On SeeSaw Facebook this week

SeeSaw is now on facebook, with links from our archives PLUS interesting things I've found around the web. Here's what's been on this week. 

SeeSaw on Facebook here

 

THE NEGRO MOTORIST GREEN-BOOK

Source: http://www.theroot.com/…/black_history_road_trip_negro_moto…

"In 1936 a Harlem postal worker and activist named Victor H. Green decided to develop a guide that would help African Americans travel throughout the country in a safe and comfortable manner. The Negro Motorist Green Book (also called The Negro Travelers' Green Book), often simply known as The Green Book, identified places that welcomed black people during an era when Jim Crow laws and de facto segregation made it difficult for them to travel domestically without fear of racial backlash.

The Green Book listed businesses and places of interest such as nightclubs, beauty salons, barbershops, gas stations and garages that catered to black road-trippers. For almost three decades, travelers could request (for just 10 cents' postage) and receive a guide from Green. Eventually the guide expanded to encompass information about Canada and Mexico."

 

Perfection Salad and Something From The Oven by Laura Shapiro

 

Perfection Salad, and Something From The Oven, two fascinating books by Laura Shapiro. I heard Laura speak at the University Of Vermont last Spring. I first read Perfection Salad when I was doing research on Jell-O. Turns out Laura is also obsessed with Jell-O images, so she is now the proud owner of a set of Jell-O placemats that I made. 

Here's an interesting early article about Perfection Salad. 
http://meaningness.com/perfection-salad

 

Mid Century Cooking from Mid-Century Menu

 

Here's a link to an interview with Ruth Clark who blogs at The Mid-Century Menu. Interview in CollectorsWeekly.com

 

More on Mid-Century Cooking. 
"Today, foodies typically look back on this era with an upturned nose, preferring to mock its foods rather than eat them. So when Ruth Clark took the obvious, and daring, step of actually making these retro recipes for her fascinating website The Mid-Century Menu, it’s not surprising she received a bit of hate mail. Clark typically cooks one vintage meal per week, which she documents through scans of the original recipe, photos of her re-creation, and detailed tasting notes (often featuring amusing photos of her husband, Tom, attempting his first few bites). Her blog is an everyday cook’s version of the Julie & Julia project, featuring the food that real people made in mid-century America.

 

"Clark recently gave us her experienced take on the marvels of mid-century eating, and the lessons contemporary cooks can learn from it."

 

SeeSaw has jumped onto the Facebook train.

Join SeeSaw on Facebook. HERE

I'll be posting new material and golden oldies from the SeeSaw vaults. But wait, I'll also be scouting the web for great things  about art, collecting, ephemera, exhibitions, and all kinds of related happenings that are not part of this blog. 

See you there, I hope. 

Digital collage, the "Maybe" series of time- traveling ladies.

I've been busy making digital collages, mostly using a combination of my own photographs and images from vintage Kodak ads, vintage sewing pattern packets, and old ads or images of 19th century ladies in swimming costumes and bicycles. Finding the images is just the first step. 

I separate the people from the background using Photoshop, which can be tedious, but once I have them done, I save them as PNG files and they are ready to go for the next collage. For the Greenhouse picture I  ran my original photo through the Waterlogue app on my iPhone. I do most of my actual design and composing using PicMonkey because it's much easier than Photoshop for this kind of work. For me, anyway. 

Some more examples.