Quote and Credit

Quote and Credit

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Showing posts with label Design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Design. Show all posts

The Jordan line of Dreamed up Automobiles from the 1950s. Vintage Scrapbook with original drawings

Dream Automobiles! Robert Jordan creates his own line of imaginary automobiles in the 1950s. A 6" x 8" handmade booklet with cutouts from popular magazines on the front and back covers...but the real interest here is the wacky transportation vehicles Young deamed up. "Droom" is Dutch for Dream, and "Tekeningen Cahier" seems to translate to "booklet of techinical drawings" and that's what we have. Even a few amphipbious hot rods! Robert Jordan Handmade book of drawings c. 1950 collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Schoolgirl Handmade Sewing Instruction Book Antique Vintage Old




I haven't quite figured out the date on this remarkable handmade sewing instruction book, but she received a 95.  What was the teacher looking for?  The cover alone is a 100.  You women out there could date the work inside by the fashions...there are tons of designs, color wheels, mini-pattern projects and all done with beautiful folky precision.  I'll post more one day.  Yes, the cover is 3-D!  The little pattern book on the table has pages!  A great reminder of what a school student was required to do before computers.

Mid-20th Century Sewing handmade sewing class book.  Mixed-media.  Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Shoe Design by Lucien Guilbert Circa 1940 - 1950 original drawings Spring forward in Style!







Vintage SHOE FASHION ILLUSTRATION SKETCHES BY LUCIEN E GUILBERT. Prolific Shoe Designer of the 1940's and 1950's.  The designer worked out of St. Louis during the 1940s and 1950s. Monseuir Guilbert designed shoes for high-end stores including some in New York City such as Nordstroms, Lazarus, Lord & Taylors and similar department stores as well as small specialty shops.  Some 150 drawings were sold in a lot several years ago.   Collection Jim Linderman 


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Opal Stackhouse Antiques and Design for the 21st Century






Opal Stackhouse is an odd name for a business, but it turns out to be an antique shop. The store in Columbus, OH is run by Ashley Puckett and is named after her grandmother. Ashley has an uncanny sense for vintage design…and store is more than a store!  I believe it also represents the perfect model for a successful antiques business today.

Opal collaborates with Scott Williams to create exactly what Columbus and the surrounding area needs. Creative, sound design rooted in honest surface and form. An antique business with an artist's statement:  

"Our creative process involves collecting, curating, designing and making." 

"Under the creative vision of Ashley Puckett, Opal Stackhouse yields from a formally-trained fine artist and creative entrepreneur, with hearty roots in Columbus, Ohio. Teamed with Scott Williams, a graphic designer and fabricator by trade, Opal Stackhouse nurtures collaboration using shared resources, knowledge, and ideas to cultivate interesting and cohesive environments. Opal Stackhouse creates intimate interiors that evoke the feeling of a place that has just been discovered. By bringing together the right elements and materials, Opal Stackhouse personifies each space with a sense of character and soul by subtly reflecting the client, the neighborhood, the mood, and the business itself. Opal Stackhouse is idea-driven with creative minds." 
Ms. Puckett is a formally trained artist and long-time participant in the art and gallery circle of Columbus. She has found her place. It appears every project takes color, shape and function into account. Good stuff, good design and good presentation!

OPAL STACKHOUSE WEBSITE

Take a moment to enjoy some of the Opal Stackhouse WORK and of course some of the INVENTORY for sale. This appears to be the model for a successful antiques business in the 21st century and I expect the well-branded operation will prosper. Four vintage stars!  A nice piece on the operation is HERE.  For more information write ashley@opalstackhouse.com
(Photograph of Ashley Puckett by Meghan Shamblen)
 

Retro Modern Mid Century Design Cat FOLK ART ?


Retro Modern Mid Century Cat FOLK ART ?

Retro Modern Mid Century meets a whittler or amateur woodworker in this pair of folk art cats.  Hilarious.  The form is as familiar as an Eames chair, but these folky felines were apparently made in the basement.   Abstracted American Caticus.

The American Pet Products Association say there are 86.4 million cats in the United States. As you can see from the quick screen grab below, there may be that many sculptures as well.


Pair of handmade (signed) abstracted cat carvings of pine,  circa 1950  Collection Jim Linderman

Redd Foxx Funniest Man in America and Visual Artist (Redd could PAINT)


Yes, master comedian and king of the risque joke Redd Foxx was more than a chittlin' circuit comic....he could PAINT. 

Shown is a DooTo disc, one of many Redd put out on the label.  

Redd was named Sanford.  That's right, his TV show was named after his real name, James Elroy Sanford.  How did James get his name?  From his red hair and because he was smart as a fox.  Why he put on an extra D and an extra X is beyond me.  Smart and talented, and at one time literally the funniest man in America.  Most of us didn't get to see him perform in his prime, as the gigs he got were unfortunately for the most part segregated.  I believe Mr. Sanford put out his record in 1956.  Redd started his entertainment career in a washboard band.  He ended it working.

Laff of the Party Volume 5 (cover art by Redd Foxx) Dooto 45rpm sound recording collection Jim Linderman

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What is New at Dull Tool Dim Bulb 2012 Update Jim Linderman



A few recent developments from the Dull Tool Dim Bulb empire!

MUCH pleased to have had no less than David Sedaris recommend the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Blog to his readers.  As one who has gone from sitting in Barnes and Noble watching David read to becoming a writer (of sorts) himself, this is a great honor.


Skilled writer and artist Emma Higgins has written a lovely profile titled "Jim Linderman Perpetually Ahead of the Collecting Curve" HERE on the Grand Rapids website H.A.C.K.  Grand Rapids, as you may or may not know, is a booming city in the culture department, with their annual Art Prize awarding $$$ and attracting many artist participants and visitors annually. HACK is a wonderful guide to the West Michigan Art Scene and much more.

Two new books, I'm With Dummy: Vent Figures and Blockheads: Vintage Photographs from the Jim Linderman Collection and PROTO-PORN: The Art Figure Study Scam of the 1950s are now available.  Each is available in paperback OR Ebook download for the iPad.  They lanquish on the virtual shelves of Blurb.com.  ALL the Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books are now available as $5.99 downloads.  Save a tree and buy a virtual book.

Vintage Sleaze the blog now has an astounding 36,000 followers on Facebook and the network of blogs under the Dull Tool Dim Bulb umbrella is approaching 2.25 million page clicks.  If clicks were coins and followers were finance I would be rich...but I prefer happy.

In the not to announce category The World Erotic Art Museum in Miami may be doing a show based on the Vintage Sleaze series and Book Secret History of the Black Pin Up: Women of Color from Pinup to Porn which would be an honor.  More as, and if, this develops.  I think it will...and if so, linkage will result.

Design Weekly wrote a nice profile and recommendation to Vintage Sleaze, thank you very much. 
I recently made what I believe is a significant contribution to an important new book by an important comic book historian, but I'll report on it in the next update.

Music fans can now follow Bob Dylan Record an Album of Songs by Charlie Patton on Facebook.  The site grows out of a series of infrequent essays on Dylan...who, with a new album out any day now, has once again failed to do what I wish he would.  He will.

I also presume all have seen the recent Jim Linderman New York Times ProfileThe article uses a photograph by Michigan-based photographer Adam Bird which I much appreciate.  Mr. Bird is a young photographer with considerable style and skill.  The Times also quoted me in a recent article on the rebirth of pinup style.

I have discovered an original stag film of Texas Legend Candy Barr dancing.  This is not the common film on Youtube, but a film shot on the same set or stage around the same time.   I'm not quite sure what do do with the film, but It has been transfered to Digital CD and I'm pondering selling copies or using it as a gift to friends.  The only problem is that once the Candy is out of the bag, it will be bootlegged wider than Justin Bieber's next recording.  Any ideas?

Vintage Graphics from the Golden Age of Obscenity Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books Brings Smut Art BACK from the Back Pages!









Using an archive of original and rare mail-order brochures from the 1950s and 1960s collected by Victor Minx, SMUT BY MAIL: VINTAGE GRAPHICS FROM THE GOLDEN DAYS OF OBSCENITY illustrates some 150 examples of art, graphics and design used to promote and sell soft-core pornography in glorious crumpled but colorful glory!

From a time when the mere delivery of a pamphlet such as these could result in an arrest! A staggering collection, assembled over a decade, shows vintage "come-ons" which wiggled a finger in print form to men all over the country. From back page ads came a flood of amateur and mob-run smut to your very doorstep courtesy of the U.S Mail, all of it wrapped in the ubiquitous plain brown wrapper.


Remarkable as it seems today, even primitive, hand-cranked projectors and 3-D viewers which allowed a blurry but taboo glimpse were offered along with stag films, photo-sets and slides.

Today laughable and virtually innocent, at the time the producers (and booksellers) of the material were hounded by postal authorities and subjected to numerous censorship arrests. The essay by Jim Linderman reveals how this censorship, now seen as absurd, occurred at a time when the word "freedom" was bandied about by moral watchdogs with their own hidden secrets and agendas.

Colorful, vibrant and often downright odd, it is another example of formerly lost and forgotten art being brought to light by Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books. Striking primitive and naive graphics which pre-date the punk esthetic by 20 years.

25 pages of the 2011 book are available for preview HERE.


Certainly one of the most unusual and interesting vernacular art books of the year, and once again a forgotten area of art history brought to light by Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books.


160 pages. 10" x 8" Full Color with an essay by Jim Linderman Hardcover and Paperback
Dull Tool Dim Bulb books published by Blurb.com

Design Art of the Pamphlet A Tribute and Essay by Jim Linderman






Waiting rooms. The domain of the pamphlet. Public Service or propaganda, these graphic little printed booklets are probably the most common art form never really appreciated. They are seen but neglected. A million artists have worked on them without credit. Your doctor will tell you about smoking. Your Secretary of State will tell you about driving safety. Your employer will tell you rules, give advice and describe the procedures. Each will be printed in stapled form, some eight pages or so, and they will always be free. Sometimes the cost is born by the government, sometimes by a corporation hoping to score points. But the common theme to all is a lack of artistic credit. As the purpose is to spread the news like wildfire, they often carry no copyright. No library holds them. Once the rack is empty, a new one will come along to fill the space.

Everyone of these splendid and striking little works of art come from one of the millions and millions of pamphlets sitting in racks now waiting to be left in the car, then weeks later taken in and forced into an overfilled kitchen trash can. They'll help you push down the coffee grounds without getting your hands wet.

The artist is unidentified. He worked in the orange color used in traffic signs as that has been determined to be the brightest shade to attract the eye. His or her graphics are simple, easy to understand but accomplished. There is room for creative expansion but little abstraction to confuse.


Images from "Do You Have Mile-A-Minute Eyes?" Employee Rack Service of Western Electric Company 1959. Pamphlet Collection Jim Linderman

Susan Archie Master Designer (World of anArchie)











The LP cover was the perfect medium for a visual artist. A 12" x 12" square one could fill with anything. It had a good run. Some of the images are so ingrained, I carry them upstairs all the time, though haven't owned an LP or record player for years. Sticky Fingers by Warhol. Talking Heads by Rauschenberg. The Richard Pettibon covers for Black Flag and the Minutemen. "What makes a man start fires" indeed.

Susan Archie is one artist who has been able to bring both classic and innovative esthetics to the music package. Despite dropping sales and the invisible format of the download, she has designed some of the most beautiful artistic objects you can imagine, and they often come in a 5" x 5" size! I once thought the CD was too small for art..I was wrong. I'll be wrong about the 2" x 2" screen of a handheld one day too.


Here are examples of Susan's work from the last few years. They are usually thick and juicy as well, a richness I can not show with a scanner... she specializes in packages, not just covers, and the damn feel of her product (a word I hesitate to use as they are so beautiful) makes everything she does just about the least expensive piece of serious art one can buy. It is difficult to be both pure and lush, her work manages to be both. She will jam in content and information, but still present a minimal beauty that is capable of creating awe. I have not asked Susan or the labels who have hired her for permission to use these images, nor do I have the time to list all their details. I am sure she would choose others, since she also manages to be prolific, thankfully...but if there is a way to search her name you can purchase ANYTHING and I do not exaggerate. I grabbed a few here, ignore the wear. They are among the most played discs in the house.


Is the CD gone? Actually this is the glory days. I'll let you all in on a little secret too...for collectors, the most rare and valuable items are always produced in the last days of a format change. As many of the small presses and labels Ms. Archie chooses to work with press in small quantities, there won't be enough to go around in the future...and believe me, she will have a museum show one day. These images from my rack don't even BEGIN to show what she has done and what she is capable of. The music too is above reproach, she has taste AND taste!


Susan's WEBSITE is here, She should crow louder than she does. I am linking as well to her testimonial page here so you can see some of her achievements. I don't know where there is a complete discography of her work, but the one HERE will give you an indication (and buying list) Her work is consistently beautiful and that she chooses to work in a small format is no indication of her giant talent, plus when I think of her I always smile.