Cat scraps

The Wondrous World of Frank Wendt

Jim Linderman has some incredible things to see on several blogs. You can find links to all of them at dulltooldimbulb.blogspot.com/

The Hanna sisters can be found on Linderman's blog featuring the photography of Frank Wendt frankwendt.blogspot.com/

Dress Ornaments by Green Paper

Love this idea from Mary Green at greenpaper.typepad.com/green/

Her free downloads are fun to play around with. I used one of her vintage frames around an old collage I made for an artist trading card:

Marcia Sandmeyer Wilson

I first met Marcia at the NJ Book Arts Symposium at Rutgers-Newark last year. She came over to my house on Oct. 19 to see some zines and several paper dolls that I've posted here.

Marcia is a book artist, collagist, doll maker, sculptor...everytime I visit her website I click on a different link and find some incredible thing: marciasandmeyerwilson.com/index.html

You can see her artist books (and read about her purse of regrets) at marciasandmeyerwilson.com/mswBOOKS.html

I keep going back to the Advice from a Failure link: marciasandmeyerwilson.com/mswADVICE.html

Work will prevent me from attending this year's book arts symposium on Friday, Nov. 6.

Here's what I'm missing:

Symposium ‘09 will look at the book in association with a range of different kinds of community, some of which include (1) artists working in or for a particular geographically or culturally defined community, (2) collaborative artists or communities of artists or book-workers, (3) and the international network of book artists that constitutes what anthropologist Victor Turner defined as "communitas": an unstructured community where all members are equal and in which there abides an intense community spirit.

Sigh.

Find out more at: www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/news/09/10_book_arts.shtml

Life is a Game

I spent a part of Sunday visiting blogs that are a source of inspiration.

From Linda K.'s blog, Unlimited Possibilities: "Life is a Game," made from an old cheese box.
http://grammylkk-unlimitedpossibilities.blogspot.com/

Be sure to check out her etsy shop link for some lovely vintage bridge tallies with painted button faces.

Jose Guadalupe Posada

This famous Posada print was inserted as a postcard in The Mexican Day of the Dead by Chloe Sayer, Shambala Books, 1994. Sayer also wrote The Skeleton at the Feast and The Arts and Crafts of Mexico. She lectures on Mexico for British art schools and museums, and is a Fellow of the Royal Antrhopological Institute.

To an outsider, the Day of the Dead celebrations "might seem macabre, but in Mexico death is considered to be a part of life... portrayed with affection and humour."

I first read about Guadalupe Posada in Joseph Mitchell's Up in the Old Hotel. Mitchell, a longtime writer for The New Yorker, saw the prints in Frida Kahlo's hotel suite, and was taken with their undercurrent of humor. Originals are hard to find. Guadalupe Posada's work was cranked out like a daily bulletin, and posted around Mexican cities during the late 19th--early 20th centuries.

Day of the Dead Paper Dolls

Dover Publications gives us a peek inside Kwei-lin Lum's wonderful book.