Happy Birthday Yellowstone

America's first national park, Yellowstone National Park is 142 years old today.  An amazing place and one of the many parks that inspires my work.  The image above are two of the handmade Yellowstone postcards included in a series of postcard booklets created in 2009.  More national park inspired work can be seen at tofuart.com

Inspirational History just across the Bay

Today I got to visit one the of the Bay Area’s newest and I must say, best museums.  It’s the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park.  The park is still a work in progress, but in 2012, a temporary visitor center/museum opened with exhibits and short films.

The museum helps tell the story of the women and men who worked building ships as well as worked in other war industries that kept our forces overseas well supplied in the fight to preserve our freedom.  They remind you at the museum that, in part, the war was also won right in Richmond, California.  It’s an amazing story of a town of 23,000 across the Bay that was a mix of industry and truck farms in 1941.  It quickly mushroomed to 130,000 people plus all those who came in to work from surrounding communities.  Their contribution to the war effort included 747 ships built in Richmond during World War II, some in just a few days.  It was an amazing feat and it happened all over the Bay Area and throughout the country.  Even my own great grandmother was part of the effort.  She worked assembling radios for the military back in Buffalo. 

After the visiting museum we went across the way to the former Ford Assembly plants that ceased making private automobiles during the war and switched to making tanks.  It’s now a nice restaurant.  But the day wasn’t over. We drove to the other side of the harbor (past lots full of newly delivered cars from Japan).  We were given a tour of the SS Red Oak Victory, one of the few remaining cargo ships built during the war at Richmond’s Kaiser Shipyards.  Our guide was a World War II veteran who served on a similar victory ship.  The final stop of the day was at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial.  It’s in a waterfront park that was part of the shipyard.  The memorial is laid out along a walkway and short dock the length of one of the keel’s of a victory ships built by the workers in Richmond.

One of the highlights of the day was getting to meet Betty Reid Soskin.  She is our nation’s oldest national park ranger at 92 (she has held the job since she was 85).  Recently she came to the America’s attention when she was featured in news reports about the federal government shutdown.  Meeting pop celebrities is of no interest to me, meeting a star like Ranger Soskin (pictured below) was both an honor and inspirational. 

I’ll be going back, and anyone who visits is going to be taken to up to Richmond, this national park is as important for Bay Area visitors to see as Muir Woods or Point Reyes. 

A little bit of hoarding — a lot of art

As individuals, there are the things we save for some reason or other.  My list of collectibles includes national park brochures.  The ones they hand out as you drive up to the gates and pay or show your parks pass.  Map, graphics, black bar with white lettering – any national park visitor knows what I mean.  I have a stack dating back 20 years.  And when I am planning a trip, I go through them and see which ones I need to take along.  But of course I always pick up fresh copies and have been known to grab an extra one or two at the visitor center as well.

I was drawn to park brochures long before I started repurposing them for art.  Aesthetically they are good examples of graphic design, informative and, well of course, they have maps.  I have always wondered why the Parks Service has never consolidated them into one book.  This is the national parks guide I want.

Below is a piece made from national park brochures.

Map and Guide, mixed media on canvas, 24”x24, 2012

The original is still available as well as prints, cards, laptop and iPhone cases, etc. from Society 6.

Post-Vintage Postcard Booklets

A few years ago I bought a pile of vintage postcard booklets. As I was deciding what to do with them, I had the idea to start making my own postcard booklets. I did not intend to make booklets that would be printed and reproduced, but instead to make individual, hand-made postcard booklets. Perhaps as we run short of vintage materials we should all start making our own.

For this project I began with a few different prototypes. I experimented with various papers and other materials. I chose subject matter familiar to the old postcard booklets and started on a series of small paintings of mostly landscapes based on my frequent road trips around the Western U.S. After a couple of months I had created over 100 4”x6” paintings for this series. The final step was to sort the pieces and assemble them into eight hand-made postcard booklets. Further examples of the work can be seen at tofuart.com and some prints based on the work are also available.