See Saw

DIAMOND DYES

The Wells Richardson Building on College Street is a Burlington, Vermont landmark. These days it houses Bennington Potters, but in it's heyday at the end of the 19th Century, Wells Richardson & Company patented, manufactured and distributed analyne dyes under the name of Diamond Dyes, as well as butter dye, baby food and proprietary medicines like Celery Compound.

Print Advertising was a part of their marketing strategy. Before the advent of color ads in newspapers and magazines manufacturers and distributors relied on trade cards and medical pamphlets -featuring their own cures - to sell their products. These they made by the gajillion, and distributed nationwide. They would be distributed for free in retail stores or any public venue where they might drum up  business.  Trade cards were hugely collectible, even in those days, and would often end up in scrapbooks, which were also the rage. The trade cards and pamphletss were printed by chromolithography, and retain their brilliant colors to this day.

Two links in the above text are from The Library Collection of Philadelphia, which has great collections. Check out their website.

All Images are from the Pine Street Art Works Ephemera Collections.

Diamond Dyes, Wells Richardson trade card. 1890's Vermont. PSAW ephemera collections.

Diamond Dyes Trade Card. Detail.

Diamond Dyes booklet. Cousin John's Extravagant Wife, A Story. 1890'st.  PSAW ephemera collections.

Diamond Dyes,  detail.

Diamond Dyes booklet, detail.

Diamond Dyes. Unequaled for making Ink, or for coloring any articles any color. PSAW ephemera Collections.

Diamond Dyes, detail.



Diamond Dyes booklet, front and back covers. PSAW ephemera collections.

Diamond Dyes, back cover detail. Dying Easter eggs.

Diamond Dyes, back cover detail. Easter eggs.

 

Diamond Dyes booklet, front cover

Diamond Dyes, back cover detail. Color your childrens clothes with  Diamond Dyes.

 

Diamond Dyes booklet, detail. She's sad because her clothes haven't been dyed with Diamond Dyes.

Wells, Richardson & Co. Lactated  Food.

 

Wells Richardson & Co. Lactated Foods, What Are These Babies after. Die cut trade Card. PSAW  ephemera collections.

 

Wells Richardson & Co. Lactated food. Die  cut trade card. PSAW ephemera collections. The background here is blue because I scanned it on  a piece of blue paper. 

 

Wells  Richardson & Co Lactated food trade card. PSAW ephemera collections.

Paynes Celery Compound probably contained opiates or other drugs, which were perfectly legal. Before the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, manufacturers didn't have to list ingredients or prove their effectiveness. This Wells Richardson & Company ad from the 1889 book from Burlington Business Association.

In this ad it is touted as a cure for Nervousness, one of the most "popular" diseases of the 19th Century middle class. Here is a link to a good post about 19th Century Nervousness from  the blog (what is this).

I did my Master's Thesis in Anthropology on 19th Century American Uterine diseases, in which I write a lot about middle class women and nervousness or neuresthenia. Someday I'll write more here about it.

 

TRAVEL

 It's probably a good omen when a car trip starts out with seeing a truck with your name on it.

Cowan truck. Vermont Rt. 89.

I took some time off last weekend with my parenting partner, Laurie Essig, and our two kids to visit our old house in Greenport, NY. We sold the house about five years ago and none of us had been back since then.

Naturally, we visited the carousel.

Allen Herschell horse, Greenport Carousel. Liza Cowan photo.

I hadn't remembered that there are several Charles Dare horses on the Greenport Carousel, which was a wonderful surprise for me.

Charles Dare horse, Greenport Carousel. Liza Cowan photo.

I got to spend a little time at the Greenport Shipyards, site of my Shipyard Archeology photo series. I only had my point and shoot camera with me, and I just can't get the same quality I got from my trusty Nikon F100 and a roll of film, but still it was nostalgic just walking around.

Siding and Rudder. Greenport Shipyard. 2008. Liza Cowan photo.

On our way home we stopped for a few hours in New York City so Laurie could tape a TV Show about Gay Marriage. (No, we're not. Families have all kinds of shapes and configurations.) The show was the Laura Flanders show on GRITtv, and although the kids wanted to go shopping during the taping, we did manage to catch the last few minutes and hang out in the control room to see the backstage operations. You can watch the segment here

Control Room - taping the Laura Flanders Show.

And then a quick hello to the panel and Laura.

Laura Flanders, left.  Laurie and kids, right. Not in this picture is panelist Kenyon Farrow, whose excellent blog is worth taking a look at.

So if you watch the show and Laurie briefly mentions her kids and parenting partner, that's us. I'm in the Vermont media fairly often, usually about art, so it was fun to be on the sidelines and out of the spotlight.

The best part about travel, when you know things are going really right, is when you are happy to get home. We were all glad to cross Lake Champlain and be back in Vermont again.

Charlotte, VT and Lake Champlain from the Lake Champlain Essex/Charlotte Ferry.

NEEDLE WOMEN

If you've been reading this blog, or if you scroll down the  ephemera pages, you know that I've been collecting needle books for a while. I'm still actively collecting but I thought I'd try to make some order out of the jumble. Of course, there are many ways these can be combined, but here I'm sorting them into categories of women, and women with children. Other needle packs feature travel, space age technologies, or just down and out advertising.

 I've posted most of these images before so you can scroll through the Ephemera category if you want to see larger images.

Needle books from Pine Street Art Works Ephemera Collection.

These feature groups of women. I have more, and some featuring solitary women, and I'll bring 'em to you soon.

And here's a brand new one. New to me, old to the world, that is. I find it particularly charming.

Superior Needles, collection PSAW

Superior Needle, collection PSAW, detail

Superior Needle, collection PSAW, detail

MORE VINTAGE NEEDLE BOOKS

It's been a while since I posted any new images of needle books. Needle books are one of my many collecting obsessions. They are beautiful, full of social history, and relatively inexpensive.

Air Traveller Needle Book. Made in Occupied Japan, which dates it from between 1945 and 1952

There are several major themes for needle books. One is travel, which makes sense because a sewing kit is a hand travel item. Needle books contained only needles, no thread or scissors or anything. But still.

Fashion Quality Needles

This follows another major themes: women sewing. A subset of that is women sewing with their children. Girls, actually. This is one of the mother child. Child is probably sewing for dolly.

One Hundred Needles.

Another theme is the Future/high tech. This poplualr needle pack combines the two:

FRIGIDAIRE 1931

Here are some beauties from a 1931 Frigidaire booklet. According to the Frigidaire website, 1931 was the year freon was introduced as a refrigerant. Previously refrigerators had depended on ammonia and methyl chloride and sufor dioxide which proved fatal in several accidents. Freon, it turned out, wasn't so great either, since the chlorofluorocarbons destroy the ozone layer. See about.com:inventors .

For more information on the history of refrigerators, The History Channel history.com has some good stuff. Including that the ice trade between Boston and the South was one of the first casualties of the Civil War, and then warm winters in 1889 and 1890 created severe shortages of natural ice in the US which stimulated the invention, commercialization and marketing of mechanical refrigeration for fish and for the brewing, dairy and meat industries. Home refrigerators came later, in 1911. According to History.com frozen food storage at home didn't become widely used until the 1940's, so the freezer shown below must have been a luxury- even more so than refrigerators - although they had been introduced in the 1920's. You can see in the Frigidaire post below from 1925 that there are ice freezing compartments.

1931 Frigidaire booklet. Collection PSAW

This is the cover. It follows the theme of mothers and daughters (or sometimes sons, but not as often) standing in front of the wonderful refrigerator. Mothers nurture and feed. And they teach their daughters that they will be doing so for their own offspring. And nothing says loving like a full fridge. Polemics aside, isn't this a gorgeous, compelling illustration. Beautifully rendered to display the warmth and joy of a happy home. I love how the mother and daughter are bathed in a pool of light, the daughter quietly contemplates the new appliance, which you can tell even from behind, while the mother lovingly and casually enjoys her daughter's attitude.

Chilled puddings. A marvel of modern mechanics. It looks like the girl is eating an apple, and the boy is drinking a glass of milk, so I'm betting that Mom made the treats for dessert and is putting them away, rather than taking them out. Maybe it's Jell-O.

The salesman shows off his wares to....the wives. Somehow the husbands are not in on the decision making here. We can make believe that the two women shopping actually live together rather than with husbands,but we would most likely be imposing a 21st century narrative on an seventy year old moment in history.

If part of the job of advertising is to teach people class behaviors, usually just slightly above the class they are actually in, this one teaches the smooth elegance of shopping in your best clothing, listening quietly, and paying attention to the authority of the salesman in a beautifully appointed showroom. In my own Jewish upper class New York City childhood in the 1950's, we always had to dress up to go shopping. Although my mother encouraged me to wear dungarees for play at home and in the park, if we were going out to a restaurant or to a store or on a trip we always had to wear "nice" clothes. My brothers had to wear ties if they were going four blocks from home, unless it was to the park for sports.

In an alternate universe, the women come home to their new fridge. In the 1931 advertising universe, however, the wife who just bought the Frigidaire is showing it off to her friend. Part of the appeal of the new appliance is that it excites admiration and perhaps even envy from one's friends and neighbors, which is always rather satisfying. 

 This picture, in my opinion, could be featured in the Museum Of Modern Art. A perfect modernist study of form, line and color.

Lovely, cold ice. At your fingertips. It must have seemed miraculous, really, and so different from having ice delivered for your ice box. Or, if you remember Almanzo in Laura Ingall's Wilder's Farmer Boy, it took three grown men (Father and his two French Canadian hired men), plus Almonzo and his older brother an full, long day to cut the ice from the frozen pond, haul it to the ice house, and pack it tight in sawdust. "Buried in the sawdust, the blocks of ice would not melt in the hottest summer weather. One at a time they would be dug out, and Mother would make ice-cream and lemonade and cold egg-nog."

Ah, so that's where the men were. Off playing golf. Well, never mind. They've come home for brunch, and the wives got on just fine, making some big financial decisions with enough time left over to make a chilled punch. And here comes the ice, fresh from the freezer.

And now, back to the daily day. Making a pie with those eggs and butter? Maybe a ham pie? Because, of course, the ubiquitous ham is sitting there waiting. What a well fed family. How happy they are.

PS: I found another great web essay from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

RALPH PUCCI MANNEQUINS, A FACTORY TOUR

I had the great pleasure of visiting the Ralph Pucci headquarters in New York City the other day. Pucci makes mannequins - and sells limited edition home furnishings - and I have five of their creations. Those of you who know my work know that I love to photograph my mannequins, and I've always kept the Pucci people aware of what I'm doing. Wade Willams at Pucci has always been gracious and fun to talk to, and when I had a trip planned to the city, I made an appointment with Wade to get a tour.


Photo by Liza Cowan. This is Wade, reflected in a fabulous mirror by Philippe Hiquily in the Pucci foyer.


A shelf of heads in the sculpting room. On the upper right is the head of my beloved Maira Kalman girl.


Photo by Liza Cowan. Three finished mannequins in front of a shelf of  casting forms.


Photo by Liza Cowan. Ralph Pucci mannequin head molds. These things look to me like ancient treasures recovered from a sunken ship. Maybe Greek amphora. But they're not. They are workaday artifacts, which, in my opinion, only makes them more valuable.


Photo by LIza Cowan. An assortment of Ralph Pucci mannequin hands.


Photo by Liza Cowan. Sanding down the cast fiberglass mannequins at the Ralph Pucci factory.


One of my Maira Kalman mannequins in my show window.

CAROUSEL

The amusements of Atlantic City in the last post made me think of carousels. I have spent periods of my life obsessed with carousels. In my own childhood I rode the Stein & Goldstein horses at the carousel in Central Park in New York City. But more than that, we had our own carousel horse on our lawn in Redding Connecticut in the early 1950's. Nowadays, nobody in their right mind would leave a vintage wooden carousel horse outdoors, exposed to the elements and gaggles of rowdy children, but in those days the discarded horses were not particularly valuable or appreciated as works of folk art.
Liza Cowan, circa 1951, Redding, CT.

My sister just sent me this. Sorry about the quality, it's a many times scan, but here is my mother, Polly Spiegel Cowan, with my sister Holly and brother Geoff on the carousel horse.  I don't understand the seeming discrepency in the color of the mane, but I guess that between the time of the picture with my mom and sibs, and the one of me, the horse was painted. Ouch.

The horse  sat on our lawn for years. The mind boggles. I rode this horse until my early teens, when we sold the house. And by "we" I mean my parents. Years outdoors exposed to the elements runied this fine piece of sculpture, and I regret that more than I can begin to express.


These horses are in the New York State Museum in Albany.  Armitage/Hershell machine probably carved by Charles Dare in the 1890's.

Attributed to Charles Dare. Photo from James D. Julia Auction, Maine.  This is the horse we had. The breastplate and saddle on ours was simpler, but otherwise they match up. My heart is breaking.

Moving on from my heartbreak...

When my daughters were little, we were lucky to have a house in Greenport Long Island, where there is a beautifully restored Hershell Carousel right on the water's edge. I got a call one evening at dusk that the horses were about to be moved to their newly built pavillion, so I raced over and got this shot of some of them stacked up and ready to go. The light was fading too fast, so I only got a couple of good images.

Liza Cowan Photo 1999, Hershell Horses, Greenport NY Carousel



This Hershell beauty was up and rolling when I took the picture. The Greenport Carousel actually has a brass ring, which makes it even more exciting and historic.

Mixed Media by Liza Cowan.

This is a painting I did on top of a photocopy of a photo I took of a Hershell horse at the Greenport, Long Island Carousel. If you've never tried painting on top of a photocopy you should. It's really fun and easy. Best if you put down a coat of clear medium first.

Photo by Liza Cowan. WG riding a Charles Carmel jumper, Prospect Park Carousel

The carousel in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY has beautifully renovated horses carved in Coney Island sometime between 1910 and 1915 by Charles Carmel. We spent many an afternoon there. The American Folk Art Museum in New York recently had and exhibit, which I missed, called Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses, The Synagogue To The Carousel, which traced the art of Jewish immigrant carvers "inspired by their memories of the  symbols and forms they left behind. Some of the same Jewish artisans who arrived in America at the turn of the twentieth century and carved for their local synagogues also found work carving horses and other animals for the flourishing carousel industry."

"Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses" Exhibition Catalog, American Folk Museum with Brandeis University Press. 2008
Listed on my Powell's Bookshelf (under MY WEBSITES on upper right of sidebar.)

Photo by Liza Cowan

This turn of the century carousel is in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. The children can take sticks and try to spear the wooden hoops. This must hark back to when carousels were used to teach jousting to knights. It's as much fun for the children as grabbing for the brass ring. Notice how petite these horses are.

Photo by Liza Cowan.

And then, sometimes, a mechanical horsie -ride -for- a- quarter is just as much fun. Although GW is wearing the same dress as in the Paris photo, it is not the same day, or even the same country. She just adored the dress.

 
Carousel at Shelburne Museum, Shelburne VT

Now we live only a few miles from the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne Vt. They also have a working Hershell Carousel. They also have an amazing collection of historical carved carousel animals. It's worth the trip.

ATLANTIC CITY - ROLLING CHAIRS

My blog banner says, "wherever the ride goes" and I swear I never know what that will be. I was looking a the postcard of the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City and I remembered that my mom, Polly Spiegel Cowan, took me to Atlantic city for a weekend when I was about ten years old. It was rainy and cold and I hated it, but I did enjoy her stories about her visits there as a youngster. Of course she stayed at her Uncle Simon's hotel, The Ambassador. It would have been special trip, since she lived in Chicago as a girl. Her favorite memories seemed to be of the rolling chairs. And the salt water taffy. Honestly, I wasn't paying that much attention, I just wanted to get back home. But this vague memory inspired my search for images of Atlantic City rolling chairs.


Late 19th or Early 20th Century. The boardwalk was originally built to keep sand out of the hotels. Atlantic city, in it's early days of the 1850's was a health spa and middle class vacation playground. Leisurely walks, or rides, along the boardwalk were a famous attraction.


Sheet music. 1905


Same song, different version


Early 20th Century Postcard



1908 Postcard, Boardwalk at night


No date on this one. But early 20th century.



Boardwalk 1910



A Boardwalk pastime. 1914



1948


Rolling Chairs in 1961, around the time I went with my mother.


This must be late 1960's. The rolling cars have lost their elegance, and there's some horrible piece of institutional architecture added to the othrewise elegant cityscape.

Now Atlantic City is a big gambling strip and since I don't like to print ugly images on my blog I'll stop while the going's good.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

Today is my mother's birthday. Had she lived, Polly Spiegel Cowan would be 95 years old today. She died when she was a mere 63, but she lives on in the hearts of those who loved her.

Polly Spiegel Cowan, Redding CT, circa 1948. Photo by Mary Morris Steiner


My grandmother, Lena Straus Spiegel.

It's Lena's birthday too, after all. On this day in 1913 she gave birth to the last of her four children.

And finally, a picture of Polly Spiegel Cowan and little Liza Cowan. I wouldn't be here if Polly hadn't been born.

Polly Spiegel Cowan and Liza Cowan. Circa 1952. Photo by Mary Morris Steiner.

PSAW AND PAINT BY NUMBER ON PBS

Paint By Number, After The Rain. Anon. Sold.

 Well it was and exciting evening around the TV on Wednesday. That's when Art Express from Mountain Lake PBS broadcast the episode about Pine Street Art Works exhbit of Paint By Number.

Harry Bliss, on camera.

Paul Larson, producer, and Jared Stanley, DP, came over last August to tape the exhibit. Also on hand to speak and demonstrate were Harry Bliss, Mark Waskow and Christy Mitchell. Harry is an illustrator and New Yorker cover artist. He spoke elequently about how PBN paintings break down colors for shadows and volume, and other wonderfully erudite stuff.


Christy Mitchell on camera. Paul Larson directing.

Paul wanted someone painting a PBN on camera, so Christy Mitchell agreed to do one, using an unpainted kit we had. Paul is in the foreground directing.


Mark Waskow and his Mona Lisa

Mark Waskow, collector (or end user, as he likes to say) talked about collecting PBN. He bought the Mona Lisa, and talked about how charmingly not good the painting is.


Jared Stanley, Paul Larson and Liza

My commentary runs throughout the episode. Here's a picture we took on my iMac photobooth. The version that aired was a rough cut, and when they have the final edit, they will rebroadcast and I will have it available on quicktime here and on my website.

Meanwhile, if you get Mountain Lake PBS in your area (northern Vermont, Montreal, or the Plattsburgh NY region) you can catch it on rebroadcast Saturday March 29^th at 6:30 pm.

Mary Morris and Polly Cowan

I got these photos in the mail today. They were photocopies, not original prints, but who cares. I'd never seen them before and they are of my mother, father and their best friends at my mom's 40th Birthday in 1953.

From left to right, Max Lerner, my dad (Lou Cowan,) my mom, (Polly Cowan.)  Above Polly is Mary Morris Steiner and biting Mom's shoulder is Ralph Steiner. On a personal note, isn't my mother gorgeous?? Too thin, perhaps, but wowza. Photograph probably by Edna Lerner, set up by Mary Morris Steiner.

Photo by Mary Morris Steiner copyright 1953
L to R. Max Lerner, Holly Cowan (my sister) Lou Cowan, Polly Cowan and Ralph Steiner. At first I thought this was some kind of fashion shoot with a roll of seamless paper, but in fact this was a wall in our New York City apartment. My dad planned this celebration with great ingenuity. He bought forty presents for my mother, not sure what they were but I remember a lot of fake gold wedding rings, had them all wrapped and tied in grocery twine and suspended all around the apartment. Four years old at the time, I wasn't at the party.  But my three siblings were and the affair was family legend.

I got the photos in the mail and the descriptions of the party over the phone from Mary Morris Steiner (now Lawrence.) Mary and Polly had been best friends at Sarah Lawrence college. The third best friend was Edna, who later married their professor Max Lerner. Mary married the photographer Ralph Steiner. And mom, of course married dad, who was radio and later television producer and executive Louis G Cowan. But this unusual group of former college co-ed weren't just housewives.  They married famous men, but they had their own careers as well.

My mother was a radio producer and later a civil rights activist. Edna Lerner was a psychologist.  Mary Morris joined The Associated Press in 1937 as the only woman phototo journalist. Later she worked for PM (Picture Magazine) a leftist daily newspaper in New York City. When I knew Mary and Ralph they were working as advertising photographers .

Photo by Mary Morris Steiner copyright 1953. Clockwise from the far left: Ralph Steiner, Geoff Cowan (my brother) Polly Cowan, Max Lerner, Edna Lerner, Paul Cowan (my bro) Holly Cowan and on the floor, my dad, Louis G. Cowan. The trunk which serves as a coffee table was filled with family photos, all of which were destroyed in the fire.

These photographs are particularly poignant for me because most of my family's earliest photos were burned in the fire that killed my parents in 1976. Each addition to our scant collection is precious. I'm also happy to have images of the party that was the stuff of legend around our dinner table. And then there's Mary.

I looked for Mary Morris Steiner for years, but only knew her as Morrie (her nickname) Steiner. Google searches were in vain. Finally Sherrie, at the Charlotte (VT) Community Library, found a file of clippings on Ralph Steiner, who had moved to Vermont later in his life. Sherrie found me Mary's second married name and some phone numbers.

So now, not only have I found  an important link to my family history, but a new friend as well. And, in my role as gallerist, I have found an amazing photographer. I'm hoping that someday I will be able to exhibit her work at PSAW. So far it's just a hope, because it would be a large task, but keep your fingers crossed.

BUTTONS

Many lifetimes ago, in the 1970's, I used to design, publish and distribute buttons. Not sewing buttons, but the kind you pin onto your coat, or shirt, or backpack. Badges, they call them in England. I'd collected political buttons as a teenager and had quite an impressive bunch of them. I loved the smooth roundness of them, the graphics, and how they had to deliver their message in an instant. Like little billboards for your clothing.

White Mare Buttons. Image made on Mita 500D copier circa 1978. Liza Cowan

I liked to use symbols from Greek and Celtic antiquity, probably because they were accessible in books, and because the education we got in the nineteen fifties and sixties presented Mesopotamia and Greece and Egypt as the only places that existed in ancient times. Africa didn't exist- except for Egypt - in our racially biased educational system, even in the private progressive school I went to. Robert Graves' highly annotated book The Greek Myths led me to his book The White Goddess, A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth, and those were my two most insprational sources.

The first button I made was "A You're An Amazon" based on the song by Alix Dobkin (which was, in turn, a riff on "A You're Adorable" by Buddy Kaye and Sid Lippman) The moon and stars connected it to imaginary Amazon space. At the time, Amazons occupied a huge portion of Lesbian imaginary space until the other Amazon (.com) colonized the name and the pretty much corrupted the powerful symbolic association to an all woman civilization.

The triangle with a little groove etched in it that I found in pictures of carved rocks in Greece became the basis of my second design, "I like older women". I was twenty four  at the time, but the message seemed really important, surrounded as we were, even then, by media images of the perpetual child/woman.

The Labyris, double headed ax, was the ubiquitous symbol of matriarchy, which feminist Lesbians worldwide had chosen as their symbol,  I chose to pair it with the Star Of David, to connect my two identities. If you look closely, the Star of David is in the circle which tops the Labyris, turning the whole affair into a women's symbol. I thought it was quite clever. When jewelers started making pendants with the same design, I took it as a compliment. Several jewelers, when I told them I'd actually made up the design, said they thought it was ancient.

I asked a friend to design "Mother Nature Is a Lesbian" for my company. It was a huge seller, but truth be told, I never liked the design. The trees were nice but too much of a couple. The colors, light green, dark green and light blue, were pleasing, so that was good. But the typeface drove me nuts. There, I've said it.

Medusa, the Gorgon who could turn men to stone if they looked at her, was another ubiquitous symbol of women's rage and power. Greek Goddess Athena featured the head of Medusa on her shield. Greek bakers put Medusa on the oven door to keep people from stealing the bread. I thought it would be nifty if we in the modern world could also wear Medusa as our aegis. I hired cartoonist Roberta Gregory to design this one.

And last is the White Mare, Celtic symbol of The Great Goddess. She was etched large on cliffs in England, I named my company after her. White Mare, Inc. If only I'd started an internet bookselling company we'd be ordering from WhiteMare.com and I'd be rich.

And I'd share it with you.

STRIP MINER- PHOTOBOOTH ARTICLE IN 7DAYS VERMONT

Burlington's alt weekly, 7Days Vt published a fabulous article about Nakki Goranin's American Photobooth in this weeks issue. It's beautifully written by publisher/editor Pamela Polston with tons of images from the book, and some photos of Nakki by Matthew Thorsen.

Nakki Goranin in one of her vintage photobooths. Photo by Matthew Thorsen for 7DaysVT

The article is too long to reprint here but link on over to 7DaysVT

There's a bonus that you can only get online. Cathy Resmer and  Andrew Sawtell,  from 7Dvt, came over to psaw last week to tape an audio interview with Nakki. It is online, with a photo slide show and you must listen/watch.

And remember, you can buy American Photobooth through my link to Powells Bookstore at the top of the sidebar of this blog. Merci.

MY BOOKLIST

I've just partnered with independent booksellers, Powell's Books, to give you, my dear readers, a chance to see my favorite books and, if you want, to buy them. Or any other books, for that matter. Here are a few selections from my list:

Some are books by artists who have shown at Pine Street Art Works. You can buy Nakki Goranin's American Photobooth,

Or Alison Bechdel's Fun Home.

Others are some of the books I've loved and learned from over the years.One of my favorites is A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, which has almost a cult following among architects, designers and visionary city planners.

Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory & the Avant Garde by Esther Leslie,  traces the co-evolution of cartoons and modern art.

You might be interested in my late brother, Paul Cowan's, An Orphan In History, which traces the roots of our Jewish American family.

If you are interested in photography and critical readings in photography check out The Contest Of Meaning, edited by Richard Bolton or

Photography On The Color Line, W.E.B. DuBois, Race and Visual Culture by Shawn Michelle Smith.

For a rollicking good read in fashion, politics, gossip and culture read D.V. by Diana Vreeland,

or Palimpsest: A Memoir by Gore Vidal.

And the other great part of this whole thing is that by buying books through my Powell's booklist, or any other book you click through to on their search engine, you are helping support Pine Street Art Works. Yep, I get a commission on each sale, with no extra cost to you.

Even if you don't want to buy, the list is pretty neat, and you might enjoy it. Just click onto the Powells link on the right sidebar where it says, My Websites.

CONNIE IMBODEN

A lot of people here in Burlington, VT got to see Connie Imboden's photographs when she showed at Pine Street Art Works during Art Hop '07. Actually, about a thousand people came through the gallery during the weekend, and many more during the following month of the show.

Connie is now featured in the Special Collector's Edition of Focus Magazine, Feb. '08. And she has a new blog.

Yay for Connie. Now aren't you sorry you didn't buy a print while she was here!!

Photo by Connie Imboden.

NEEDLE PACKS, PART 2

It's still snowing here in Burlington, Vermont. There was about a foot of the stuff in my driveway this morning. Although I'm not home sewing, I bet plenty of Vermonters are. So here is part two of the needle pack saga.

I'm thinking that these could illustrate a rather amusing story. Here, we've gone from a sewing circle to a sewing duet.

This one is almost identical, and yet not quite.

It seems that there is always one gal sewing while the other one kibbitzes.

And then we move along to the ones that show solo sewers.

And this lovely quilter. I've got more coming, and an assortment of place and product packs to show you as well. Someday soon.

NEEDLE PACKS

I guess it's a good time for another adventure in collecting. The snow is flying here in Burlington, Vermont,  and winter is always a good time to knit or sew. Or collect. Here are some great images from my collections of vintage needle packs. These were all printed in Japan probably in the 1950's. The earlier ones say "printed in occupied Japan" placing them between 1945 and 1952"

Because home sewing is so gendered in this culture, women and children provide a major theme for needle packs. Sewing is also clearly a group activity, enjoyed, so it would seem, by all ages.

Often the same configuration is done with different clothing, hairstyles and illustration styles.

Sewing Susan must have been a popular packet,because they are the easiest to find.

The little girl in this packet is relegated to a tiny portion of the lower left hand corner as the Sweethearts become the more important actors.

In a slightly different version they become a sewing circle

Sometimes the children are replaced with kittens playing with the yarn. Many needle packets didn't feature  people, but exploited themes of place or product.  More about them another time.

 

DOLLEY Madison & HOLLY Shulman

A few years ago, when I first thought about creating a website, my main inspiration was my older sister, Holly C. Shulman, and her outstanding website, The Dolley Madison Project . Holly, Dolley. Be confused not.

Holly C. Shulman is probably the foremost scholar on Dolley Madison. Dolley was the wife of President James Madison and the most famous hostess of Washington DC. Far from being stuffily academic, the website is gorgeous, informative and fun. Produced as a project of the Virginia Center For Digital History - University of Virginia, The Dolley Madison Project has both academic clout and design pizzaz. The graphics are beautiful, including probably all the known likenesses of Dolley. There is a section on Dolley and pop culture and a section on how to read old handwriting.

Image courtesy of Holly Cowan Shulman, The Virginia Center For Digital History, University Of Virginia

Jewelry made from hair of a deceased beloved. From VCDH  website. University of Virginia

Now Holly Shulman has published a piece in the Virginia Center For Digital History Website/blog about Dolley, James and the custom of making jewelry from the hair of a dead beloved to use as a memento mori. According to Shulman, "The fascination with ritualized mourning clothes and accessories has generally been considered an outgrowth of Queen Victoria’s intensely private, but socially influential bereavement of her husband, Prince Albert. But Albert did not die until 1861, and Dolley wrote her cousin in the summer of 1837. We can assume that in her practice and assumptions about memorializing the dead, Dolley was not alone among her friends and family in Virginia. These letters inform us about their practices of mourning. It indicates a shift in how the dead were remembered, and it locates the tradition of creating jewelry with hair enclosed to the 1830s."

Holly also edits another website, an exhibition site about Wednesdays In Mississippi: Civil Rights as Women's Work. Maybe I'll post about it another time.

MANNEQUINS

I suppose not everyone thinks of store mannequins as art, but I do.

Photograph by Eugene Atget, Boulevard De Strasbourg 1912

I’ve been a bit obsessed with mannequins - contemporary hardworking sculptures - since I was in grade school in the sixties. One day, I must have been about thirteen, I found my way down to the display department in Bloomingdale’s in NYC. It was like wandering into Surrealist heaven. I don’t remember how long they let me snoop around before they booted me out. But not before I got the chance to see all those arms, legs and heads and torsos on their way to becoming the next fabulous window or floor display.

My first mannequin, Ruth, on the right, with her friend, Dianne DeWitt by Adel Rootstein. Photo by Liza Cowan

I bought my first mannequin around four years ago from a local dress shop that was going out of business. She was band aid pink, but a few coats of gesso and white paint made took care of that.  My collection has grown to seven mannequins. They sit in the display window, or inside alongside the art. They pose for ads and signs and merchandise. They are enormously fun to dress up, like huge dolls for grownups, and they are always a pleasure to be with.

Dianne Dewitt by Adel Rootstein. Photo by Liza Cowan

I was lucky to find a source for an amazing Adel Rootstein mannequin, the beautiful Dianne Dewitt. When I first brought her home my children were so freaked out by her blank eyes that  I quickly painted in iris and pupils. I pasted on a nose jewel and earrings, and gave her some subtle gray lipstick. Otherwise, she is as I found her. I often change the mannequin's clothing. Sometimes it fits the theme of an exhibit, or the season, or just a whim. I usually shop for them at thrift stores. Sometimes they wear my old clothes (which are huge on them) or, as below, I wrap them in fabric and scarves.

Rootstein's Dewitt with Ralph Pucci/Maira Kalman little girl. Photo by Liza Cowan

The mannequins have all kinds of jobs around the gallery. Here, in a traditional occupation, they are showing off hats by Burlington milliner Jude Mulle, in the Holiday '06 Artifact show. Dianne is joined by one of my five Ralph Pucci International mannequins. This little girl is based on the work of Maira Kalman.

PSAW postcard. Ralph Pucci/Maira Kalman mannequin. Photo and design by Liza Cowan

Mannequins were made to work, and work they do. Here the Pucci/Kalman woman posed for a Pine Street Art Works advertising postcard. I wrapped her in sari silk, and photographed her against a black backdrop. She has also posed for newspaper and magazine ads.

Ralph Pucci/Maira Kalman mannequins. Photo Liza Cowan

These are my "boyakins." Also from Ralph Pucci/Maira Kalman. Here they pose for a picture. I'd like to say that they work hard, but they are mainly just pretty boys whose job it is to dramatize the art they sit next to. Sometimes one of them will sit on my desk.

Ralph Pucci/Maira Kalman mannequin against mid 20th Century botanical chart. Photo Liza Cowan




Ralph Pucci/Maira Kalman mannequin. Outdoor sign and Flashbag handbag.  Photo by Liza Cowan

This Pucci/Kalman mannequin works as hard as the Kalman woman. He has worked as a sign model, and I put this image on a handmade handbag by Flashbags. He and his sister have a sassy little attitude that always makes me laugh They are source of delight to the children who come to the gallery and want to play with them. I totally understand, and as long as they are careful, I let them.