Black & White Inspiration

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INSPIRATION 2014 #94: Lovely black and white assemblage. Check out many more beautifully styled vignettes here.

Week of Wire ~ Functional Objects

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INSPIRATION 2014 #90: Wonderful collection of wire functional objects ~ baskets, kitchen and household tools. Examined closely, these objects are cleverly made ~ many of the baskets are collapsible, while some of the tools are crafted from a single piece of wire. Wouldn't you love a wall of wire in your home?  I know I would!

Spring Collection

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INSPIRATION 2014 #89: A lovely collection of flower frogs and other spring themed items. What a beautiful way to arrange and utilize a group of objects. I have been collecting flower frogs for years ~ I only collect metal ones as I love the patinas and the sculptural variety. Maybe it is time to dust them off and do a photo shoot?! 

Counting Collection

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INSPIRATION 2014 #58: One to Forty-Nine (c. 1968) by Alexander Girard appealed to me as I am on a constant quest to find ways to organize and display the bits and pieces I have collected and also my leanings toward the anal retentive. In addition, it is a clever twist on the counting books I was so fond of as a child. If you visit Girard's website, you will see that this work is quite a departure from the work he is better known for. Saw this on Things Organized Neatly, a favorite tumblr site of mine not only because of the collections posted, but because the sources are credited.

Rocks of Ages

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INSPIRATION 2014 #56:  Gorgeous collection of smooth rocks and pebbles. Take note of the variety of color in the seemingly monochromatic and subtle arrangement. The conscious placement of size and shape of the individual stones is especially beautiful as well.

Organized Collections

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INSPIRATION 2014 #28: As you can tell, I am on a organizing binge ~ or at least, that is my dream as I can't say I have been too successful organizing all the collections I have amassed!  These beautiful organized collections are by photographer Guido Cecere ~ I was not able to find a website for him, but here is a book he co-wrote. The first image shown above is from a 1990 calendar called Ensemble in Color.

Battered Buttons

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INSPIRATION 2014 #18: Beautiful collection of old cloth covered buttons. I'm not sure what these buttons were used for (underwear?), but they are so lovely in their simplicity. I think the combination of the metal grommets with the texture of the linen or cotton covering is especially appealing.

For Your Bucket List

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Speaking of colons, that reminds me of an interesting place to visit ~ the Mutter Museum. The Mutter Museum is in Philadelphia and houses a collection of all sorts of medical specimens and oddities displayed in beautiful wooden cabinets ~ a 2 floor cabinet of curiosities! In addition to the soap lady, specimen jars of conjoined twins, and a plaster cast of Chang and Eng's attached livers, the Mutter owns the World's Largest Colon! (pictured above). If you look carefully you can see a photograph of the man whose colon this was ~ unfortunately I was not blogging at the time of my visit so this is the only photo I could locate.

My favorite display was the Chevalier Jackson Collection of objects swallowed and removed. There are over 2,000 objects displayed in a labelled wooden flat file ~ all removed without surgery!

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Amidst the coins, safety pins, small toys, dental plates and bones, there were an awful lot of Sunday school pins. My boyfriend and I had gotten the itch to visit the Mutter after visiting the Glore Psychiatric Museum in St. Joseph, MO, on one of our first dates. At the Glore, we were entranced by a display of over 1,446 metal objects one woman had swallowed, thus prompting our guide to suggest a visit to the Mutter. Roadside America has interesting reviews on both the Mutter and the Glore Museums ~ make sure to read before you visit!

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One more thing, at the time of each of my visits, I was disappointed with the selection in the gift stores ~ I felt that both places really missed opportunity to cash in on their collections. As my brother is a psychiatrist, my initial reason for stopping in at the Glore was to see if I could find a humorous gift for him.  In the past, the Glore gift store had sold actual patient art, but now it is art made from kits, not nearly as interesting. As for the Mutter, why not sell a "Soap Woman on a Rope" or a "World's Largest Colon" keychain ~ who wouldn't want such a keepsake?! 

Make sure to add these two museums to your bucket list ~ you won't be disappointed and I doubt you will see anything like it anywhere else!

While doing this post, I have found that this book is now available in the Mutter Museum shop.

Lisa Nilsson ~ Artist

The other day I was scanning through images on Pinterest and happened upon this amazing piece of quilled paper artwork illustrating a cross section of a human head. As I was intrigued by the scientific illustration, loved the presentation in the handmade box and admired the beautifully crafted paper work, I had to delve deeper. Turns out, this work is created by Lisa Nilsson, a classmate of mine from RISD!

The work shown here is from her Tissue series ~ a group of quilled paper works illustrating cross sections of the human body ~ make sure to take a look at the whole series here. 

{detail from Angelico, 2012}

In addition to her paper illustrations, Lisa also has a wonderful series of boxes.  As I am drawn to many of the same bits and pieces that Lisa is, these pieces are especially interesting to me.  Her color palettes and selection and arrangement of objects are beautiful, while her craftsmanship is impeccable.

{Hayley, 2007}

 {Withdrawn, 2009}

  {detail from Withdrawn, 2009}

While I didn't realize we had so much in common when we were in illustration classes together at RISD, it is lovely to discover a kindred spirit all these years later.  I know that for me, I didn't figure out what many of my interests were until years after college was over and I began to hit antique malls and flea markets.  I love that Lisa has included some shots of some of her collections that inspire her ~ these caught my eye as I have many of the same things in my home. Yes, I do have some dental pieces, but not as cool of a collection as Lisa's!

{all images from here}

Utilizing My Antique Purchases

Today has been a busy day so far, but I thought I would take a short break so I could get a posting in. I bought these rolls of antique sheet music quite awhile ago from Beth at one of the Old Summit Antique shows ~ I loved the way she had displayed them by rolling them up and tying them with a simple cotton string. I kept thinking I wanted to take a photo, so I left them as I bought them and put them in another of my McCoy vases ~ they are so useful for way more than flowers!

The time has come though ~ I'm excited to see what I will find when I open these up! I think these will be nice to scan in and use in my artwork in one way or another. I'm sure not only will the graphic treatments be interesting to look at, but even a page of music can be a nice item to collage with ~ digitally (of course!), as I can't stand to cut up my papers unless I have duplicates or the book is in such lousy shape there is nothing to be done for it but make it into something else.

Break time is over ~ time to get back to work! My evening will consist of scanning and designing as I am working hard to complete my artwork for Surtex, which is coming up fast!

Fabulous Find ~ Vintage Sewing Basket

Today I thought I would post about this lovely vintage woven sewing basket ~ I think it may have been green at one point, but was painted black and comes apart in several sections. Recently at an antique show I saw a similar basket and as the dealer is a friend, we had a conversation about these sewing baskets ~ I mentioned the one that I had has a flower and bird decoration added ~ so, this is for you Nan!

I always love going to Nan's booth at any of the shows she does as she always has a lovely assortment of buttons to search through and many beautiful and unique sewing treasures. Make sure to go to Sparks/White Cloud and the Walnut Antique shows (see links at right) if you want to see for yourself ~ she and her husband are usually at both of those shows.

{different compartments}

{side view}

So, I have three of these baskets ~ the other two do not have any added decorations and they are all painted black. They are similar in size, but there are no manufacturers markings anywhere, so I am not sure if these were made by hand or how old they might be. So, how many of something do you have to have to call it a collection?

Spring has sprung!

After all of the rain and the unseasonably warmer weather we have been having, spring is officially here as the lilacs are blooming ~ seems like they are a month early! My purple lilac looks like it won't have many, if any blooms this year, but the white one is full of blooms. I thought these looked pretty in one of my favorite vases ~ this one a birthday gift from Dick a few years back. I have a huge collection of McCoy, Haeger, and similar style vases ~ it would be a full time job to keep them all filled with flowers! Happy Spring ~ I love the smell of lilacs!

The Richard Balzer Collection

Stumbled upon the Richard Balzer Collection a couple of months ago when I was searching for antique toys and games ~ this is a great site full of a great variety of visual entertainment of which are rarely seen. With names like The Magic Planisphere, The Zoetrope, The Ludoscope or Turning Heads, how could one not be curious? The site is divided into several sections ~ many include flash galleries where one can view the scenes or images in motion.

{The illusion of motion was created by viewing the designs on the card through the slotted disc ~ visit the flash gallery here.}

The Magic Window is a Phenakistascope, as is the Ludoscope shown above. From what I can discern, this type of toy all contained images on discs that were twirled in order to see the images move.

{See this in motion here.}

Shown above is a Praxinoscope ~ this appears to work by spinning the toy rather than any discs.

{Lovely graphics on a box cover for a tachyscope ~ an adaptation of the zoetrope}

Go here to see what you would view when using a zoetrope ~ you will arrive at the top image above. Click on the different designs to see what they look like in motion ~ then you will see an image like the second image EXCEPT it is moving! Not only is the movement pretty cool, the graphics are just gorgeous.

This type of amusement is called a Thaumatrope ~ see some examples in motion here.

{closeup of a disc from a phenakistascope}

The last two images are Turning Heads from the metamorphosis section ~ I have always been fascinated by this sort of thing ~ aren't these fabulous?! There is a great flash gallery in this section here ~ make sure to check it out.

{Autumn & Winter}

{Peace & War AKA Jeff Subdued & Jeff Rampant}

• All images from Richard Balzer Collection •

A Different Kind of Delectable

Found this tasty jar of glass buttons this weekend while shopping at the Platte City Antique Show ~ I guess I just have a thing for mayonnaise jars, now that I have mentioned them two days in a row! As you can see, this is actually a Miracle Whip jar, but close enough. I have to admit, I prefer Miracle Whip over regular mayo ~ always a point of ridicule in my household as my boyfriend is quite the foodie and Miracle Whip doesn't cut the mustard in his book!

This jar was packed full of all clear glass buttons ~ I have never bought many of these before, but the jar looked so appealing I couldn't pass them up. Upon closer inspection, some of the buttons have silver or gold metallic accents, so these are even better than I realized. Looking forward to sorting through the rest of the buttons and discovering all the different patterns ~ I think these will look great used in the brooches I make!

Old Summit Antique Show ~ Part 1

{Nice combo of letters and images ~ clever way to fit 4 letters on one block!}

A few weekends ago I went to the Old Summit Antique Show ~ since it seemed like eons had passed since I had gone to a show, I ended up buying quite a few things and also taking lots of photos. A friend of mine who is a dealer allowed me to take photos of the wonderful collection of block sets he was selling ~ these are all from his personal collection he has decided to part with. Just take a look, such beautiful and unique sets ~ some of which I had never seen before. I love the gorgeous graphics of the typography and the packaging ~ rarely do you see sets like this in such great condition. Which is your favorite?

{A gem of a set ~ these were rather small, the whole box was about 4" x 6"}

{Hill's Spelling Blocks}

{Hill's Spelling Blocks ~ inside}

{Built in advertisement}

{Love the simplicity of the graphic letter forms}

{Naughty!!! Guess they didn't have copy editors back then!}

{My favorite ~ Beasts & Birds Rolling Toys}

{Round blocks with lovely letters!}

{Description and list of contents}

{lovely engravings as well}