Flornoy was published in 1954 by Library Publishers.

Friday New Art Finds: Trash Menagerie

Paula over at self taught artist has started something called Friday New Art Finds (check out her blog to see the amazing sculptures of Leonard Drew).

Today's Friday New Art Find is from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Trash Menagerie explores animals made from recycled rubbish and is view in the museum's interactive Art & Nature Center through June 2010. The press release for Trash Menagerie is here.

Thanks for visiting on this first of Paula's Friday New Art Finds!

More Snake Scans

Here are some more scans of my 3-foot snake. I found this road kill while I was out walking about 4 years ago and carried it home on the end of a stick. . . no doubt that it was dead at the time. It's my first and probably last attempt at taxidermy.

A Million Postage Stamps

The postcard above is a photoshop manipulation but the hundred-year-old story that it commemorates is the real deal. "A Million Postage Stamps," the story of Mrs. Lottie D. Miles of Hudson, Massachusetts, was written around 1900 by W. Irving Bullard for The New England Home Magazine. Click on the pages to enlarge and read.

After her first ten thousand stamps were destroyed by fire, Mrs. Miles labored for 25 years to amass one million stamps. Tied into bundles of 100 stamps each, the collection filled a trunk and a bureau drawer. It was estimated that if the stamps were spread over a surface with edges touching, they would cover nearly 5 acres, or a space one-fifth as large as the Boston Public Garden.

As a child, she did not take much interest in the craze of postage stamp collecting. But her belief that the person who should amass a million canceled stamps would be eligible for a free bed in a government hospital or some "old ladies" home fueled her labor for over twenty-five years.

At the time of her interview, Mrs. Miles intended to continue collecting until she had another million canceled stamps on which she hoped to support herself during her old age.

Another one of Mrs. Miles' fads was to save twine on a large ball (see photo above) which she employed for tying the stamps into bundles. She was quoted as saying: "Some day when I have nothing else to do, I shall start in and take the paper off the back of each stamp, and do them up perfectly clean, so that they will be more compact." I wonder if she achieved her goal.


When I came across this article, I knew I would have to share it with you for Postcard Friendship Friday!

Eugenia's Tribute

I'm enjoying the process of collecting materials for a tribute to Eugenia Shorrock, owner of The Reptile Zoo formerly of Alton Bay, New Hampshire. I feel a connection to Eugenia because, like me, she re-located to New Hampshire from Massachusetts and created an idiosyncratic retail business to reflect her passionate interests. We were pretty much the same age, too. I was 42 when I took to the hills. Eugenia was 44.

I have a couple of ideas so this tribute might evolve into two pieces. In one, I want to emphasize Eugenia's herpetological interests. I have a snake skin, a road kill that I found and skinned myself, which now has a purpose. An image of an old game board in the shape of a snake will also be incorporated, along with various images from old encyclopedias.

For the second piece, I'd like to assemble an Ethnographical Curio Cabinet based on Eugenia's collections of African and South American artifacts, particularly her infamous shrunken heads later acquired by Ripley's Believe It or Not! I've collected a number of wooden jewelry cabinets over the years. One of them will become "Eugenia's Curio Cabinet."

I must confess that I have had a strange fascination for these tribal trophies ever since I saw the shrunken head in the collection of the Peabody Museum (now the Peabody Essex Museum) in Salem, Massachusetts. Back then admission was free and I could walk to the museum from my grandmother's house just to view the shrunken head and the mummy hand.

These two c.1900 images are from Photographs from the Library of Congress American Memory collection Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920.

I just discovered an interesting blog called The Miss Rumphius Effect. One of the comments in a post about a children's book titled Behind the Museum Door: Poems to Celebrate the Wonders of Museums, is a poem by author Jane Yolen about shrunken heads: "I used to spend hours as a child - Gazing into the glassy eyes, - Contemplating the sewn-together lips." Sounds like she had a similar fascination!

And a blog called Evolving Complexity has information about a recent National Geographic Channel documentary on the search for the Amazon headshrinkers.

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.

Thought Dot

Phrenology expanded and merged with Melvil Dewey!

Picture This With Snow. . .

. . .wind-driven snow with a wind-chill factor that would freeze your face in the second it took to level your barn!

The Gluing Of the Chairs

Getting the table cleaned off in the library made possible this miraculous event. I had no idea that I owned so many chairs! My friend Peter at Abate Art, Antiques and Architectural Salvage keeps me well supplied. He's heard about another friend of mine, the infamous "Chair-Wrecker of Wakefield" who can't sit still.

Mica was on hand to check it out.

And so was the ever-lovely Miss Pearl.

The great winds and low temperatures continue for a third consecutive day. Who knows if we'll have to resort to gluing the rest of the furniture down in this fashion to keep it from blowing away!

The Collections of Eugenia Skinner Shorrock

Alton Bay, New Hampshire Reptile Zoo - Part 3.

The auction catalog, The Collections of Eugenia Skinner Shorrock - Session III from Michael Bennett Auctions that I found on eBay arrived the other day. I was happy to note that it contained photos in addition to some biographical information on both Eugenia and her father, Ernest Martin Skinner (1866-1960) who founded Skinner Organ Company in 1901.

Eugenia showed a keen interest in reptiles at an early age. She graduated from LaSalle College in 1917 and married Ernest Shorrock that same year. She became the corresponding secretary for the Boston Aquarium Society, a post she held for over 11 years. In the early 1930's she began to seriously collect snakes, reptiles and curios. She was in great demand as a lecturer at schools, social clubs and other societies.

Eugenia purchased a farm in Alton, New Hampshire in 1940 to house her ever-increasing collection of snakes and exotic animals and opened 'The Reptile Zoo' to the public. She also opened 'Worldwide Gifts' in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Eugenia closed the shop in Portsmouth in 1960 and 'The Reptile Zoo' in 1967 but continued to operate her gift shop in Alton Bay until 1990. Eugenia Skinner Shorrock died on the 7th of December 1993.

My favorite item in the catalog has to be this miniature circus:

The detailed description reads as follows:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of All Ages - It is our pleasure to offer at PUBLIC AUCTION a fascinating example of American Folk Art - THE EXCITING HOBBYLAND MINIATURE CIRCUS

On a scale of 1" to 1', the famous Edwards family began construction of this circus in the late 1920's. Their work continued for 20 years. Some of the miniature animals came from England, France, Germany and Italy years before the outbreak of the Second World War.

In 1947, Mr. Edwards sold the circus to Mr. A. Randall Crapo of Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. . . Mrs. Eugenia Skinner Shorrock purchased the circus in 1952 and displayed it for only one year in Alton Bay, New Hampshire. It has been hidden from the public eye for 40 years and was only recently brought to light.

The circus covers 288 square feet of table space and will be offered in its entirety. . .

Unfortunately, the famous pair of shrunken heads obtained by Ripley's Believe it or Not! are described in a separate Session IV catalog of African, North American, Oceanic and South American Ethnographica. Here's the advertisement printed in the Session III catalog:

There is a fascinating full text pdf article by Steven Lee Rubenstein titled "Circulation, Accumulation, and the Power of Shuar Shrunken Heads," originally published in Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 22, Issue 3, pp. 357-399. According to Wikipedia it has been illegal to import shrunken heads into the United States since the 1940's.

Read more about Eugenia Shorrock in two previous posts: Eugenia Shorrock's Snakes and Shrunken Heads, and Alton Bay, New Hampshire Reptile Zoo. If you liked the miniature Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus, here's another one to check out posted by Jim at Dull Tool Dim Bulb.

And to all of you visiting from Marie's blog, have a great Postcard Friendship Friday!

Ta-DA! The New Studio 2

Oops, I published that last post before I had a chance to put up the new studio shots. Well, here they are!

Lots of storage space was created by elevating the two small folding tables shown above. They are at just the right height for me to work standing up. I might move them to the center of the room later just to see how that works. But right now I have a lot of room to pace around.

The front wall, shown in the two photos above, is mainly storage right now.

And here's the design wall, above. I'm so happy how this project turned out. The rest of the downstairs shows great improvement as a result.

In Studio 2: White Board

So far I've moved in four folding tables, a drawing table, and a cabinet. Plus enough bins to fill the space under the tables. The two smaller back-to-back tables have had their legs extended because I like to work standing up.

A new feature in this room is an 8 foot by 8 foot collage design wall. My friend attached two pieces of "white board" to the wall just inside the door and I have some of those erasable markers. How fun to have such a large surface to draw on. I'm hoping that blue painter's tape will be safe to use on the surface, also. Time will tell!

I got the idea from the quilter, Nancy Crow. Her design walls can be pinned to which makes sense when arranging fabric but I don't want to put holes in my paper. Plus my cat Mica has a penchant for eating thumb tacks and push pins so I tend to avoid them for safety reasons!

I absolutely love Nancy's book, Quilts and Influences published by the American Quilter's Society. Have you seen the whirligigs and tramp art she shows as "influences" at the end of the book?

Lawn Tennis & Window Screens

After I don't know how many days of sifting and sorting, I am now all moved in to Studio 2. Here's a couple of re-discovered items that made me think of summer. If you hold your racket like this you will hit like a girl. Hey, wait a minute, I AM a girl!

Look at these cool numbered thumb tacks used back in the days when storm windows and screens had wooden frames.

I'd use them to keep track of all my bins but I've already made new tags for them on the computer in 30 point type so I can find stuff without wearing glasses. I'll post pictures tomorrow after I photograph my newly organized studio in natural light.

Gemstone Healing 1899

Article from: The New England Home Magazine, Volume VI, Number 8, 19 February 1899.