Missed Opportunities

I spent the past week working on the paper aspect of my business name, making paper collage cards for the May edition of Zanesville First Friday.  I thought that the cards would be a nice low-cost impulse buy for shoppers, as Mother's Day is quickly approaching.  A very reasonable plan, however, I simply forgot to put them out on my table.  I found them fifteen minutes before the event ended while I was looking for something else in my project bag.  That's OK, I wanted to add a little more drawing detail to some of them, and they are not specifically Mother's Day cards.  Maybe I'll remember to put them out next month!

Sales were improved for me last night, as compared to the past two months.  I think that being out in the hallway, instead of a vacant office helped a bit.  I noticed that many of the people roaming the halls were not looking at anything, they just seemed to be walking the halls.  I wasn't the only vendor who noted that phenomenon.  If you attend a visual arts event, please look around, the artists are there to share what they make.  Even if you don't or can't buy anything (and believe me, I am in the camp that is often not able to buy), at least talk to some of the artists and give some positive comments on their work.  A few good words go a long way.

Learning a New Skill

There's nothing like learning a new art or craft skill to get oneself re-energized about being creative.  Yesterday, I had the opportunity to take a paper making class at a nearby art museum.  Here is the result:

The procedure was much simpler that I though it would be, and though I do need a few special pieces of equipment, I think I'd like to make some of my own paper once in a while.  I should be able to have a frame made easily, and I could use the screen off of the discarded patio door that is now part of a garden fence.  Everything else I need, I have around here somewhere.  The potential to have specific colors to match a project is a plus, and I am intrigued by adding plant matter to the pulp for visual texture.  I am already contemplating how to dye the paper pulp with the powder dyes and plant dyes that I use.

The paper is still not dry, but I think I will have no problem sewing through it.  I've already played with adding paper to my fabric collages, and these pieces are destined for future sewing projects.

Scrapbooks and Ephemera, Part Three

Information on Cornell from: Joseph Cornell/Marcel Duchamp… In Resonance, Menil Foundation, Houston, TX, 1998.

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), having no formal art training, could be considered an outsider artist.  He produced three dimensional mixed media collages that were encased in wooden boxes (usually glass fronted).  During his active years as an artist, he found success in the Dada and Surrealism movements beginning in the 1930s, and collaborated with Marcel Duchamp, among other elite art world associations.  I’ll admit to being strongly influenced not only by Cornell’s collage/assemblage artwork, but also by his vast collections of ephemera.  Check out some of his artwork here and here, and read on.

Cornell amassed quantities of images, printed matter and personal notes on numerous subjects of interest to him: 19^th century advertising, ballet dancers, movie stars, literature, music, etc.  He referred to his subject collections as "dossiers."  Some of this material ended up in his collages, much of it did not, languishing in his home until being preserved as the Joseph Cornell Study Center at the National Museum of American Art (Washington DC).

One of my own Cornell-inspired dossiers

These personal collections assembled by Cornell were generated out of his own interests, probably not with any intent of them becoming a research source.  Cornell kept his ephemera collections relatively organized, but they were not pasted into scrapbooks, as the material was intended for use in collages.  In a way, the excess material and the finished collages themselves were scrapbooks in a different physical form. 

I started amassing my own files of notes, clippings and images before I ever knew of Cornell, but after discovering his collecting methods, I of course kept going.  I keep a limit on things, as I want to have a presentable living area!  Some of the things for which I have my own “dossiers” include: vintage sewing machine advertising, rare horse breeds, Euclid Beach Park, Route 66, and yes, even Joseph Cornell.

Next Tuesday, I’ll connect the dots on how Langstroth and Cornell relate to being more creative.  My next post on Thursday will return to the purple collage.

Scrapbooks and Ephemera, Part Two

Ephemera n.  1. Anything short-lived or transitory.  2. Such things collectively: a writer of ephemera.  3. Items, as pamphlets, notices and tickets, originally intended to be of use for only a short time, especially when preserved as collectibles.  (Random House Webster’s College Dictionary,  1991)

I want to bring to light a little about Theodore Langstroth in regards to scrapbooks.  Langstroth assembled his scrapbooks in 1975-1978, after retiring from a career as a dye chemist, spending the bulk of his adult life in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He must have collected material for his scrapbooks long before his retirement, and also must have had great connections in order to secure the paper and images in his stash.  Read more about him here, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has most of his scrapbooks.  Some images from his scrapbooks may be seen here.

A few of Langstroth’s scrapbooks reside elsewhere, I had the good fortune to catalog a few of his scrapbooks for a former employer.  While researching his life back then, I discovered the insightful observation that Langstroth saved whatever needed saving.  He latched onto subjects that no one else thought were significant.  Now, these collections are treasure troves of information.  He collected not only subjects such as color lithography, art on stamps, Price and Bonnelli's Greater New York Minstrels Showboat, the Boss Washing Machine Company and the use of flags on envelopes in the Civil War; he also collected items on individual people: Hiram Powers (sculptor), Blondin, the hero of Niagara Falls, artist Fannie Manser and Joseph Boggs Beale.  Not exactly household names anymore…

Information on Langstroth from John Fleischman, “The Labyrinthine World of the Scrapbook King,” Smithsonian Magazine, Feb. 1992.

Next time, I’ll introduce you to Joseph Cornell before I tie all of this together.

Scrapbooks, Part One

If you’ve been a frequent reader here, you’ve likely noticed my fascination with bits and pieces – scraps.  Not just scraps of fabric, but scraps gleaned from research projects, bits from the lives of others (my auction addiction) and so on.                        

               

I have a great appreciation for antique scrapbooks from the late 1800s and early 1900s, having had the opportunity to view some stellar examples in a couple of libraries where I used to work.  I have not really jumped into the contemporary scrapbooking trend, though I do have a couple of sketchbooks in which I keep clippings from assorted sources for creative inspiration.  Assembling a scrapbook of this nature is a great way to have a steady source of ideas in one place.  The creative-type scrapbook is also a way to condense piles of magazines.  Pull out the articles you want, (making sure to note the title and date), get rid of the rest.  Don’t be afraid to add anything else that inspires you: advertising graphics, literary or music quotes, names of artists to study, whatever strikes your fancy!

Earlier this year, I acquired a box lot of paper ephemera that was definitely the remains of a disassembled late 1800s scrapbook.  At that time, “chromolithography, die cutting and embossing unleashed a flood of cheap, brightly colored scrap [commercially printed paper],” made specifically for the scrapbooking hobby then.  (John Fleischman, “The Labyrinthine World of the Scrapbook King,” Smithsonian Magazine, Feb. 1992.)

Personally, I think that the 1800s printed scrap papers are much better in quality and innovation than the scrapbook papers churned out today.  That said, most of the 1800s scrapbooks that I have come across at the antiques shops and markets are just page after page of litho pictures, nothing else.  Rare is the one that has a clear theme and/or includes text of any sort. 

I picked up these small volumes at an outdoor market this year. 

They consist entirely of newspaper and magazine articles on a single subject.  The dealer had a large boxful of them.  I selected volumes titled Color, Wool, Textiles, Vegetables and Fruit.  Sadly, most of the articles lack a source and date, but from the few dates that I found in them, the books were assembled between 1920 and 1957.  They are a fascinating insight into the midcentury decades, and I love the idea of keeping personal groups of related articles.

These little scrapbooks raise many unanswerable questions though.  Did the individual who made them intend for them to say something about that person after they passed on, or were they solely intended for their maker’s lifetime?

Later on, I will profile two tremendous collectors of ephemera: Joseph Cornell and Theodore Langstroth.

Auction Adventures

Everyone has some vice, a weakness that they find difficult to resist indulging.  I have developed a bit of an auction problem.  Even as broke as I am right now, I cannot resist the temptation to attend an estate auction within a half hour or so drive.  Now, I am NOT a hoarder, not at all.  I don’t go to every possible auction, only the close by ones that have stuff that I actively collect or could use for the textile art.  I don’t buy things just to buy something.  Much of my auction attendance is for business, since I use mostly old table linens, doilies and other vintage textiles.

 

 

 

Last night, I went to an auction in a neighboring county.  I felt apprehensive going to it, as it was apparently the liquidation of a tiny historical society.  Being one who is appreciative of local history, I felt odd about the situation.  The offerings were rather mystifying considering the source (not a complete list, but enough of a word picture):

 

                Thousands of 1970s to modern postcards

                At least 100 sample advertising calendars from printing companies, none local

                Loads of unopened packs of cheap picture prints from the 1920s-1960s

                Railroad, coal and other industrial company papers, certificates, etc.

                Lots and lots of assorted advertising papers items, most with no local connection

                5-6 boxes of unused pop bottle labels from a bottler in another state

                Lots of worn, torn late 1800s/early 1900s clothing 

That was the bulk of the auction, and I could not make any rational connection between the stuff and the location.  There were a few local items, but not what I would have expected.  If that was the collection of the historical society, no wonder they had trouble staying open.

The best of my purchases was this: 

 

It doesn’t look like anything great, yet, but that is the sort of stuff I love to dye.  A couple small fancy tablecloths, some damask napkins.   

Another flat: 

 

Two torn old (before 1940, I guess) vests, two old nightshirts (I think) and a black wool coat, maybe early 1900s?  I don’t know fashion history.  The coat, I don’t know what to do with.  The rest of this flat will be cut up into other things, I have a plan to make cotton paper pulp sculptures someday, and I have a theory that old cotton will be great for that. 

The last box: 

 

Only part of the contents, but you get the idea - a lot of Victorian scrapbook cards, with some assorted advertising paper and a few calling cards from the late 1800s.  Finally, some progress towards fulfilling the “paper” part of my business name.  I already incorporate paper in some of my art quilts, and I want to make some fabric and paper collages on canvas.  Here I go!