50's Housewife Reveling in Doing-It-Herself
A bizarrely glamorous housewife pauses in the midst of tiling a room, pointing proudly to herself. I edited it out, but in the original illustration (Link1) for Armstrong tile, a pipe-smoking husband reads the newspaper in a lounge chair in the next room. Her image is set on a collage of tile and rug patterns from another catalog (Link2), a 1951 list of offerings "for basements and basement-less houses." The image is huge. It challenged the storage capacity of my computer -- everything went very slow. To give a sense of the curious effect of my manipulation of the original image, a full-size 300 x 400 pixel detail of the processed picture appear on the right.
For maximum effect with my images, click on the image until it is full-size, which may be larger than your computer screen.
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/HomeIdeasFromBeaverLumber
Link2: https://archive.org/details/RoomsForBetterLivingInBasementsAndBasementlessHouses
Steel Pipe Cleaner in Illuminated Frame
In New York, strongly influenced by night in a New York jazz bar, the Monday night jam session at the 11th Street Bar. Improvisation here takes an illustration of a adjustable Steel Pipe Cleaner from a 1908 trade catalog on pipe and boiler insulation (Link1) and combines it with an illuminated page of a 1478 bible recently published by the Vatican (Link2). Since the Vatican did not release the images into the public domain, I obscured the specific shapes. But hats off to the Vatican for making its library available for review by the public. Way to go, Pope Frank -- apparently a genuine good guy, who lived through vicious right-wing violence in Argentina and has apparently learned to see through the prevailing economic orthodoxy. As I said, this image influenced by a night of jazz -- hope it communicates a certain jazzy flow.
For maximum effect with my images, click on the image until it is full-size, which may be larger than your computer screen.
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/J-mPipeAndBoilerInsulationCatalogNo.100
Link2: digi.vatlib.it/view/Stamp.Ross.283/0019
Welsh Clothing Worker
From Flickr Commons National Library of Wales. a 1947 photo (Link1) of a young woman working at a Bear Brand clothing factory in Corwen, Wales. Her image is superimposed on a distorted copy of an 1887 Edward Muybridge print (Link2) from the Museum of Photographic Arts, showing a woman going through "artificially induced convulsions."
For maximum effect with my images, click on the image until it is full-size, which may be larger than your computer screen.
Sources:
Link1: www.flickr.com/photos/llgc/5057449240/
Link2: www.flickr.com/photos/mopa1/5710961155/
Elisabeth Dangar against Tramway
A couple pictures from the Flickr Commons. A studio portrait (Link1) of 17-year-old Elisabeth Dangar of Australia by photographer Bernice Agar, taken around 1918. It is set against a 1898 photo (Link2) of trolley tracks under construction in Quebec.
For maximum effect with my images, click on the image until it is full-size, which may be larger than your computer screen.
Sources:
Link1: www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/7785523860/
Link2: www.flickr.com/photos/museemccordmuseum/2861900171/
Weston Portrait
From the Flickr Commons section on the Museum of Photographic Arts, a digitally recolored 1915 photo (Link1) by Edward Weston showing a woman named Emily Elias.
For maximum effect with my images, click on the image until it is full-size, which may be larger than your computer screen.
Sources:
Link1: www.flickr.com/photos/mopa1/5710945123/
Happy Thanksgiving!
From the Flickr Commons section on the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, a circa 1901 photo (Link1) showing Cooperative employees plucking turkeys. For first time in a while, experimenting with type. Large font is Beethoven, from Daniel Gauthier of Hamilton, Ontario, who has created many fonts, including Tattoo Parlor, from which I offer the right-hand image for my friends who just moved onto the 13th floor.
About Thanksgiving: this web site, philly-bob.net, was first introduced to my friends at a Thanksgiving, 2012, dinner. This Thanksgiving, 2013 -- dinner with the same friends at the same restaurant. Some day, I'll look back and think how fortunate I am. (Even though I have lost all my upper teeth and developed eye problems and diabetes in the year elapsed!)
For maximum effect with my images, click on the image until it is full-size, which may be larger than your computer screen.
Sources:
Link1: www.flickr.com/photos/proni/6197424283/
Swedish Actor
Having finished processing the Gallica downloads, I turn now to a new source: Flicker's Commons of public domain photographs. Still trying to figure out this site. Here is an image (either taken in 2012 or donated in 2012) (Link1) from The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, showing an actor in costume -- and apparently in character.
Sources:
Link1: www.flickr.com/photos/slsarkiva/7038331091/
Float Dream: Algerian Woman and Fossils
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A picture of an Algerian woman carrying a jug, from a 1910 West Coast Magazine (Link1). The background comes from an Arabic science book, whose title I can't translate (Link2).
(0917lapkeep-1026a)
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/C1002013144
Link2: archive.org/details/httpmngool.comforum.php_850
Float Dream: Drawer Pull and Doll
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A drawer pull from a 1939 catalog of hardware (Link1) superimposed over a girls' paper mache store display form -- a mannequin covered by black jersey cloth, with wax head and hands (Link2). Righthand image shows additional digital manipulation -- vignetting and edge-offset contours.
(0913lapkeep-1025)
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/BuildersHardwareCatalogNo.24
Link2: archive.org/details/IllustratedCatalogueWithDescriptionsAndPriceListsOfDisplayFixturesFor
Float Dream: Utah, Mormons & Brigham Young
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A collage of three illustrations from an 1882 travel book, Through America: or, Nine months in the United States by W.G. Gore: (1) a portrait of Mormon head Brigham Young, (2) a Salt Lake City collage of baby pictures captioned "Utah's Best Crop," and (3) the interior of the Mormon Tabernacle (in background).
(0910lapkeep-1022)
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/throughamericaor00mars
Float Dream: Bulgarian Folk costumes
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Some images from a book of Bulgarian folk costumes. The link goes to a different publication; the images themselves are in a PDF with a different title, A History of Bulgarian Costume by Venera Vaslednikova.
(0913lapkeep-1024)
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/BulgarianFolkCostumesSymbolsAndTraditionsBulgarianDiplomaticReview
Float Dream: Peasant in Repose before Cosmic Cave
Jean-Francois Millet crayon drawing of a peasant resting against a haystack, from a 1912 art auction catalog (Link1), superimposed against an engraving of an Australian cave from an 1893 geographic study (Link2) by evolution co-discover, naturalist Alfred Wallace Russell, with a underlying marblized pattern.
(0930lapkeep-1103)
Link1: archive.org/details/cataloguedesdess00unse
Link2: archive.org/details/australianewzeal00wall
Float Dream: Waitress, Tree Fungus, Dark-Eyes
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Right, from a government pamphlet on HIV prevention, a black-haired woman (Link1). Left, from another government pamphlet on prevention of heart disease (Link2), a waitress lectures on healthy food choices. All overlaid on a pattern formed by a photograph of a fungus growing on a tree from a book on forestry (Link3).
(0928lapkeep-1102)
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/hivpreventionsav00nati
Link2: archive.org/details/cullfactorsforsi06kimm
Link3: archive.org/details/heartyhabitsdont00nati
Float Dream: Man, Woman, Potato
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Various manipulations of watercolor figures of a man and woman from a government health report (Link1), superimposed on an image of a potato from a 1909 book titled The manufacture of starch from potatoes and cassava (Link2).
(0927lapkeep-1102)
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/eatrighttohelplo00nati
Link2: archive.org/details/manufactureofsta58wile
Float Dream: Bosnian Garden Party Under Brazilian Trees
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From a report titled Women and Men in the Past, published by a 2001 conference on Balkan Studies (Link1), a photograph of a Bosnian woman enjoying an "Afternoon in the Garden." She lifts her cup of tea in front of a photograph of canopy trees from a 1939 report on Brazilian agriculture titled As Atividades Agricolas do Brasil (Link2).
(0924lapkeep-1101)
Sources:
Link1: archive.org/details/WomenAndMenInThePastInternationalSeminarForBalkanStudies
Link2: archive.org/details/agro1939br
Old-time Block Cut Collage
Old-time French literary magazines didn't have the budget for fancy engravings, so many of them used woodblock or linoleum prints for illustration. Here is a collage of some of them, laid over a marblized endpaper from another book.
(gallica-1109)
Ukrainian Heroines
Illustration from an 1878 children's book Maroussia: A Maid of the Ukraine (Link1), telling a Ukrainian legend. It is a charming story of a little girl who gives her life to rescue The Envoy, a George Washington-type national hero, during a period of political turmoil (when the Ukraine was invaded by Russia, considering an alliance with Poland, and considering going independent). Here, the girl's mother does a masterful job of stalling Cossacks who want to arrest the Envoy, a guest at their house. One pistol-wielding Cossack breaks a window to demand that the mother open the door or he will burn the house down. Cunning, she plays stupid -- oh my goodness, I lost the key, I know it's in here somewhere. I'm so confused. Think Edith Bunker in All in the Family. The delaying tactic gives the Envoy time to escape. The little girl on the left, whose hand is being grasped by her mother, is the heroine Maroussia. After the Envoy is gone and mother lets the Cossacks in, Maroussia slips outside and leads the Envoy through the battle-scarred steppes to his destination. That journey, their adventures, and the stories they tell each other, form the legend's key narrative. I'm reading the English translation.
In the second picture: during their journey, the plucky 11-year-old heroine hides the Envoy in an oxen wagon loaded with hay to smuggle the fugitive past the cossacks hunting him. But when the cossacks stop the wagon and begin to question her, clever, quick-witted Maroussia charms her way out of it. The soldier ordered to guard the wagon ask her where her parents are, but she turns it around, asking the soldier about his family, getting him to tell her about his own daughter, who is about the same age as Maroussia. Distracted, he doesn't search the wagon, doesn't find the Envoy hiding in the hay.
The third picture shows Maroussia and the Envoy arriving at a camp, their journey done.
After the Envoy is safely delivered, Maroussia is killed by a Tartar's stray bullet and is laid out on a funeral bier, where she is mourned by all.
(gallica-1108)
Link1: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65518515
Digital Whimsy on Image from Carpentry Manual
Again from the French public domain site, gallica.bnf.fr, a variation of a page from the 1787 L'Art de Menuisierie, or the Art of Carpentry (Link1). This is a reprint edition of 1876. Author Roubo was a master cabinetmaker. The New York Public Library also hosts a high-quality 300 ppi scan of the image, but the acquisition process is has many hoops. I applied for digital delivery of three scans, but I'm not sure the request will be granted. Later: they denied my request. "But it's in the public domain," I said. "Yes," they replied, "you can use the 72 dpi JPEG files for free. The high-resolution files cost $50 each." Hmmmm.
(gallica-1109)
Link1: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6555542d
Collage with Old Plane, Ration Ticket, Opium Dem
From the same 1905 L'homme et la terre (Link1), a Chinese opium den, under that a picture of a now unknown airplane in a flying magazine (Link2), overlaid on a 1940 Paris bread ration ticket from Aguianine (Link3), a historical magazine (Link3).
(gallica-1110-1116a)
Link1: gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65596472
Link2: gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6554246q
Link2: gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6562358x
Variations: Woodcut Treatments
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Experimenting with how to handle old woodcuts. Top Row Left, a knight fights a dragon outside a walled city. Right, a young woman. Middle Row, different treatments of a witch consorting with the devil. Bottom Row, from Rhymes Without Reason, a very strange 1864 children's book (Link1) illustration, showing three beggar men on crutches; and a girl freeing a bird from a cage.
(0804-08lapkeep-0920-22)
Sources:
Link1,
Composition: Japanese Architect's Drawing II
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Another digital manipulation of a drawing in the 13th century Japanese Temple Design Rules (Link1).
(0801lapkeep-0919)
Sources:
Link1
Dream Vision: Baby's Bath Time
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From an old home economics book, a picture of a setup for giving a baby a bath.
(0730lapmisc-0917)
Sources: NA
Dream Vision: Backyard Scene
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Mother talks to boy next to inflatable pool in verdant summer scene.
(0730lapkeep-0917)
Sources: NA
Dream Vision: Fireworks, Foundation, Cinderella, and Fireworks
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Cinderella, posted from an old magazine at lower left. Then an action-packed scene from the same old magazine, showing workmen rebuilding foundations of a cathedral; and then fireworks superimposed on all that.
(0715pkeep-0910)
Sources: TBA
Dream Vision: Innocence, Time and War
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An girl on the American prairies cooks on a wood-burning stove. To her left, a Swiss armory with rifles lined up against one wall. To her right, an interior view of one of the clocks of Paris, Below, bodies litter a battlefield from the Boer War.
(0715pkeep-0908)
Sources: TBA
Dream Vision: Unspoken Promises
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From a 1900 catalog (Link1) for a sale of paintings in Paris, a reproduction of a painting by Austrian academic artist Eduard Charlemont, titled L'Engagement Tacite, showing a cavalier and a maid in a moment of silence. The title implies that the two have come to some momentous joint decision: a marriage? an assignation? a conspiracy? My work on this image draws on my study of certain photo-retouching techniques. For comparison's sake, here is the original:
Color in the image is drawn from end-papers of various books, source not recorded. Of course, in the Boy's Cinema, the "creative crops" show white space and in my image, the white space is filled with complicated patterns. It is an experiment. (0708lapkeep-0826)
Sources:
Link1
Dream Vision: Marvel of Pumped Water
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A farm wife showing off the advantages of installing an electric pump -- running water. The background is a concrete basement; colors come from Seminole clothing. (08/13/2013)
Sources: TBA
Dream Vision: Waterfront Scene
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A 19th century harbor scene, with fishing boa ts tied up at the dock and fishermen lounging about. Superimposed at the bottom, a graphic of well-dressed, well-heeled "swells." (08/12/2013)
Sources: TBA
Dream Vision: Astronomer
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From an old newspaper, an astronomer searches the sky. In the background, barely visible, a cloaked skeleton holds his arms out in a welcoming embrace.
(08/11/2013)
Sources: TBA
Dream Vision: Woman in Bonnet with Apron of Apples
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From the cover of a 1911 travel brochure from Canadian Pacific Railway extolling the virtues of British Columbia, a young woman in regional garb holds out an apron filled with fruit. (08/10/2013)
Sources:
Link1
Dream Vision: Fisher Girls
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Sources:
Still Life I
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Class exercise during Thursday Morning Still Life Workshop at the Plastic Club.
(08/08/2013)
Sources: TBA
Dream Visions: Gingham Girl, Mollusc Shell, Skeleton
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From a nature book, a snail, overlaid with a cartoon skeleton, next to a Polish model in a gingham dress. The overall picture is then "spherized." Not happy with this image, but following one-a-day rule, here it is.
(08/05/2013)
Sources: TBA
Dream Visions: Twins Fondle Pearls, Plumber's Washer Assortent
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From an old French fashion magazine, a woman with sinuous fingers handles her string of pearls. The image is doubled and reversed. It is then overlaid on a picture of a can of assorted washers from a plumbers supply catalog. The image is huge: 2890 x 2194 pixels.
Sources: TBA
Dream Vision: Village Scene and Jeweled Girl
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A painting of a group of women congregating around a white wall on left and a picture of a bejeweled girl raising her veil. Color arises from an underlaying linoleum tile pattern. See discussion of enlarging this image in TechIndex.
Sources: TBA
Dream Vision: Flora and Filing Cabinets
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From an 1868 catalog of an exhibit of the American Watercolor Society (Link1), a painting by James Symington of a sleepy Flora, some sort of wood nymph perched on a rock. Her image is superimposed on an image from a 1916 trade catalog of steel file cabinets (Link2). In this image, for the first time, I capture the color palette of my dream-world, largely black and white, but with red and yellow specks and highlights. Underlying all this is a barely visible linoleum pattern from a 1957 catalog (Link3); most of it is washed out except the stylized starlike object just left of Flora's shoulder.
Sources: Link1
Link2
Link3
Four Variations on Old European Paintings
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Back from short family vacation. A bit scattered. Wrenched my knee, so I'm trying to stay off it. Also trying to figure out a treatment of line drawings (I believe technically they're called "cartoons") produced from old European masterpieces, which appear in Salomon Reinach's 1905 Repertoire de peintures du Moyen Age et la Renaissance. (Link1 and Link2). Experimenting with different styles.
Sources: Link1
Link2
2/6/2013
