Thursday, June 26, 2008

1926 Class Photo




I came across this family photo and was amazed by the expressions on the children's faces. Ordinarily I hunt for vintage photos in thrift stores, and the ones I see are of carefully posed people in frozen moments. They have an otherworldly beauty, as if the photographer used his camera to create the image as a reflection of his own artistry. But in this 1926 photograph of a high school class, there is no posing. Well, there seems to be a lot of hamming it up, but for the most part, every child stared at the camera with his or her own moment of personality. No photographer told them how to look, they just seized the moment. Some where having fun, and some weren't. I'm amazed at the expressions on their faces and also at the various fashions. It was a wild mix of class - kids from the farm wearing overalls, city kids in their Sunday Best complete with ruffles or costume jewelry or neck ties. I'll post a few more tomorrow.







Monday, June 23, 2008

Maggie and Aphrodite


I sold my "Aphrodite Goes to the Mall of America" painting during my Art-a-Whirl studio sale last month. Maggie here is the delightful new owner. When I delivered the painting to her home, I was treated to a visual feast: her own paintings as well as others adorned the walls inside her home, and her garden outside was a magical world of artistic surprises!


I forgot my glasses, so I was staring into the camera blindly. Pardon my blurriness! I really loved Maggie's hat stand, a reindeer (or was it a carribou?) with huge antlers. Don't worry, the deer is made totally of fabric, and was acquired from a clothing store that was going out of business.


Now we are in the garden. Maggie stands under a crossroad sign, on the corner of "Liberty" and "River Road". She said it was symbolic of the day she quit her job.


Isn't this a lovely bouquet of bowling balls and pink flamingos? Perfect finishing touch for the garden that has everything. And it did too - a potting studio, a sunken bathtub filled with flowers, grapes growing over trellises, sculptures of every size and material in every location....it was so inspiring and magical!

Friday, June 20, 2008

New Cover




This magazine cover was fun fun fun to work on, although creating all the words required more discipline than what I normally can muster! The headline will be "Word Power" and announces the annual writing contest. It was to be made clear that it was the physicians who were submitting the articles. I decided not to change the face as much as I originally planned (see previous entry). Instead I just gave him different eyes and a pair of glasses for a totally new look.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Doctor's Bag




This is a component of the collage/illustration that I am working on. I couldn't find any photos or scraps of a doctor's bag that I could use, so I more or less made this up. If you look closely, you will see that it makes no sense at all - kind of like one of Escher's drawings that have steps going up when you look one moment, and then down when you look the next. How does this bag close? What is that strip at the top? Are they inside the bag or outside? But hey, I'm an artist and I have what's called "artistic license". Nobody will notice unless YOU blab. My favorite quote: "People notice only what you tell them to notice, and then only if you remind them". (Dr. Kornblum, renowned fictional magician in the novel, Kavalier and Clay.)

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Two Heads Are Better



I'm working on a collage assignment, and thought you might like to see a transformation in progress. I want to alter the vintage photo on the left, so I borrowed a hairstyle, eyes and mouth from another vintage photo. If only plastic surgery could be so cheap, fast and painless! Although frankly, the results are not exactly Esquire standards!