Brick Clay Miniature Brick Fund Raising Gimmick and the Church of Herman Bridgers Rocky Mount North Carolina

 
A church needs a strong foundation, but it also needed lots of brick walls!  So the Rocky Mount Methodist Church sold tiny red bricks to raise construction funds.  This little fella is about the size of a quarter.  If ever a church needed a building, it was this united Methodist group...here they are prior to the fund (and roof) raising gathering for worship at Overton's BBQ Restaurant!

I think I ATE there once!  I asked where the best sauce was, and someone sent me there.  I'm a vegetarian, but I ate the sauce on a potato and on white bread.  

Rocky Mount was also the town with MY favorite church. That would be the magnificent one gravedigger Herman Bridgers built nearby with his bare hands.  You can read my tribute at the link.  His church moved me so much, I wrote about it. Now, I've written about another!  I seriously doubt any of the congregants above ever went to Herman's church, but they would have met the most devout man in Rocky Mount. You can see how the Methodist church turned out here.  Herman Bridgers drew his church too...and it is now in the collection of the Asheville Art Museum.

Herman Bridgers Drawing of his church Asheville Art Museum

Vintage Miniature Red Brick Fund Raising Novelty collection circa 1964  collection Jim Linderman

19th Century Folk Art Tombstones in Michigan

19th Century Folk Art Tombstones in Michigan  Photographs by Jim Linderman

Anonymous Folk Art Wood Carving of a Native American

VERY fine cult braids (unbroken) on an undated Native American folk art wood carved bust.
Date unknown, Collection Jim Linderman

Antique Folk Art Sculpture Statue of Liberty in Antique Week Magazine

Folk Art Statue of Liberty from the Jim Linderman collection is featured in the July 11, 2016 issue of Antique Week.  Article by Susan Emerson Nutter.  Antique Week is HERE

Homemade Handmade Book The Tenth Commandment 19th Century Folk Art Book

Manilla paper was developed in the 19th century and used as a cheap material for children's art projects.  This handmade book was bound with a piece of string.  I believe the Sunday school kids were "helped along" with numbers already scored, which was cut then laid out and glued by children.

19th Century Ten Commandments handmade book Collection Jim Linderman

Thanks to Curley's Antiques

See also the companion Blog old time religion

Invisible Commute Photographs by Lauren Leja Review and More

© Lauren Leja Invisible Commute

© Lauren Leja Invisible Commute

Photographer (and writer) Lauren Leja works with her eyes, her feet and her smartphone.  Like many, she travels to work every day.  For Ms. Leja is it a particularly long commute, and a good share of it is walking on the streets of Boston.  Leja's commute is by bus, subway and trudge. While most commuters rest in a fog until their stop, she is alert as a native tracker.  See sees things others do not.  They become her subjects.  This has been her pursuit for a decade.

The result is small and perfectly framed spontaneous moments.  Her still lifes are temporal and extemporaneous,  Lauren brings the same discipline of her work routine to her silent tiny masterpieces.  For years I have encouraged Lauren to collect them, either in print or on the web.  Finally, her new book Invisible Commute celebrates what I have been fortunate, at times, to find in my mailbox.

I was proud to write the introduction to Invisible Commute.  I am equally thrilled to see them collected in print!  Each layout page is visual symmetry and each image is a small puzzle of sorts.

At this time, I believe Lauren Leja is selling the book in select locations around Boston, but the best way to obtain is to write her directly at Invisiblecommute@gmail.com

ARTIST'S WEBSITE is HERE

ARTIST'S FACEBOOK PAGE

Currently, each book includes a gift, and it is a good one! The limited edition is best ordered directly from Lauren Leja. 
FOR ORDERS AND CORRESPONDENCE: Invisiblecommute@gmail.com

  

Spanking A Vintage Photograph

It has been called many things, but it ultimately comes down to slapping the buttocks of another.  In this case, the "other" is "the missus"  I guess.  A mongrel waits patiently. 

Anonymous snapshot of a spanking 1949 Collection DULL TOOL DIM BULB

African American Motorcycle Club Pair of Original Polaroid photographs

African American Motorcycle Club Pair of Original Polaroid photographs 
Collection Jim Linderman

Fun with Furzies ! Flocking the Furzie way from Zenith Toys of Brooklyn

We have quite a few artists followers on Dull Tool Dim Bulb, so you might be on the lookout for some Furzie inspired works to show up at your local gallery soon.  FURZIES are "an exciting new style of picture in brilliant colors of breath-taking beauty…WITH A FUR LIKE FEEL!

 "Hello?  It's Larry "Go Go" Gagosian on the phone?  Tell him I'm busy.  The open studio tour is next week."

Zenith of Brooklyn made a few cheap toys in the 1950s for the young members of the baby-boom.  Furzies failed (as this will be the first time it appears on the web) but I'm glad to contribute.  The idea was to paint on some glue (included) and then use the cardboard sifter (included) to sprinkle on colored fur.  I won't open the individual bags to feel the texture, but the kit also includes a SAMPLE hastily made on the production line.

"Dear? How was work today…I wore something special and made your favorite meatloaf?" 

"I must have painted twenty thousand effing furzies…I'm too tired!

The Furzie sample is above.  Of course, the theme is cowboys and indians.  No comment there, but you know.  OH…there is also a tiny easel included to display your flocking set of furies!  "Flocking" is noted on the box cover.  It is the process of depositing many small fiber particles (called flock) onto a surface."  Another reason not to open them.  Mask NOT included.

Zenith Have Fun with Furzies Cowboys and Indians Flocking Set circa 1955 Zenith Toy Company Brooklyn, NY  Collection Jim Linderman

The Amazing Story of Jesse T. Stubbs Monument Builder Orange Tree Promoter and Hero The Road to Peace on 42nd Street

IN 1947, a strange man entered a Kansas City pawn shop and left with $750 dollars in his pocket.  He had pawned an amazing book.  It was handmade and two feet long, covered in the finest red leather, encrusted with jewels and titled "Orange Blossoms Over America."  The author, and the man pawning the book was Jesse T. Stubbs. The book was locked and encased in a box a foot thick.
 
There were 13 stones.  Diamonds, rubies and sapphires.  Mr. Stubbs told the pawn owner he needed money to travel to Washington.  He said he would return in a few months to reclaim the book.  He never did.

Two years later, Pawn owner Phil Tobias had a duplicate key made to open the book, and the story of Mr. Stubbs was revealed.

Once a wealthy man, Mr. Stubbs had lost it all during the stock crash of 1929.  His wealth had apparently come from prospecting and then selling securities. He also obtained a small orange grove and began tending orange trees as a hobby.  At some time, an accident left him unable to straighten up…hit by a steam shovel.

Stubbs came upon a notion.  He decided to spread orange trees to every corner of the country.  He uprooted a tree and planted in on the back of a trailer and began his travels.  He reached too many cities and states to count.  Ending up in NYC, he built a large glass encased box for his orange tree.   He took a job as a parking attendant to pay for the project and to protect his tree.  The parking lot, (apparently the very same one Kramer on Seinfeld found a condom in George Costanza's car) was on 12th Avenue and 42nd street.  By 1939, his tree was living in a corner of the lot.  The glass for the case came from discarded window glass.  Below is Jesse's Orange tree standing in the shadow of the New York Skyline, a detail from the painting above.

At one time in Jesse's life, he took a break from tending the tree to walk to Alaska.  The famed humorist Will Rogers and his buddy Wiley Post were killed in an airplane crash in 1935, and the tree-tending parking lot attendant had a "retroactive" vision of sorts…he decided to travel to Alaska and build a memorial to Will Rogers 15 years after their plane went down in the most remote area of the state.  At the time, Stubbs was 72 years old.  He made it to Anchorage, but the last 850 miles would be tough.  He left with a 60 pound Siberian husky named Quacco pulling an 80 pound sled.  They made nearly 450 miles on their own, and upon reaching Fairbanks and he accepted a plane ride to the site in Barrow, Alaska.

There ARE powerful miracles made by man, and Jesse Stubbs not only made it to the crash site, he completed his stone and concrete monument to Will and Wiley!   The statue, an obelisk ten feet tall with four square blocks was completed.  it is still accessible only by airplane.

The "more official" monument gets most of the attention, but here is Jesse's on the right, still standing, in a photograph from the National Register of Historic Places.

Jesse Stubbs passed away in 1960 at the age of 81. 

The image above is a real photo postcard  which shows a painting of "The Traveling Memorial" by Jesse Stubbs depicting an orange tree in full bloom that he transported from coast to coast in an exhibit so that people could see the growth of an orange  After V-J Day he decided to exhibit a painting of his exhibit at Times Square in New York City to honor the sacrifices made by the military during WW II.  This card is a photograph of that memorial.  It appears in the book AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE: IN SITU AVAILABLE HERE.  The back of the image is below.

 Real Photo Postcard circa 1945 collection Jim Linderman

Antique Blueprint Drawings Staten Island Ferry and Wacky War Machines

Antique Blueprint Drawings.  Staten Island Ferry and Wacky War Machines! We can thank Alphonse Politevin for inventing the blueprint drawing in 1861. He determined a chemical (gerro-gallate) was light sensitive.  It turns blue when exposed!  These splendid examples come from a collection bound by staples.  The group collects numerous transportation examples from the 1920s.  One shows the Staten Island Ferry (which I recognize from the three times I visited Staten Island (in 24 years) while living in Manhattan.  Others reveal cockamamie war machines and a motorcycle with a picnic basket.  Let's go motoring!  As you can see, the technique wasn't perfect…still it was the primary technique for copying and sharing diagrams for decades. 

Untitled book of blueprint images (amateur?) circa 1920.  Collection Jim Linderman

William Young Invents the Tiny House Fad 1935! From the book In Situ American Folk Art in Place by Jim Linderman

William Young is shown with his less than regal sleeping accommodations in 1935.  Yes, it is only a pushcart with a bed, but they were desperate times.  Mr. Young attempted to travel from New York to Florida, and I believe he made it.  Note on the side of the cart reads "All Aboard to St. Petersburg Florida" and it appears he brought his wife along!  Note Whirligig on the right chimney, carved bird on the left.
FROM THE BOOK IN SITU AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE by JIM LINDERMAN available in paperback or Instant Download HERE at Blurb.com

 

Fourth Dimension Blows Up! Japan Transfer Sticker Space Travel

Well, not "blown up" but scanned at a high resolution and enlarged.  I am a sucker for vintage Japanese graphics.  There are several sets of these for sale on ebay currently!  See link below. 

After the big one, we helped Japan return to sound financial footing by giving them a market for cheap toys.  Our own baby boom!  All manner of celluloid toys, tricks and yes, stickers, could be sold to the offspring in our expanding suburbs.  In that manner both economies grew.  It was early globalization and all benefited.  I love stories with happy endings.  But then some politicians with no positive agenda to push other than A) denying women the right to make their own decisions and B) helping the rich came along.  So, they invented the boogie man: Job-taking "others" to scapegoat.  Want to ruin the economy of us AND them?  Close the borders.  

See other sets for sale HERE on ebay.

Raw Vision reviews Eccentric Folk Art Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries by Jim Linderman

Raw Vision Magazine is essential for any art collector or library of art books.  Subscriptions, the current issue and back issues are available HERE

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Colors of the Month Lettuce Green and Princess Blue Artnamel

There is no date on this Cochran Artnamel salesman sample, but one source indicates 1930s, more or less.  Hmm. A shame, as this seemingly defunct brand had a good name.  Artnamel!  I like it.  I would use a product called Artnamel to paint my little models(if I had any) and what-have-you(s?) and I used a trademark search to see if it is available. It is!  My scan was brief and I am no lawyer, but it seems to be another trade name in the graveyard of color.

Billy Burke's Toothpick Park American Folk Art in Place IN SITU the BOOK by Jim Linderman

As the note on the reverse asks, how could anyone have so much patience?  He was in stir.  The Greybar Hotel.  The slammer, the cooler, up the river.  Actually Billy Burke was in Folsom Prison and time kept dragging on.  Joe Yerz helped.  There is a FILM!
  
Billy Burke Toothpick Victory Funzone c. 1940  Collection Jim Linderman from the book
AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE: IN SITU now available HERE in paperback and instant
PDF Download.

FREE PREVIEW of the NEW BOOK AMERICAN FOLK ART IN PLACE:IN SITU by Jim Linderman

American Folk Art in Place IN SITU

By Jim Linderman

 260 Pages! 

 Available in paperback $24 dollars plus postage or instant PDF Download

for $10.00

ORDER HERE

Vintage Photographs of Folk Art Environments and Outsider Artists at work.  Many never before seen and many gone forever.

From the Collection of Jim Linderman

Ephemeral Folk Art on the Beach Sand Sculpture by a Crippled Artist original vintage snapshot

Ephemeral Folk Art on the Beach  Sand Sculpture by a Crippled Artist original vintage snapshot
Collection Jim Linderman

Vintage Photograph of Uncle Sam Folk Art and Friends

Vintage Photograph of Uncle Sam Folk Art and Friends Anonymous, no date circa 1940 collection Jim Linderman