Saturday, February 21, 2009

Saturday means breakfast at Jake's and a walkabout with Dave and two separate Gorey references.

Display case at Northampton Antique Center on Market Street. Looking up, looking out.
Never mind Comcast and Verizon! Get online with this revolutionary product!
The Ghastly Handbag, straight out of Edward Gorey.
I picked up a bunch of old photos to use in my artwork. The baby pictures are always the creepiest. They're usually taken with some sort of big white cloth beneath them that dominates the photo and creates a ghostly effect. Why not just frame it more tightly?
An engaging poster for tonight's show at the Elevens. I have a request to make of all the people who do flyering downtown. Please don't put flyers in front of the papers in newspaper boxes. This is obnoxious and engenders disrespect. There's enough room for us to co-exist without covering each other up. I often take a few minutes to clean up a bulletin board and maybe you should too. If we all do a little maintenance it will be infectious. A fine example is in Main Street Cleaners. The people who flyered for the BID meeting...will you take the damn things down? They are an out-of-date blight on Main Street and they hurt your cause by example. Harumph.
Outside Masonic Street Laundry, beneath a strawberry, two dogs eagerly await a basket of warm, fluffy towels.

Jodi gave me this amazing book from the mid-19th century. What a generous gift!
Gustave Doré was an Alsacian artist who specialized in book illustrations. Born in Strasbourg, France, on January 6, 1832, he began his artistic career in Paris when he was only 15 years old. His drawings and illustrations were groundbreaking and very popular, although he never won the acclaim of the artistic elite in France. In his later years, he spent much time in London, where he also opened a very popular gallery. He died on January 23, 1883, at the age of 51.

Doré is probably most famous for his depictions of numerous scenes from the Bible, but he also produced illustrations for many other books, including Milton, Dante, La Fontaine, Don Quixote, Baron Munchhausen, etc. It looks like Edward Gorey must have drawn some inspiration from him, especially from a picture like "Hagar In The Wilderness," below. Barry Moser also has a copy of this book I bet.



Thanks again, Jodi. Gosh.
Jim tears through the latest issue of Bust magazine. (Photo and caption by Dave)

2 comments:

Radar Check said...

Nice blog, there are some nice antique stores thats take days to see all in Putnam Ct.worth the trip try to tie it in to one of their river fires soon to start up again in warm weather.

Unknown said...

What an awesome awesome gift. I'd love to get a look at it some time.