Dull Tool Dim Bulb

Water Landing ! 19th Century Folk Art Drawing Balloon Disaster at Sea

Water Landing ! 19th Century Folk Art Drawing Balloon Disaster at Sea
Collection Jim Linderman

You may also be interested in the new book and $9.99 Instant EBOOK Eccentric Folk Art Drawings: Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the Jim Linderman Collection Available HERE

Antique Folk Art Chair Pads for the Wall ? Anonymous, of course.

"Anonymous was a Woman: A Celebration in Words and Images of Traditional American Art and the Women Who Made It" is a wonderful book published in 1995 by Mira Bank. It provides numerous examples of fine art produced by Anonymous. Who was usually a woman who received little credit. This set of handmade chair pads are an example. Good Enough to mount. All by the same hand...which was certainly a woman's hand.

Antique rug Chair Seats no date. Collection Jim Linderman

Seal and Pony Show

Seal and Pony Show! For a Dog and Pony show, see HERE

Antique American Indian Folk Art Drawing 1860

Antique American Indian Folk Art Drawing 1860 by T. Kreider Collection Jim Linderman

You may ALSO be interested in the new BOOK and EBOOK Eccentric Folk Art Drawings: Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the collection of Jim Linderman.

Joe Chestnut and his Carved Whimsies and Folk Art Train RPPC

Joe Chestnut Carves Wood c. 1900 Real Photo Postcard Collection Jim Linderman

The Greatest Photographer's Tent in the World

Anchor Supply Company made and sold all manner of tents, and while the business has morphed over the years, they are still doing it! Tents, Awnings, for any purpose you need protection from the sky. As shown here in a page from their undated catalog (circa 1920?) they were even able to create a tent with a darkroom! The entire catalog is as fascinating as a tent catalog can be. It includes Gospel Revival Tents, Shooting Gallery Tents, Palm Reader Tents, you name it. One of my favorite books! Pitch a TENT.
ANCHOR SUPPLY COMPANY IS HERE.

Amazing Story of Maud the Mule in Three Acts 19th Century Folk Art Drawings

No sale! Maud the Mule, I suppose, is going back into the Pen!
Drawings from Curley's Den of Antiquities
You may ALSO be interested in the new BOOK and EBOOK Eccentric Folk Art Drawings: Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries from the collection of Jim Linderman.

Hold to Light Man's Best Friend Handmade Erotic Folk Art Gag c. 1930

Hold to Light Man's Best Friend Handmade Erotic Folk Art Gag c. 1930 (Two Sides)
Collection Jim Linderman

Tin Folk Art Candle Holder (Hurricane Lamp) Make-Do From a Can

Tin Folk Art Candle Holder (Hurricane Lamp) Make-Do From a Can. "Medal Work Merit Badge" by Boy Scout V. L. Wood 1932.

Sticking a Toothpick into an Apple 1954 vernacular photograph Collection Jim Linderman

Sticking a Toothpick into an Apple 1954 Original Anonymous vernacular photograph Collection Jim Linderman

Old Erotic Folk Art Sculpture Nude on a Log

Old Erotic Folk Art Sculpture Nude carved out of a log. 16" tall. Collection Jim Linderman

1930s Folk Art Shoe Rack for High Heels

1930s Folk Art Shoe Rack for High Heels Collection Jim Linderman

The Beautiful Antique Maps drawn by Bertha Kidny

The Beautiful Antique Maps drawn by Bertha Kidny. See also the book and instant ebook Eccentric Folk Art Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries by Jim Linderman

Exuberant Camaouflage Toy World War One Machine Gun

Exuberant Camaouflage Toy World War One Machine Gun which clicks when cranked. War isn't really this pretty...

Collection Jim Linderman Dull Tool Dim Bulb

At your Service Silent Butler Folk Art Sculpture Antique 30" tall

At your Service Silent Butler Folk Art Sculpture Antique 30" tall

BOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN HERE

Amazing World War One Graphic Design Letters

Amazing World War One Graphic Design Letters Anonymous circa 1918
Collection Jim Linderman
See Also the BOOK and Ebook Eccentric Folk Art Drawings available at Blurb.com

Civil War era Folk Art Sheet Iron Barn Eave

A hand-cut two sheet iron eave from one of the first barns built in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. Several pieces were preserved, this is the longest portion. Hand cut decorations.
Collection Jim Linderman

19th Century Cigar Box Folk Art Painting

Circa 1880 Flower painting by Mary Seleve? Note painted frame. Likely a Cigar Box panel.

Of related interest is the new book ECCENTRIC FOLK ART DRAWINGS: Obscure Drawings of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Camera Gals ! Nightclub Photographers and the Hindenburg. Sam Shere Master Photographer.

Sam Shere 1942 for See Picture Thrills Magazine

Sam Shere was a master photographer. You might not know the name, but you know one of his works. Think "OH, the humanity…" Mr. Shere took the well-known photograph of the Hindenburg disaster. Apparently the International Center of Photography owns the original, as their PAGE HERE indicates it was purchased in 2003. Iconic…and if a photo can be described as gripping, this one qualifies. The photographer is quoted as saying "I had two shots in my big speed graphic but I didn't have the time to get it up to my eye. I literally shot from the hip--it was over so fast there was nothing else to do." Amazing. There was also newsreel footage of the disaster.

A working photographer gets up in the morning to capture events which he can sell, but I believe Mr. Shere loved everything about his work. The excitement, the equipment and using his skill to create art. As seen here, he took a few pictures OF cameras too. The other images here were published in the second issue of SEE Picture Thrills in 1942, three years after the Hindenburg. Just two from the feature which was titled "Camera Girls Take Over" and documented women working as nightclub photographers during World War Two. Specifically Shirley Seiler and Lillian Johnson. Articles during the war about women taking care of business on the Homefront were not unusual, but the piece is hardly the typical "Rose the Riveter" story. 6 photographs of the women photographers at work, developing images and sliding them into souvenir folders for the patrons.

Shown in the photo above (cropped, as it is printed in the original magazine larger then a scanner can handle) are the legs and equipment of the intrepid supper club women photographers.

Although the article was titled "Camera Girls Flash Trim Limbs: Photogenic Nightowls (sic) Don't Give Two Hoots for the Traditional Birdie" this is no traditional puff-piece. The photos are crisp and striking, and not just for the "limbs." It documents a little known photography profession which would be worthy of a museum show. Souvenir nightspot photos have not had an institutional showing that I know of. The profession, of course, has been virtually eliminated by the images taken by smart phones. A few photo journalists ARE still at work. For example, some wait at the finish line and sell images to marathoners as they finish. Still, the once popular "industry" taking place at nightclubs all over the country is largely lost.

The hard-working women here were creating memories in hard copy, not mere digital blips.

Interestingly, one of the most handsome websites on the photographer appears to have been made for a class assignment. It reveals Sam Shere had been sent to the location of the Hindenburg fire to capture "society type" photographs. Indeed, it appears he barely made it there in time. Just another shoot.

Additional photographs by Sam Shere can be seen at the Getty Images Life Magazine pictures site HERE and the Corbis site HERE. Perhaps the best biography of the photographer is HERE on a website which indicates that despite taking one of the most recognizable images in history he died virtually alone and penniless. Perhaps he should have taken more photographs of limbs.

NOTE: The magazine SEE PICTURE THRILLS was published by Collegian Press starting in 1942 and the copyright on the magazine was renewed apparently in the 1970s, but I do know know if they retained the rights to the original images sold by free-lancers. As far as I can tell, there is no official website or source for the photographs shown here, or for the photographer.

How to Build a Chicken Coop circa 1920 Folk Art Drawing

How to Build a Chicken Coop circa 1920 Folk Art Drawing Collection Jim Linderman

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jim Linderman

"...Linderman is widely regarded as one of the foremost figures in a field of vernacular art collectors working beyond the margins of most institutional axioms and impulses, in what is essentially it's own self-taught art form."
Ursula Magazine Hauser & Wirth 2019

"Linderman produces the most sublime books on dreamy, arcane subjects, sexy stuff, too, all with rare one-of-a-kind images." Craig Yoe 2017

"...disclosing an underground history of American popular culture one oddball tale at a time"
John Strausbaugh in The New York Times

"...one of the blog writers to watch for"
ARTSlant

"...wonderful, extraordinary, fascinating, remarkable and profound" Fans in a Flashbulb International Center of Photography Museum 2016

"Brilliantly Astute, Acerbic and Aesthetic Jim Linderman"
The Museum of Everything 2014

"Dull Tool Dim Bulb is always worth a visit" THINGS Magazine 2016

"...grumpy..." The Austin Chronicle 2014

"Perpetually ahead of the collecting curve...a one man Taschen. An authentically curious individual...diligently archiving the forgotten curiosities of American History"

Emma Higgins in Art Hack May 2012

"Jim Linderman likes Art, Antiques and Photography and his collection of Vernacular Photography, Folk Art, Ephemera and Curiosities is a wonderful place..."
LifeElsewhere with Norman B. 2014

"...collected over the years by Jim Linderman, a character who seems the perfect subject for a Harvey Pekar comic. Linderman treats collecting like a calling, and his finds have a resulting air of authority, stunning in their capture of bygone picturesque moments."
Derek Taylor Dusted

"The pictures, discarded artifacts of ecstatic Americana, come from the stash of Jim Linderman, who in his introduction recalls advice he’s plainly taken to heart: “Collect the heck” out of whatever you find interesting."
Drew Jubera Paste Magazine

"His interest in art is rivaled only by his interest in music, and one expression informs the other. He pursues objects with thoroughness and an innate sense of curiosity..."
Tanya Heinrich Folk Art Magazine

"Linderman acknowledges the obscure at the same time that he elevates it.... His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish."
Joe Bonomo Author of Conversations With Greil Marcus, Jerry Lewis Lost and Found and No Such Thing As Was

"...he's one of the world's greatest pickers."
Brian Wallis in The New York Times

"Documenting--one clipping at a time--the scrapbook of a leg and garter aficionado that was dumpster-dived in Virginia in the 60s" "...an outstanding image-archaeologist who has compiled a shelf-ful of worthy and unique photographic histories."
William Smith Hang Fire Books

"Linderman has a knack for discovering untold stories and introducing them to a wider audience"
Joey Lin Anonymous Works

"Jim Linderman...makes us all look a little puny"
Could it be Madness-this?

"...insatiable collector of ephemera and ringleader behind an incredible circus of blogs — including the treasure trove dull tool dim bulb"
The Cynephile

"Yo no sé ustedes pero creo que es uno de los mejores sitios que he visitado en mucho tiemp"
Color Me in Blog

"...there's something beyond the endless photos and postcards and weird propaganda from another time that he lovingly documents - I think it's the collection as a whole, the portrait of a person fascinated with culture and communication. I have met people like this before, and in reading Dull Tool Dim Bulb I feel I have been lucky enough to meet one more. This site is a goldmine in terms of links..."
The Hyggelic Life October 2009

"Linderman is always on the lookout for the new and exciting"
Chuck and Jan Rosenak Contemporary American Folk Art

"...an amazing collection..."
Revel in New York October 2009

"Jim Linderman has a nice little colllection of interesting books and blogs...But every so often he just loses it."
American Digest March 2010

"FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE, COLLECTOR JIM LINDERMAN has searched high and low for authentic things--unique and special objects that define the artistic culture of the American experience. From folk art to popular culture, from pulp fiction to Delta Blues-- Jim is a walking authority on so many things American they are too numerous to mention. One thing is certain-- his collecting interests are for things that have fallen through the cracks, those things lost and forgotten--the box of material under the table at the flea market booth. If it wasn't for dedicated collectors like Jim Linderman-- so many important objects about our culture would have surely been lost to time and indifference."

"Jim Linderman maintains a most interesting blog about the most amazing things from his collection—a site he calls “Dull Tool Dim Bulb,” the only curse words his father ever uttered. I love it, and read it everyday."
"...an excellent writer and I devour your blog daily. I am impressed at your deep knowledge of things within your niche..."
John Foster Accidental Mysteries

"I am grateful to Jim Linderman for first alerting me to the existence of the 1930s Spiritualist hymn "Jesus is My Air-o-plane."
William Fagaly New Orleans Museum of Art, Author Tools of her Ministry: The art of Sister Gertrude Morgan

"Linderman describes a long gone world...(he) claims not to be a writer but he is most certainly an excellent researcher..."
BOOKSTEVE

"Jim Linderman, King of the Internet Ephemeral Arts"
Spaniel Rage

"Jim is a fantastic historian...show him some love"
Astrid Daley Fringe Pop / Sin-A-Rama

"Almost an experimental narrative"
Idiopath

"He came to us with hundreds of jaw-dropping baptism photos that he'd been collecting for 25 years," Ledbetter explains. "By the time he found us, he'd already done half a lifetime's works, and he trusted us to handle it properly." Lance Ledbetter in Creative Loafing 10/13/11

Fair Use

Though the images, which I have myself largely scanned from my personal collection of photographs and ephemera, some are subject to © by the artist, syndicate that distributed them or otherwise the individual artists. The use here is regardless covered by the U.S. fair use laws because:
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Although most of the images here are original photography and objects owned by the author and in the author's personal collection, we cannot absolutely guarantee the exact copyright status of the items or offer written assurance that every or any aspect of this work is completely cleared for all usages. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

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