A Different Perspective

I learned perspective drawing from Mr. Rogers and Mr. Hill way back in the seventh grade at Campus School. So, when someone gave me this book, I really thought I did not have much use for it. Unless….   

A series of 30 pieces of mail art are on their way, all with a different perspective.  

A Small Artist Book

I have been creating artist books for several years.  Often, I start with an old book that I repurpose with collage and paint directly onto the pages.  This is the smallest book I’ve done so far.  Starting not with a book, but an expired passport.   
This little book tells a story.  The passport belonged to my grandmother who travelled the world more than many people I have known.  Growing up, I knew no one who travelled like she did.   She was a department store buyer who made frequent trips to California, New York, Hong Kong, and Europe.   As a child this was just grandma’s job to me.   I knew it was a bit unusual but as an adult, I started to understand how extraordinary it was for a woman born in 1919 to have that kind of career.   She also played the more traditional grandmother roles with ease — no one made a better apple pie than she did.

A Postal Ghost Story

This is a ghost story for Halloween. But, if you expect to be scared, you will be disappointed. Most ghosts are simply there. They are a presence some of us are sensitive to, and just that, a presence. We recognize those times when we do not feel quite alone. In some instances, those presences seem negative and hostile, but most ghost stories are fairly ordinary. I could tell some frightening tales, but they will be for another day. After decades in San Francisco, I can attest to creepy Victorians and haunted offices in former brothels, just to get things started.

This ghost story goes back to Buffalo, New York to an old house on Norwood Avenue. It was the first home my parents owned. When the house was built in 1896, it was essentially a tract home, identical to the row of houses on the block. It its day, it would be what we now call a McMansion. By the time my family moved in, it was 1969 and the house had been altered and renovated a few times. Maids’ quarters adjacent to an attic were expanded into an apartment. Walls built, walls knocked down, stairs blocked off. There was an attempt to remove and cover much of the Victoriana when one owner aimed for some 1940s Beverly Hills glamor. That said, it was their huge wall of built-in book cases that sold my parents on the house.

The house could be spooky, but I would never say scary. The cellar was dominated by a massive, ancient furnace. The previous owner, an antique dealer, did things like board-up or nail windows shut to thwart burglars. He even added a huge steel door. In 1969, the cellar was still a warren of original rooms for things like laundry and storing canned goods. The cellar came with a pile of debris under the stairs. When my father began to remove the debris, he discovered it was covering an opening to an old well. The pile was immediately put back on top of the hole and remained there. 

The attic was equally mysterious. I don’t believe anyone ever explored the crawlspace above the apartment. Some things are best left undisturbed.

We lived there about eight years, a brief period in the house’s history. But, as my childhood home, I remember it well. The house made a big impression. I still dream about it. Now that we can access so much minutiae online, my curiosity lead me to search. With old census records and directories one can see who used to live in a house years ago. When you find the names of former residents, a quick search of genealogy websites might even yield photos.

The place on Norwood saw a lot of occupants. By the 1920s rooms were let and the house started to be carved up into small apartments. The resident that captured my attention, and imagination, was Barton Molyneux. He and his family lived there in 1910.

Barton Molyneux was a successful inventor, not quite famous, but he did invent machines to sort mail. Before his inventions, mail could only be sorted by hand. With his machines, the postal service could process and then deliver mail much faster. As an artist who makes and sends mail art, I felt a connection. 

One can’t say for sure if Barton was one of the presences who remained in the house. This could just be a story with an interesting coincidence, or, we can wonder, can ghosts play a role in the choices we go on to make in our lives?  

Florida Hijinks

What to do with a bunch of old instamatic photos from the 1970s. Instamatics were popular point-and-shoot cameras that used square format, 126 film in easy to install cartridges.  My own first camera was an instamatic.  The low quality of the camera and the cheap film has left us with faded snapshots 40 years later.  

Technically these are not “found photos” as I know the source. I ended up with a stack of some of my grandmother’s photos albums.  Albums filled with snapshots from Florida vacations with her friends and coworkers.  My grandmother had a successful careeras a department store buyer and these pictures were taken on well-deserved vacations.  Look closely, she is in some of the shots.  There is a lot of drinking, smoking, and partying going on as well as fishing and lying in the sun.

Because the photos are not family photos, they had no personal, sentimental value for me.  Get out the scissors, reach for the glue!  Here are some of the originals now repurposed in a new series of photo collages.

Fresh from the Printers

This afternoon a friend and I hopped in a zipcar and headed over to Berkeley.  My new book, Helen’s Postcards, was ready at the printers.   Now arrangements are being made to ship and distribute copies (the print run is sold out).  If you would like a copy, but did not have a chance to pre-order one, you can still purchase a print-on-demand copy when you visit helenspostcards.com

The Larkin Story – a Preview

This is one of the more unusual postcards that I have added to my collection.  It is a folding postcard that would be sealed and addressed on the outside.  This one was mailed in 1913 after a visit to the Larkin Soap Company.  The Buffalo-based company is largely forgotten today, but, in it’s day, the Larkin Soap Company was a well known company for soap, dry goods other groceries and household products, even furniture.  Adjacent to the factory was a state-of-the-art company headquarters designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  A little more history is at this link. 

The Larkin Soap Company also plays a major role in the upcoming book Helen’s Postcards.  Helen worked at the factory in 1915 packing and fulfilling orders of soap and men’s shaving kits.  She and her coworkers would slip in little pieces of paper with their names and addresses on them.  Imagine instead of finding a piece of paper that read Inspected by #17, you found a young lady’s address!  This lead to a number of pen pals and plenty of postcards arriving in her mailbox from all over the country.  One of her coworkers eventually met her husband this way.

Details from these stories and plenty of the postcards will be included in Helen’s Postcards.  To guarantee you receive a copy of the book, be sure to support the Kickstarter project and preorder a book before February 28th. 

Helen’s Postcards

A new book of vintage postcards 

If you know my work, you know I love old postcards.  Well, I have some that I can never cut up for art projects because they are family heirlooms.  It’s unusual to have an intact scrapbook filled with nearly 400 postcards sent to one person a century ago.  That scrapbook belonged to my great grandmother.

In 1907 she was 13, the oldest of ten children, and had to leave school to help support her large family. As a young woman, she held a number of different jobs and her circle of friends grew.  She kept in touch with friends and family through postcards.  One hundred years ago, one of the fastest and cheapest ways to communicate was to send a postcard.  You could send quick messages, a happy birthday, corny jokes, make plans and even flirt.  At the time, young people were using postcards very much like email and texting is used today.

Now I am turning that scrapbook into a book called Helen’s Postcards.  Anyone who enjoys old postcards will obviously appreciate the book.  The book will also be a document of the lives of young, working class women in the 1910’s.  It will offer a glimpse into the world of Polish and German immigrants in Buffalo, New York.  It has the stories of young men going off to war, some matchmaking and even a hint of romance.  And some of the postcards are just plain funny.

The finished book will be full color, soft cover and about 65-70 pages.  The book will contain images of many of the best postcards.  The messages written on the backs of some of the postcards will be transcribed and annotated with stories and background about my grandmother and her friends and family

The only way to make the book affordable and accessible is to print many copies at once.  I have started a Kickstarter campaign with that will guarantee every supporter gets a copy Helen’s Postcards.  When you support the campaign and pre-order the book, you will be helping to finance the entire project and will allow for an even larger printing.  Your generosity can help make Helen’s Postcards happen.

You can learn a little more about the project at helenspostcards.com

Here is the link for the Kickstarter campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/176235615/helens-postcards

   

Trouble at the Lake

From series titled Trouble at the Lake, mixed media on matter board, 4”x6” each

Lake Erie has played a big role in my life.  It’s the lake that is surrounded by once-prosperous, industrial cities.  It drew my ancestors like a magnet.  As an infant, I lived in an apartment building in Buffalo, right on the shore of the lake.  I continued to live nearby for my first 14 years.  When winter, arctic air blasted across Lake Erie it was the source of amazing snowstorms, and it was the place of summer of beaches as well.  Back then the lake was terribly polluted, but the EPA and Clean Water Act helped turn things around.  Next, the demise of America’s heavy industry was a blessing for Lake Erie’s waters.  But the disappearance of industry nearly killed the cities and towns surrounding the lake when jobs vanished.   The factories were closed down rather than upgraded.  Then, many of the remaining jobs were shipped overseas leaving workers adrift. 

Lake Erie, and the working families who live on it shores, have been victims of unbridled capitalism. The same forces that have nearly destroyed the lake’s waters and its great cities, is now shutting off the water for poor people in Detroit.  And, this month, the people of Toledo were not able to drink or use the water due to a toxic algae bloom.  The algae bloom is a phenomenon linked to global warming and agribusiness.

Lake Erie and a city like Toledo might seem faraway to many Americans, but the lake could be called the United States’ Canary in the Coal Mine — or we could say Perch in the Lake.  The health of Lake Erie, and the quality of life of the communities that surrounded the lake, reflect the overall health of our entire country.

This series of 25 pieces of 4”x6” handmade postcards is being mailed to some of the artists I exchange mail art with.

Forest Collagescape

Forest Scene, mixed media on board, 15”x15” and repurposed, antique frame overall 18.5”x18.5”

The latest piece in the Collagescape series really started with a frame I rescued from my parent’s Cape Cod basement a few years ago.  It held an inexpensive print.  It was something my dad bought for a small sum at the Goodwill or some Buffalo, New York thrift store circa 1970.  When I was young we lived in a big Victorian house in Buffalo with plenty of wall space to fill, the Cape Cod house I finished growing up in was all about windows and less wall space.  Things ended up in the basement and attic.

The quality of the Arts & Crafts frame made me suspect the cheap print was not the original purpose for the frame.  When I removed the backing, I found a certificate (see below) that the frame was custom-made for about 1894.  The certificate commemorates the passing of a board member of the Buffalo State Hospital, Charles G. Curtis, who passed away in September 1893.  I assume this was presented to his family.

The Buffalo State Hospital (originally the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane) is a registered National Historic Landmark with grounds designed by Fredrick Law Olmsted.  I remember the imposing structure from my childhood and will never forget the time my mom and a friend snuck inside.  This was about 1970, a time of reform when horrific conditions were being exposed in mental hospitals all around the nation.  My mom and her friend wanted to witness the chains still mounted to walls before they were removed. 

Today a more pleasant story for the frame, and a nod to Mr. Olmsted, as I have created a forest collagescape to be placed inside after I removed 120 years of grime to expose a beautiful piece of 19^th Century craftsmanship.  The repurposed, antique frame is now part of the piece – the frame and the art inside it are meant to stay together permanently. 

This piece will be featured in my Collagescape exhibit that opens on July 29 and runs through September 28.

Buffalo 1915

The photo I used in this piece is from April 18, 1915 in Buffalo, New York. The pipe smoker standing in back row is my great grandmother. She was celebrating her 21st birthday with her sisters, cousins and friends. All were cross-dressing for the party and were having a great time. Prints of this piece are available from Society 6.

Albright-Knox

As a kid in Buffalo, my dad and I walked to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery countless times on Sunday afternoons.  I carry on the tradition by taking the young people in my life to art museums.  Happy Father’s Day.

Thank You Millard

Marin Headlands, acrylic on paper, 2000

It’s President’s Day so let’s pay tribute to #13.  The very obscure, last Whig President, and mostly forgotten Millard Fillmore.   Historians have consistently ranked Fillmore near the bottom.  I don’t think he even turns up as a question on Jeopardy.  On a personal note, I was born in Millard Fillmore Hospital and live in a neighborhood that older residents still refer to as The Fillmore (as in Fillmore Street).

My praise of Millard Fillmore comes form his most inadvertent success.  As President it was Fillmore who admitted California to the Union in 1850.  It was the height of the Gold Rush when they brought early maps of the Bay Area into the Oval Office.  It was Fillmore and his staff that carved out huge tracts of land overlooking the Golden Gate and surrounding San Francisco Bay, all to deed them to the Department of Defense.  The goal in those days was to make sure the important harbor was protected.  Today you can see evidence of fortifications from the Civil War, to the Spanish-American War, both World Wars and beyond.  Fortunately for locals, those fortifications never saw any action.  What was wonderful is that all of that land escaped urban and suburban development for the next 150 years.  He didn’t know it at the time, but when Millard got out the map and his pencil he was preserving acres of open space that is not part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  

San Francisco is the world’s greatest city, in part to our backyard wilderness.  The northern and western waterfront are wrapped in national park and, just across the Golden Gate Bridge, we have the Marin Headlands.  How many cities offer a local bus where you can take a ride, get out, and see a mountain lion on the trail?  It’s an escape and, of course, a source of inspiration for my art.

A Fashion Treasure from the 1920’s

It’s time for another treasure that I have brought to the West Coast.  This is the type of thing my father paid a dollar or two for around 1970.  I remember it hanging on the wall back in our Victorian in Buffalo.  It moved with us to the house on Cape Cod.  There the elements were tough on it.  Even indoors, when you have an old house between a salt marsh and the beach, everything is damp.  Unfortunately this piece has some serious foxing issues. 

It’s pencil and gouache on paper.  I suspect it may have been cut from a sketchbook.  The size is 7” wide x 14” high. Signed in pencil on the front.  There are framing instructions on the back in pencil in the artist’s hand.  Who was Violet Gene Schwender who signed this rather lovely fashion rendering from the 1920’s? 

Sometimes a bit of internet searching makes one feel merely frustrated and teased.  I want to see more of her images like this one. I did learn that Violet Schwender was the artist’s maiden name.  Violet Gordon lived a long life, passing away in 2005 at the age of 1998.  To think, if I had looked into this a bit sooner, I could have asked the artist herself. 

I learned she was well known in Buffalo as a local artist, but Violet Schwender Gordon was also a teacher of Fashion and Design in the New York State University system.  She even wrote the book (which I can find no record of online) that was used as the basis of the university system’s curriculum.  Somewhere, I hope there is an archive that has a treasure trove of more of her fashion renderings.  Maybe one day I’ll get to see it, and in the meantime I need to look into restoring this one.

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On another note, a little bit more about the framing -

When I pulled apart the original frame I found that the only backing that was used was some cardboard from a product called Chase’s Domino Mints that promised:

Chase’s Domino Mints are Strictly Quality mints, and are in a class all by themselves—Not an ounce of glucose, starch or other adulterants used, thus leaving no unpleasant “after-taste.”  A few Chase’s Mints every day chases all indigestion away.

90 years ago it was candy that claimed to be medicinal.  Nowadays we have other medicinal sweets here in California.  It seems Chase’s is still business, but there is no mention of the mints on their website.