Ranch. The Greatest Generation, AKA "squares"...had one thing right. Low, sleek, not much adornment and cheap as can be. A style which looks best with virtually nothing expensive inside or out. In the 1950's, ranch accounted for 9 out of 10 houses being built. After the mid-1960's houses started getting taller, but not better. They also started having manufactured materials rather than organic, staples rather than nails, dry-wall rather than plaster and were being built to last as long as the rat-ass shag carpet. There are millions upon millions of small, cheap, solid, simple ranch houses out there waiting to be fixed up without "elevated rooflines" to heat. And since there are no jobs left and none coming, I'm afraid...they make good places to hunker through the sundown on the union. These images are from a 1956 National Plan Service brochure. NPS printed the catalogs and let individual builders and lumberyards stamp them with their imprint. Most are a modest 1,000 square feet. Two cool sources. Atomic Ranch Magazine and Mid Century Home Style.
Modern Ranch Homes Brochure 1956 34 Pages Collection Jim Linderman
In the late 50's, ads like this began appearing in Custom Cars magazine, this one from the May 1959 issue. "The Baron" is Baron Crozier, a pin-striping artist who painted drag strip cars. Roth is of course the larger than life Big Daddy Roth, creator of anti-Mickey Mouse Rat Fink (you'll remember him if you ever walked into a model shop in the 1960's) and other disgusting designs hated by mothers. Which was the whole point. Roth is still inspiring contemporary artists, though he blew his engine for good in 2001. These Weirdo-Shirts, which you can see were unique, one-of-a-kind paintings created on demand... not only launched Big Daddy's career but created something you pass a hundred times a day without thinking about it. Give-up? The printed T-shirt. Seriously. You can trace every damn t-shirt you see today right back to the Roth studios and this tiny little advert. Although Big Daddy made millions on his designs, he always considered himself a hot-rod and bike designer more than cartoonist. His mission was creating the unique design in a world which favored conformity. The whole idea of customization ran against the cookie-cutter, rubber-stamp world he found himself in. After founding Chopper magazine in 1967, he had some serious problems with the Hell's Angels and regrets about the bad influence his work had on kids. He closed the studio and converted to Mormonism, but never gave up on his experimental road race designs.
There is a Big Daddy revival every few years. It is curious the last major one emerged out of the Seattle grunge world, as Big Daddy felt rock and roll killed the hotrod business. “Guys were spending more money on music—records and guitars and sound equipment—than they were spending on cars.” Roth wrote an autobiography, but it seems to be out of print...used copies are priced at far more than Ed sold his shirts for. Wait for the next revival.Ad from Custom Cars Magazine May 1959 Collection Jim Linderman
(click image to enlarge)
The current issue of Antiques & Fine Art profiles Frank Maresca. It also shows his apartment in Manhattan, which is always a treat not only because I love Frank's collection and his skill of design, but because there is often shown an object or two which speaks particularly loud to me, the primitive and powerful work of Herman (Bridgets) Bridgers. More than anyone Frank has shown how to present American folk art sculpture as the art it IS. Well-lite, on pedestals, with room to be seen, appreciated and to breathe. Frank has been an influential gallerist. writer, curator and designer for nearly 30 years, and through his books and exhibits he has literally changed how a country looks it its own art. No small feat. Mr. Maresca has always championed the work of a modest artist who lived in Enfield, North Carolina I wrote about in 1996. Seeing some of his work again in the magazine reminded me it should be archived online, so here it is.
