Did young Lowell Root KNOW he was practicing Phillumeny? I think he was probably a Phillumenist without being aware of it. But something drew him to the graphics applied to small wooden boxes which held safety matches. Who can blame the boy? Colors, shapes, the allure of a phosphorus burst striking on the side of the box.
I found this amazing scrapbook of wooden match covers not long ago. Lowell carefully numbered each piece and stored them as well as he could. At one time, I have read, there were more match labels than there were postage stamps. Hard to believe, but then I guess you can consider which was more important in 1920, when this collection was put together...mail or fire? A toss-up.I do not collect matchboxes. I also do not pass by an opportunity to own someone's collection of cool things. Only a few pages are shown...and some splendid individual examples I favor, including the robot, which is apparently rare and valuable enough for knock-offs to have been produced. Young Root got lucky there. As for "impregnated"...no, you can not fertilize a matchstick. The term refers to the chemicals applied to the tips. It was intended to prevent afterglow (hmm...another term which brings human relations to mind, strike a match indeed) and for some reason that was something to crow about.
The Granddaddy of all Phillumenist collections is, natch, in Japan. Take a Virtual trip through the museum HERE
Large collection of Wooden Matchbox covers, circa 1920-1930 Collection Jim Linderman
It appears Frank Wendt was originally brought in by Chas. Eisenmann as an assistant and business manager. Eventually Wendt not only took over the studio, changing times forced him to relocate to Boonton, New Jersey. He continued to photograph and produce hundreds of cabinet cards, but he was also known to reprint Eisenmann originals, on request, as customers replenished their stock. One such sitter was the beautiful young mystery actress shown here. The large portrait, by Wendt, also appears on an earlier Eisenmann card, as does the same girl in the garden pose. The third photo here, an Eisenmann photo, has not yet been found on a Wendt card, at least not by me.A beautiful young actress...in fact possibly one of the most beautiful child actors of all, and it seems both photographers were able to capture her. But who is she?I recently found out. Not that is helps much. On the reverse of the Eisenmann photo, a yellowed slip of paper reveals this is Edna Adams as "Little Meenie" in Rip Van Winkle. One would think a performer with the moxie to have sold at least three images of herself to admirers would be documented in the press. What have I found? ONE lurid tale from a 1913 issue of the Pittsburgh Press. "Pretty Young Woman Says He Accused Her of Stealing Watch" which reveals the plaintiff in a lawsuit is one "highly indignant young woman, Rose Meyers, known to stageland as Edna Adams." While walking near her home, the young woman was accosted by one of three men who were standing on the corner, one of whom asked "Don't you want to go out with me" and when she paid no attention asked "Is money any object?" Miss Adams/Meyers continued walking and met her friend Walter Welfitt, also an actor, who protected her from the group. Not deterred, the crude man said "Come on, I'm on to you" and demanded the actress hand over her watch, chain and $20. Noble Mr. Welfitt "invited the stranger to remove his glasses" which resulted in an accusation that the actress had stolen his watch earlier. Apparently all charges were dropped. No row occurred...would YOU fight a man named Welfitt? Is this the young beautiful Edna, some 15 years after these photos were taken? I believe it is. It would not be the first time a young child star falls upon hard times after growing up. I don't need to provide more contemporary examples, we've all seen them rise and fall on reality TV. More information is loaded on the web every day. We may one day know who this young woman was.
This Post also appears on the site "Wondrous World of Wendt"
Three Cabinet Cards by Frank Wendt and Charles Eisenmann, circa 1890 Collection Jim Linderman
NOTE: Our beautiful actress may have been running a scam in other places as well...a kind reader has taken the time to provide additional information:
http://armourtree.blogspot.com/2010/12/w-starrett-and-edna-adams-other-woman.html
Today's "book review from the past" is in fact an artist review and it isn't from the past, as David Bates is doing quite well. The first time I saw a David Bates painting was at the Whitney Biennial in 1987 where it stuck out from the conceptual art like a big red mistake-smashed thumb. I don't remember what it was called, but it depicted a HUGE square-jawed Goober in a red flannel shirt, a logger I think, or a fisherman, with giant gobs of oil paint slopped on actual canvas. He was holding a fish in each hand which looked like they came out of a radioactive pond, and Gomer seemed proud, curious, ashamed and, well...real all at the same time. I remember it making the whole place smell of paint. It was like painting had returned somehow to an art museum. In my mind still it sits between Marsden Hartley and Red Grooms and they are both looking up at it grinning. I show it here from a catalog I own, when I bailed out of my three-story walk-up, I wasn't feeling too well and left many of the books behind. But I did box up all my David Bates catalogs.
So among the new-wave and Guerrilla Girls and theorists and critics and Eurocentric noses hung this bigass chunk of solid Southern American Regional blurt. And I loved it.
I have followed his work ever since. I briefly owned a print he made from his early days in Texas, it was a splendid 6 color lithograph of his fishing guide or friend titled "Blue Heaven" and I wish I hadn't sold it two decades ago to meet a month's rent during the summer I was drying out. But things come and go.
David Bates is a long way from that show, but he hasn't changed much. There is a consistent body of goofy glorious work. He'll move from painting to wood to iron then back to canvas and they'll all look the same. He's done a ton of beautiful southern plants, each dripping sweet and fresh...his ham fists make an iris look clumsy and beautiful all at once. Who says painting should be delicate? His is honest, direct and bold as a fat loud neighbor but far from simple.
I have never figured out the relationship Bates has with folk art or primitives. The work is 100% sincere and faux nothing. While frontal and direct, it seems to come more from the type of person he is portraying than any strategy, technique or trick. Honest work by honest folks. And despite the often "over-friendly" simple things he paints, there is no satire or irony. Real is good, and for 25 years David Bates has painted real good.It is a curious thing to stop one moment and realize you have had a "favorite artist" for two decades. It is also nice to have a small, tiny forum in which to share it. I once realized there were about only three things I have kept from my drunk days...Dylan, George Jones and David Bates. A back-handed compliment, but it is the truth. The gentleman above with the perfect guitar is a bonus, Johnny Shines, a blues singer who crooned and quivered like a bird. A few years ago I was able to go to an opening of his work and meet Bates briefly... he had moved uptown since I used to see his shows at Charles Cowles Gallery in Soho. He was kind and a gentleman but nervous in a suit. I think he would be more comfortable in a flannel shirt.
Jim Linderman
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Another picture from American Portraits: Midwest Mundane, larger cover image, link to site for the book HEREPreview or Order the book HERELink to Jim Linderman Biographical Material, Press and Articles, Testimonials and other Books HERE
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Ahh, the Stardust. The glory days of the Strip when you actually had to pull a lever to place a slot bet. Today, the rubes can hardly be bothered to push a button. But they do, and despite the economy, the casino up north has glamorous folks a plenty maneuvering their scooters to the changer's booth and back to the machine for button pushing just like a monkey addicted to tobacco. For the record, the legally fixed return ranges from 75% to 83% or so depending on your state. Gee...GOOD ODDS!
The Stardust history is rife with questionable dealings primarily due to Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, who ran the show. Even his wiki page is full of, I quote "weasel words" which seems appropriate. I don't have the time or patience to summarize Tony's life, but you can "bet" if Joe Pesci plays you in a movie...you have a colorful story. I can tell you, however, that when he was found buried in a cornfield along with his brother "the autopsy performed on the recovered bodies allegedly found sand in the brothers' lungs, leading examiners to speculate that they had been buried alive" Later testimony disproved this. I'm no doctor, but I attribute it to some windy days in the early days on the strip.Anonymous Vernacular Snapshot Collection Jim Linderman
I used to be quite involved and enamored of what was once known as outsider art and is now known as who knows what. I can only do so much, so have drifted to other things. I don't know what to call it, but I have always felt the untaught are God's chosen artists, and no artist with art training, no matter how good, important or profound, has any advantage at all over one who creates without the training. I'll even go as far as to say those without training are even MORE exceptional for the most part, as it comes from an innate, still not understood but certainly no less difficult and no less important place. When created under less than ideal circumstances, as this appears, it is also certainly a far greater accomplishment. I have no idea who or what Herbert Freeman is, but this is exceptional work. More information is at The Freeman Project.
I present Tom Skinner and his "Up from Harlem" to steer you the right way. Preacher Tom lays his Jesus bag on heavy in this great, great Al Hartley penned "Spire Christian Comics" to correct your behavior. Skinner sorta invented the "Jesus Freaks" back in the hippie days.
Spire Christian Comics specialized in taking regular comic book figures, such as Archie, Dennis the Menace and other normal (but sinning) characters and giving them a solid dose of good ol' faith. (They also had the nerve to charge 39 cents each) Comic books for the kids at Bible Vacation Camp.
Righteous Al was able to line up Archie and others for the series because he worked for Archie Comics. This one doesn't have the red-head in Riverdale going up to Harlem for a score, unfortunately. "Jughead...DRIVE!"
I've been on the corner indicated in the top picture many, many times. It ain't like that, Bro.Skinner passed away, but donated his papers to the Billy Graham Center Archives in Wheaton, Illinois. A most valuable resource, and one which will be increasingly important as research is done on right-on, high five alive messengers such at Tom (lay me some skin) Skinner.Tom Skinner Up From Harlem Spire Christian Comic 1975 Collection Jim Linderman
I have always taken Van Morrison for granted. Even during last years recent touring reconstruction of the masterful album Astral Weeks, (The masterpiece he painted twice, Moondance being the second) his voice has always just seemed part of the world. Just as he always wanted and repeatedly sang, his work popped up from the radios not as a surprise at all, but as a pleasing sensation everyone was familiar with (and always, ALWAYS turned up as directed and sung along to) but never thought much about. Like the late Alex Chilton, he has always been a comfortable presence like plant shoots in spring, a rusted chain link fence around the lake, a limb slowly wavering in the wind, but never troubling and never in the way.
The only time I saw Van Morrison perform was the early 1980s and he was short and round like a giant freckled toad. When he took out his saxophone and raised it to his lips, the instrument rested nearly horizontal on his belly and the horn pointed directly at his face, but I knew the stage held greatness.
Marcus has created a slight book for him, far less smart than "Invisible Republic" (which was a better title than "That Old Weird America") but no less essential. Three chapters in, I was pulling out the old bootleg of the Moondance demos, Just Van the Man and a few tentative musicians. Mine come from the wonderful Scorpion Three CD bootleg which is all of his music I need. There are certain times when hearing that voice, the only Irish red-headed voice I know, tinker and capture "Domino" in every manner, (a "harmony" version, a "rap" version, a "flute" version...) is so soothing it just makes all seem well. He eventually nails it, and "Caravan" and "Everyone" (you don't recognize the titles, but you've sung along) are a revelation with just his voice, and it makes me long for the days when vocal imperfections and mistakes could be spun into gold by a true artist.Half of the musicians who mattered moved to Woodstock before the big concert, before it was tie-die heaven, because Dylan and the Band were there. They all wanted to be in the Band. Dr. John, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bobby Charles, even George Harrison came calling and many stayed. They all went to Woodstock when Dylan lived there and the Band was figuring out what came after Little Richard, drunken sock-hops and the whirlwind Manchester. Soon it was mostly booze and drugs, but for a time it was Laurel Canyon in the Catskills. Marcus caught on early. He reviewed the original releases 40 years ago for Rolling Stone. I realize this book review is hardly that...one should always wait until you finish the book and turn the music off. But the book has already given me an appreciation which was always there and needed goosing. To me that means, already, Good Book.
For over 50 years, the extraordinary Hand-Painted Original Photographs of Bettie Page and nude models of the 1950s taken by Rudolph Rossi lay hidden. Now, for the first time, over 100 have been published in Camera Club Girls by Jim Linderman. 114 pages, 35 pages of text and 180 pictures, the book tells the story of the informal groups of early camera enthusiasts in New York City who paid ten dollars each to photograph naked women, including Bettie Page, in dingy studios and outdoor excursions. As much the history of early erotic photography and Times Square smut as it is the story of the exceptional personal vision of an artist, master photographer and painter which has not been told until now. The photographic find of the decade, and an amazing story which combines passion, painting, photography and early porno in a tale never told. Preview 15 pages of the book at right and order.
One of the most prolific children's illustrators in history was Daisy Mager, but you wouldn't know it by searching Google. Sometimes I fear nothing began before Al Gore invented the internet. I've seen Mager's work all my life, but try to find her biography. Even finding a first name took some time. These were published by Saalfield, a company which operated in Akron, Ohio and did primarily children's instruction books, toys and paper dolls. They lasted nearly 100 years, but had the bad fortune to go out of business just before the internet came along, so Daisy will ever remain a nobody. Saalfield's library and archives were purchased by Kent State University the year they went under. I'm sure more information on the prolific and perpetually positive Mager is to be found there, as the artwork alone held by the school is 89 oversize boxes...but it is midnight, this is only a blog post, and Daisy Mager only taught me to draw and connect the dots, not look stuff up.8 children's activity books illustrated by Doris Mager 1953 (from a set of 20) Collection Jim Linderman
It is spring indeed, flowers are popping. Progress too! DULL TOOL DIM BULB BOOKS will announce the FOURTH BOOK in the series of limited edition Art and Photography books very soon. Stay Tuned.Child's paper weave Flower, circa 1890 Collection Jim Linderman
