Artistic Works using Public Domain elements Collage, recoloring, distortion, Mona Lisa with a mustache & horns-- anything goes when a modern digital artist starts working with raw material from the treasures in the Public Domain. I call them RE-creations.

Do you claim copyright protection for these new works you have created? Artistic works from 2012 Artistic works rejected from main page

Dream Series: Farmer Doing Books with Child, Windblown European Girl
Again, that dream look, which is begining to look like an old-fashioned engraving. This took from 9 AM to 4 PM, with a break to go pick up car. Coloring is not naturalistic, more the whirling, biologicals produced by electrical impulses between retina and brain.

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Sources: NA

Dream Series: Shakespearean Stagecraft, Ballet Dancers
Still experimenting with look and feel of what I see in my dreams, composed with images from the public domain. Here, a photo collage of ballet dancers at the top and a publicity shot of a college Shakespeare production, with a sword-weilding king defending a stage castle. This damn picture took all day, from like 7 AM to 11 PM, with breaks for a co-op meeting and taking my car in for service. And an hour the next day for an adjustment, muting the colors a bit, in the second image.
 
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Sources: NA

Dream Series: Boyhood, Chemistry, Propellers
Very large image (2500 x 1500 pixels) composed of three images: (1) left, a view of a boy looking wistfully out from a toyroom door; (2) center, a young chemist measuring something in a test tube; (3) right, a pilot inspecting a row of aluminum propellors in front of a parked DC-3. The color background is composed of a picture from a European photo magazine and a microscopic slide of wheat rust. (Still lazy about doing sources.) -

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Sources: NA

Dream Series: Desert Discussion and Tobacco Mold
From agriculture yearbooks, a picture of three Arab men demonstrating how to pollinate dates. The image is then superimposed on a photo of the pattern formed by a tobacco disease. (Sorry about getting lazy on doing sources.) A later version to its right, subtle differences in texture. -
 
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Sources: NA

Dream Series: Rug Factory, Scientists, Farm Girl
On the background of a textile factory, a naturalist and his student examine a plant and a farmer girl shows off fruit on a tree on the family farm. -

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Sources: NA

Dream Series: 40's Housewife, Two Little Girls
A smiling homemaker from a mid-20th century ad holds out her hand to two little girls shown looking at something shown by a Park Ranger. -

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Sources: NA

Dream Series: Industrial Presses, Military Air Nurses
Nurses charged with ministering to airlifted wounded pose with admirers' bouquets in the loading door of a World War II Dakota (DC-3). The image is superimposed on some industrial machinery and marblized paper. Another visit to the sights of my dreamworld. -

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Sources: NA

Abundance of American Agriculture
Foodstuffs lined up in a railroad yard, ready for shipment to the world. Again, trying to catch the effect of closed eye after-image combined with hazy. oversimplifying memory.

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Sources: NA

Farmer's Wife Ironing
A 19th century woman ironing clothes, overlaid on an illustration from a Polish children's magazine. Still going for a dreamy, eyes-shut afterimage effect.

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Sources: NA

Country Road Scene
First image after I returned. A combination of three images: a color image of a farm road, an interior of a 19th century "sleeping room" in a community center, and finally a picture of a wildlife trap.

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Sources: NA

Three images from Vermont Trip
Escape for three days to lovely Middlebury, VT. Took some time to do images.
     
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Sources: NA

Heart of Space
A picture of a radio antenna -- or perhaps just some building girders -- from a 1971 Polish science magazine (Link1). It is doubled and superimposed on one of 16 abstract abstract backgrounds uploaded to archive.org by a talented graphic artist who fails to identify his or herself (Link2) other than as 13454266998. Note: Updating Philly-Bob pdderiv first. Also did a 300 ppi version.

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Sources: Link1, Link2

Wartime Homemaker Paints Cupboard
From a 1944 catalog of a Pennsylvania hardware company (Link1), an ink drawing of an aproned forties woman "bringing color to her home." The image was repeated and reversed, and three colors were added. It becomes almost abstract. Done at the last Plastic Club Thursday Still Life class of the Summer. Note: I have brought Philly-Bob pdderiv page current with images from my page at www.indy2101.net. Intend to redo Philly-Bob.

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Sources: Link1

Nuclear Family
A color photo from a 1985 issue of Poznaj Swiat (Explore the World), the Polish travel magazine (Link1), showing a Sari-garbed Indian woman holding a baby. It is placed on an atmospheric background by a young Photoshop artist named Ghislaine, whose work can also be seen at this website (Link2). Above the background is a repeating image of lock washers from a 1929 trade catalog of Chicago-based Scully Steel and Iron. (Link3)

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Sources: Link1, Link2, Link3

Lady in a Hat
From a 1987 Polish photography magazine, Foto (Link1), a woman in a widebrimmed hat. The image is placed upon a Photoshop "Crystal" pattern by an artist named Silver (Link2).

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Sources: Link1, Link2

Old Gas Engine
Overlaid on one of the German textile patterns from previous picture (Link1), an early gasoline engine pictured in a catalog from Sandwich, an Illinois manufacturer (Link2). Digital distortion skews the circular flywheel.

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Sources: Link1, Link2

Fears of Syrian Policy
From a 1604 German book of textile patterns Newes Modelbuch in Kupffer gemacht (Link1), three patterns, digitally manipulated to give a sense of a path forward through incredible complexity. Expressing my doubts about recent announcements of American involvement in Syria civil war. The font is Y2K Subterran Express, a Dutch freeware font.

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Sources: Link1

Another Abstraction
An exercise from a French textbook on mechanical drawing, L'Industriel Dessin (Link1), digitally manipulated, and finally framed in commercial border.

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Sources: Link1

Touching Soviet Medical Scene
Now, something more realistic, from an old Soviet picture magazine.

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Sources: NA

Abstract
Based on a diagram showing fiber composition, this heavily manipulated image. These are from 5/16 images, done 6/11.

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Sources: NA

Girl with Parrot
Composition shows a girl from a European photography magazine and a parrot from a 19th century naturalism book. Circles are from a book of mathematical oddities and illustrate a solution to something called (vague memory) the Apollonius Problem. All laid on a frame of marblized paper. Using the high-tech Gimp filters a lot on these, especially the GMC Filters/Counters/Offset Edges and the Enhance/Enlarge&Synthesize. Back to being lazy on sources; sorry. These are from public domain downloads of 5/13.

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Sources: NA

Janice's Birthday
A piece done while Janice and I watched the confusing science fiction movie Cloud Atlas after Thai birthday meal. Too lazy to record sources. Experimental piece. Elements include two images from a Polish fashion magazine, another image from European magazine, and a needlepoint pattern from an old German book.

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Sources: NA

Homebound Day Images 2, 3: Tublady and Double-Engraving
Another image, composed of material from basically the same sources as the previous image. But much weirder. From the same Polish photo magazine, an unsettling photo of a woman taking a bath in a large basin (Link1). The curlicues around her are a diagram from the same radio instruction booklet (Link2). The background of the whole image is composed of various patterns and filters. Second image is a test of a new method of making engraving-like pictures, using a high-contrast photo of a sullen blonde from a 1968 Polish photography magazine (Link3).
   
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Sources:
Link1  Link2  Link3

Homebound Day Image 1: Twirler
Hurt my knee carrying tables down three floors cleaning up after a party. So I'm staying off my feet, watching television today. Lazy. Here is an image composed of marbleized book paper, deep in the background. On top of that is a picture of a circus performer blowing a horn and twirling hoops and ribbons from a 1976 European photo magazine (link 1), finally topped off with a diagram of a radio aerial from a 1931 English handbook of "wireless telegraphy" (link2).

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Sources: (Will try to do better on providing bibliographic information):
Link1  and Link2

Plastic Club Project VIII
From Lasca Leaves, a 1961 California horticulture magazine, a frond of Ctenitis, a "modest fern often overlooked in the garden" imported from New Zealand. It is reversed from black to white and placed upon a loose knitted pattern from an 1894 selection of needlework designs, with a rainbow gradient placed in the backgrounds. Finally, the border is a step and repeat pattern adapted from Passementeries, an 1842 collection of French textile patterns. Be sure to zoom in to full 1102x1267 pixel size to get full effect.

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Sources: (Will try to do better on providing bibliographic information):
Link1  Link2  and Link3

Treads of War
In the background, a collage of World War II tank treads, in all their clanking bone-crushing power. Behind that, a marblized paper from an old book. And finally, on top, a fragile human rib cage. I am reminded of the dystopian scenes of killer machines rolling over skeletons in the Terminator/Sarah Connor movie franchise.

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Sources: TBD

Abstract Composition
Spaced-out, playful manipulation of just a few images. A three-lens pocket magnifying glass (in black), a picture of a seashell, a page full of seashell pictures, and a marblized paper. Much digital manipulation here, including new use of symmetrization filter in GIMP and enamel filter in PaintShop Pro. Circle in center ends up looking like a loving couple of skinny Shmoos (a reference to a 1950's Al Capp comic character).

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Sources: TBD

Greek Statue Ladies
Composite of four images of ancient women from a book of photographs of statuary in German museums, each one a different color. I can't read German so I don't know what they are, but I made up names. The yellow lady at bottom I call the Cornmeal Lady, rolling out a loaf of bread. To her left, a hooded figure in green I call the Witch. Above that, in pink, a coquettish figure I call the Thinker. And to her right, pointing her finger to Olympus, a figure in blue I call the Goddess. Background is composed of patterns. All sent through a circle-izing filter.

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Sources: TBD

Plastic Club Project VII
First Thursday morning Plastic Club workshop piece done without the tutelage of instructor Alice Meyer-Wallace, out of the country until the Fall. Image background is composed of various samples of fabrics from 19th century France. Seated image in center is from an American handbook of embroidery yarn. This image shows my return to my personal style before AMW's influence: heavy use of symmetry and muted color palette. AMW always pushed for more vibrant colors and less symmetrical compositions.

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Sources: TBD

Shore Rescue

From a very poor, small image of refugees from a shipwreck being helped from crashing waves onto a rocky shore, a heavily-manipulated picture, framed with a Turkish rug pattern.

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Sources: TBD

Jimi and GI Joe

Against the backdrop of an aerial photograph of a World War II bombing run, a picture of 60's guitarist Jimi Hendrix and an unnamed Navy mechanic loading machine guns. Still experimenting with Gimp's Contours: Edge Offset filter.

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Sources: TBD

Aluminum in Interior Decoration

Another image from the aluminum trade literature of the last century, showing use of an aluminum stair railing. I like the sinuous curves of this stairway, which almost makes a question mark. Also, I like the old-fashioned telephone on the table.

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Sources: TBD

Worried Lady Seeks Excape

Combination of images from early 20th century aluminum company catalogs and consumer advertising, portraying a housewife reaching with some sort of alarmed vigor toward a door, her maid unconcerned in the backround; a gleaming new hotel kitchen (turned upside down digitally), and a selection of aluminum pots and pans.

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Sources: TBD

Plastic Club Project VI

Last Thursday morning Plastic Club workshop piece done under the tutelage of instructor Alice Meyer-Wallace. She is off to paint in Greece, will return in October. I mainly followed her suggestions in creating this image, intended to look like a playing card for a mysterious game. The background is a a combination of Japanese textile and Western weaving, the foreground is an illustration from a Polish children's book, and the rank is a letter from the Wingdings font.

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Sources: TBD

Broadway Actress of Nine Decades Ago
A tabloid illustration of one of the glamor girls of the 20's -- Della Harkins. Here, she is processed through an engraving filter, then stroked and recolored. I've always admired the Wall Street Journal's headshots, which use the same consistent engraving style.

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Sources: TBD

Bugs that Bedevil a Holiday
Illustration from a traveler's notebook (see the writer napping in his sleeping bag at the very bottom of the picture, head to the left), with some pesky bugs, both from old books. Added heavy contouring, plus a metal texture on the frame.

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Sources: TBD

Saturday Finger Exercise
A simple image of foliage from an old botany volume, sent through various transformations. Relaxing, experimenting with various filters. Trying to go for simpler images. Make sure you click on image to enlarge it to full 742 x 955 pixel size to see the delicate tracery of veins.

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Sources: TBD

Plastic Club Project V
First the cover image from a Polish photomagazine, overlaid by parts of a beautiful Japanese woodcut and the quartered face of a distinguished man wearing tortoise-shell glasses in a newspaper ad. Largely followed suggestions by instructor Alice Meyer-Wallace and classmates.

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Sources: TBD

Political Collage
Sleepless night before I am to present a controversial motion at co-op board meeting. I put together a collage from a cartoon in an old European journal of opinion. Plus a bird from a book on birds and a fancy library room from an old trade catalog on floors or lighting or something. "Expert opinion" is the theme of my introduction to the motion.

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Sources: TBD

Plastic Club Project IV
Mainly from an old catalog by a casement window maker. A painterly illustration of a Dutch -- Breton? -- girl quietly reading in her bedroom by the light of a casement window. Barely visible in the background is a white tracery of other casement window designs. Bottomed off with a goofy touch -- an advertisement from an old newspaper for a patent medicine that "brings new life to men and women -- makes you feel younger as you grow older." This was huckster John Brinkley's cure for ailments ranging from dementia to emphysema to flatulencemale and, above all, impotence (turning men into "the ram that am with every lamb"). Brinkley died penniless because of malpractice suits -- but was a local hero for his work during the 1918 flu pandemic.

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Sources: TBD

Ethnic Costume on Japanese Pattern
Getting lazy on keeping track of sources. And now, a picture of a Polish woman in folk dress, recolored according to the Obama poster algorithm, on a base of Jaapanese patterns.

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Sources: TBD

Mill Airplane Girl
Getting lazy on keeping track of sources. Here, a base picture of an American steel -- or was it aluminum -- mill, with border decorations from a Polish children's magazine showing how to make a model plane. Also in the border are some Japanese designs. Finally, at bottom, a face from a Polish magazine cover.

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Sources: TBD

Rabbit Boy
A technology disaster this weekend, as two installations of Photoshop 6.0 were destroyed by an improperly configured antivirus program. Then I couldn't find the serial number, so I had to buy a new Photoshop, $700 for a program seven releases ahead of my old faithful 6.0. Anyway, finally got it up and reading and did two images today.
 
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Sources: TBD

Conflict & Ruin
A red image of two boxers contending; you can see the glove, shoulder, and head of one of the boxers on the right. The other boxer, on the left, is twisted away from the blow, so his head is not visible. That image (from a Polish magazine) is superimposed on an image of a ruined Warsaw from a different Polish magazine. The combined image is then overlaid by an image of a starfish-like sea creature from a 1791 French nature encyclopedia and finally bordered by a variation on the marblized end-paper of another book, source not recorded.

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Source: Link1, Link2, and Link3

I am considering changing my plan. The need to "drink from the firehose" of recently uploaded public domain documents -- that's at the rate of one document per minute! -- has tied me to my easy chair for 4 or 5 hours a day. This has been sedentary, and I have not gotten outside as much as I should for the sake of exercise. I'm thinking of switching over to public domain lectures and talks, loading them onto my MP3 player, and then going for long walks listening to those lectures, with the aim of writing something similar to these review notes.

Plastic Club Project III
Here are two versions of an image done during my third Thursday morning class, under the tutelage of Alice Meyer-Wallace. The first shows my ordinary graphic collage composed of a caped woman drawing from a Polish sewing pattern book, superimposed on some blued sewing patterns from that book, and then, finally, on a seed catalog illustration. Placed on a border from a stove catalog. AM-W suggested the bright yellows and blue. Then next is an idea of AM-W: selecting a detail of the image and viewing it as abstract art, with no image content. Hmmmm.
   
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Source: Link1, Link2, and Link3

A Plain post-processing v. Enhanced
From a 1935 seed catalog. Which do you prefer?
 
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Source: Link1

A Kiss
From a 19th century travel book, a drawing of a couple in Middle Eastern garb kissing. Why is the woman holding a torch? What is in the cup that the girl brings? I don't know. It is bordered by hand pictures from a Polish magazine. I'm not sure what the hands signify: exercise? sign language?
Sorry I'm being lazy on loading links to sources, but I do these late at night and looking up the sources would disturb a sleeping spouse.

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Sources: TBD

For the Birds
Illustration of a Carolina Wren from an old government book, bordered by a frame from an illustration from an old Polish homemakers' magazine.

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Sources: TBD

Girl at the Lottery
One of the things I do is take old public-domain images and redo them digitally. Here, I take an image by Austrian court artist Peter Fendi (1796-1842) called Girl at the Lottery, digitally reimagine it, and place it against the marbleized endpapers of an 1812 travelogue.
Update:An oddity in the lovely marblized endpaper used as a background for this piece: the book it’s from, Voyages and travels in the years 1809, 1810, and 1811 : containing statistical, commercial, and miscellaneous observations on Gibralter, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Serigo, and Turkey (1812), is by an author with a name that is significant in today’s political scene: John Galt, the hero of Ayn Rand’s poisonous Atlas Shrugged. See link here. I wonder if 1950's Ayn Rand knew about the 19th-century travel writer when she named her character.
Update2:Here’s a link to a better reproduction of the Lottery Girl picture.

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Sources: Link1 and Link2

Plastic Club Project II
Here are two versions of an image done during my second Thursday morning class. The first shows two images of women from an old book about how to sew smocks, aprons, and bonnets. They are set against a field of flowers from a Polish children's magazine, with a superimposed matrix of windows from a millwork catalog. The second shows roughly the same image, but with a spherical distortion and a bright red highlight. The second version was the result of class work, but I ended up thinking the distortion and red detracted from the overall effect.
   
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Sources: TBD

Eastern European Fashion & Technology
Someone in Poland continues to upload to the Internet Archive site high-quality 200 pixel-per-inch scans of old magazines. In this case, I took a camera ad from a 1971 technology mag (showing an old Instamatic camera) and combined it with shots from a 1991 fashion magazine of the then-latest knitwear and sewing fashions.

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Sources: Link1 and Link2

Classroom Project
My wife Janice is moderator of a weekly still life workshop at The Plastic Club one day a week. I have decided to start attending -- with my laptop computer in tow -- both to help Janice with the required lugging about of furniture and to get some new insights into my digital work. There is a teacher available at the class, Alice Meyer-Wallace, an artist's artist, available to consult with attendees at a small fee. Here's my first image done with Alice's input: a picture of an old man from a Polish photography magazine combined with three different images from the covers of old Victorian-era popular novels (called "yellowbacks"). Alice is known for encouraging students to use more color -- I kid her that she's an agent of Crayola -- and here she convinced me to make the old man's hood red and to make the frame two colors.

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Sources: TBD

That 1902 Romantic Sensibility
An image of a young woman playing a bowed instrument by Belgian artist Edmond van Offel. The image is framed by another image by van Offel.

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Sources: Link1

Feminine Fashion, Pirates, and Flowers
A lady stands before her mirror in a 1920's ad for a London company that specializes in "Lingerie, Handkerchiefs, Trousseaux, House Linen, Children's Dresses", superimposed on a fanciful children's msgazine illustration of a pirate ship, and a display of California flowers. Click to full resolution (1770 x 2549 pixels) to get full effect.

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Sources: Link1, Link2, and Link3

Another 70's Polish Actress surrounded by Fable
Real mid-century eye glamour -- on an actress in a babushka. Frame is composed of pictures of a children's book illustration for the "Emperor Has No Clothes" and some sort of death's head from a poster for a high school production of Dr. Faustus. There's also some furnace parts superimposed on her face. Image is actually too big (2040 x 2394) for the web.

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Sources: Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4

1970's Popular Polish Magazine Fare
A composition of elements from a 1978 Polish travel magazine (an ornate altar) and a 1973 Polish radio and television magazine (a photo of actress Miroslawa Dubroska in character before a washing tub).

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Sources: Link1 and Link2.

Drill Bits, Feathers, & Makeup Techniques
Drafting-style drawing of drill bits from a trade catalog, repeated. On top of that: a chicken feather, repeated, from that German poultry handbook. Decorated with a couple illustrations from a 1902 book on women's fashions, showing top right, a Venetian woman in mask and muff and bottom left, a high-born woman of the Louis XIII era at her toilette. Be sure and Click on image to enlarge to get the full effect. You may have to click more than once to come to the full 1066 x 1686 pixel image; the reduced image is muddy,

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Sources: Link1, Link2, and Link3.

Composition in Refrigeration Units
A couple 1930's trade catalogs of large-building cooling units used bright red ink to highlight the Frick Co. units. Placed on a background of the Frick factory, collaged, and then distorted.

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Sources: Link1 and Link2.

Cooling Drink in a Poultry Pen
An advertising image from an early magazine -- a weird manchild extolling the cooling virtues of a root beer on a summer day -- framed by an image of a fan and placed in a chicken coop from a German poultry book as background.

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Sources: Link1 and Link2.

Chicken Faces on Boiler
From a 1000-page 19th century German book on poultry, some of the various headshapes of chickens. Superimposed on a frame from a picture of an old steam boiler.

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Sources: Link1 and Link2.

Farmer Snatching Goose
From an 1891 travel book, a sketch of a knife-wielding German farmer tending to her geese. Background is combination of cover and end-paper of same book, and an application of the Isfahan textile patterns.

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Sources:
Link1

Woman Rowed on Nile by Lion
Because of a recent upload to Internet Archives of popular books in Arabic, there are a lot of puzzling images. Here is the cover of one such book. Note in upper center, a little girl falling from the sky holding some sort of plate -- adding even more weirdness to the young woman being rowed by a lion on a body of water rimmed by palm trees. I don't read Arabic so I have no clue what is going on. The whole image is framed on a textile pattern from the Isfahan region of Iran.
 
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Sources: Link1 
Link2

Iranian Carpet Patterns

Scary Ayatollah Iran
is Persia of the past,
with 6000-year-old cities,
glorious woven rugs,
and plugged-in peacenik youth.

Ran across a collection of textile patterns on the Internet Archive site, a collection of Photoshop PAT files. This means I can load them any time I want. They're from Isfahan, a province of Iran. They're beautiful. I loaded them into Photoshop and fooled with one. The results are on the left, showing one pattern at various sizes. The image on the right accompanied the collection. I sent the left-hand image through my digital manipulation process, which dulled the colors a bit. The original colors are shown on the right-hand image, at the bottom right. I expect you'll see more of these in my work.
 
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Sources: Link1

More Polish Sweater Girls

Bulky cable-knit
sulky beauties
on Indian wood
inside pattern
FONT

Two more models from a 1986 Polish sewing pattern book, upon a drawing of wood under a microscope, framed with a complicated sewing pattern.
   
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Sources: Link1  Link2 

Garhwali of India

Authentic tribal woman
Kohl-eyed fantasies
Fiber Optics
Silver & Wood
Altamonte

Century-old photo of a nose-ringed woman from the Garhwal region of India (near the Himalayas). Placed on various elements, including (top left, bottom right) a couple of cover illustrations from popular novels uploaded to Internet Archive by the new Library of Alexandria, showing attention paid to the heavily made-up, direct gazes of modestly-dressed women; a graph of fiber optic signal strength, a silver plate alleged to be a forgery, and beads used to illustrate the chemical composition of wood. Font is Altamonte, by Nick Curtis.
   
(Click on image to enlarge)
Sources: Link1  Link2  Link3  Link4  Link5  Link6

1985 Fashion Patterns from Poland

Sewing Patterns
30-year-old Fashion
Central Europe
AlphaMack

Someone in Poland regularly uploads decades-old scans of Polish magazines -- sewing, photography, children's magazines. They are scanned at several times the usual 72-dots-per-inch, but they're a little grainy. (Easily fixed with the Photoshop Median filter.) Here's some scans from the fashion magazine Dodatek Tylko Dia Ciebie from 1985. The background of the image is the last page of the magazine, showing the patterns of all the different fashions superimposed on one sheet. (I admire those who know how to sew.) The font I use here is AlphaMack by Astigmatic.
   
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Sources: Link1

Painting on Screens
Can you trace the images and the words from the links?

Star Screen
Old Money
Alien Encounter

19th-century artist Robert Chanler painted and sold, among other things, elaborately painted screens. Here is a digital reinterpretation of one of his screens from a 1922 exhibition, called "Astrological Screen," painted for Henry Paine Whitney. (Chanler was no starving artist. He grew up in a New York mansion, grandson of an Astor, related to the Delanos, Winthrops, and Stuyvesants and other old Hudson River families. He's interesting in a filthy-rich artsy way, but check out the biography -- and Google the images --of his partner in a brief marriage, glamorous cabaret artist Lina Cavalieri) Anyway, Font is shareware Alien Encounter by ShyFoundry.
   
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Sources: Link1

Box Wine Deity, Fine Gull Paintings Forgotten
Can you trace the images and the words from the links?

Goddess of Wine
Sea Birds
Forgotten
Allegro

Late 19th century portrait painter Truman Fassett's fine paintings of seabirds are now disappeared from artistic posterity, no record on Google Images or auction records. Perhaps they were student work. His daughter Mary grew up to be a fine artist on her own, with a great set of self-portraits as she aged. Font is Allegro.
Update:Contacted Mary Fassett, she offered to answer any questions.
   
(Click on image to enlarge)
Sources: Link1, Link2

Women from the past, some idealized, some mistreated
Can you trace the images and the words from the links?

Street arrest
Electroshock
Dance
Flower maid
Ace Crikey

I don't know why the woman was being arrested in 1910 because I don't read Dutch. Maybe, like my grandmother, she spoke out for women's suffrage.
Amazing that a contemporary television series, Homeland shows the heroine choosing to have Electro Convulsive Therapy -- see screenshot.
Font (Ace Crikey) is by James Shields, who explains that it was inspired by a character in the science fiction of Michael Carroll
.    
(Click on image to enlarge)
Sources: Link1, Link2, Link3

Polish photography, Greek myth, French paper
More of a playful tone: can you trace from the links to the origin of these words and images?

Pensioner's Patient Gaze
Contact Sheet Crowd
Life-or-Death Riddle
Arbuckle Fat

Graphic Delirium Font Fantasies
Thready voice, eyes rolled back in head, talking in graphic tongues:

Hentai Dolls
for Action Hero Boys
Roadrace casement
Antsy Pants

Spooky Voiced Visions of Future I
Sonorous voice again. Talking in graphic tongues:

Worried Parents
Puzzled Baby
Crucifixion Cans
Antimatter

Polish knit fashions, 1880 wooden escalator, Pleuropneumonia microbe
Sonorous voice: Escalators take you up or down, not both [at the same time]... Knitted clothing keeps you warm... Tiny microbes cause colds in poultry. Font is Alphecca.
   
(Click on image to enlarge)
Links: Link1 Link2, and Link3

Image as a Tarot Card
I recently looked at some old Tarot cards. I think I'm going to describe today's image in the same portentous, flashlight-under-the-chin tone that fortune-tellers use in "reading the cards:"
The Butterfly in its beauty arises from a field of Termites Guts. Blue spots on the butterfly's wings reflect the dim light of a Ballroom Dance Studio, where the Dance Instructor convinces the Lonely Man to buy lessons he can not afford. Also, experimenting with including oracular text on previous images. Sure, I know it's creepy. Text is Sandoval.
 
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Links: Link1, Link2, and Link3

Quick Catch-up on Recent Files
Five images without full text. (Click on image to enlarge)
 
Retrofitting previous images with experimental oracular/poetic captions. In this one, my mind turns to the political forces in the U.S. which have been loudly calling for war with Iran for decades. Remember the U.S. presidential candidate who sang "Bomb Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann"? Not what I intended when I made the image, but it's on my mind this morning. Again, when I turn to oracular/poetic mode, my writing tends to be dark and creepy. World War III, anyone? Text font is called Saturday Morning Television.
Links: Link1, Link2

Violence Against Women Map, U-Boat, Polish Model
From Valerie Hudson and Chad Emmett, Sex and World Peace, 2012; Library of Congress X-Collection, Unsourced German Movie Poster, c. 1943; Photograph, Kobieta Radziecka, 1977.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1; Link2 and Link3 to originals
At bottom is a map from a Powerpoint slideshow presented at the Woodrow Wilson Center. It shows a map of the world colored according to women's physical security, with pink representing the few states (mainly Scandinavian and Western Europe, NOT including the United States) where women have physical security and dark red indicating regions in Africa, Middle East and South America where women lack physical security. Chosen in contempt at the 22 white male Republicans who recently voted against renewing the U.S.'s Violence Against Women law. Above that is a movie poster from Nazi Germany for a film about U-Boats, from the Library of Congress' just-released X collection of miscellany. To the left is an illustration from a 1977 Russian or Polish fashion magazine. The background and border is an unsourced endpaper.

Some People Want to See the World Burn
From Keasbey & Mattison Co., The glory that once was Paris, 1916; Library of Congress X-Collection, Unsourced Illustration, 1945; National Building Quarries Assoc., Architectural granite,the noblest of building stone, 1925.

Click on image to enlarge) Link1; Link2 and Link3 to originals
Keasbey & Mattison, makers of "fire-proof" asbestos shingles, published a brochure about the risks of urban fire, using reports of fires in Paris, Texas, and Augusta, Georgia. The Georgia fire is illustrated here. At the bottom is an old-style illustration used for a pamphlet in Japan towards the end of World War II. There is little information about this picture of soldiers marching past mountains. It is contained in a fascinating collection of miscellaneuous images marked "Contains material not cataloged separately" by the Library of Congress. Mainly it is scans of the covers of pamphlets and newspapers. The combined image of marching men and burning buildings is then laid over a sample of Stony Creek Granite from Stony Creek, Connecticut, a very irregular "biotite granite gneiss," which also forms the frame of the image.

Misssion Bells, Mission Gulls, Cocktail Party, and Tile
From Robbins & Myers, Electric fans for alternating and direct current circuits, non-oscillating, oscillating, ceiling and ventilating fans, 1929; John S. McGroarty, The Harbor of the Sun: San Diego, 1915; Utzschneider & Ed. Jaunez, Thonwaaren-Fabrik, 1876.
 

Click on image to enlarge) Link1; Link2 and Link3 to originals
Main image is electric-fan maker Robbins & Myers' illustration of how pleasant electric fans make "modern" life: a cocktail party, from the era when men wore tuxedos. Note the fan on the mantel. The image is framed by a graphic from West Coast Magazine's book on San Diego, published to coincide with the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. The graphic is used to show two historic missions in the San Diego area, hence the mission bells. Underlying the cocktail party graphic is a tile layout in the German trade catalog for Thonwaaren-Fabrik (I think it means fabric-backed linoleum).
Update: My friend Ted, a former Fine Arts professor, saw this image and thought the contrast between the blue of the central image and the brown of the frame was too jarring, and suggested the revision on the right. I am not sure. Much of my work here involves exploration of image frames as used in the commercial graphic arts, where such color contrasts are routine.

Metal Grating and Rubber Tile
From Irving Iron Works, Fireproof ventilating flooring, c. 1923 and Goodyear Tire & Rubber, Goodyear rubber tile: It's the floor that you see and feel, c. 1928.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
To the left, the large image is a picture from Irving Iron Work's trade catalog showing metal grating around a stairway as installed in a factory. To the bottom right (in red) is an engineering drawing of a metal grating. At top right, squeezed oil paint tubes are used as a logo to illustrate the company's line of rubber tiles. Around the border of the picture are a few specimens of the tile.

Maori Laundry Eve
From Buffalo Forge Co., Catalog of Fans, Blowers and Accessories, around 1920; American Type Founders, ATF Specimen Book and Catalogue, 1923; John Lane Co., The International Studio, June 1915; and Edward Clodd, The Story of 'Primitive' Man, 1897

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, Link3, to originals
This image uses an ATF Specimen Book border (American Border #2401 on p. 716.) It surrounds a rather complicated image, centered around the blue factory scene of a commercial laundry, from the catalog highlighting the ventilation fans (with small white arrows pointing to them.) The tiny figures of two women bent over their work are visible. Overlaid on that laundry scene are two reversed copies of the tattoo markings on a Maori man's face, from an 1897 book on "primitive" man. The long red & yellow image on left (dimly repeated on right) is from a painting called "The Creation of Eve" by G.F. Watts, from the International Studio book previously cited.

Font Specimen Book is the Talk of Ladies' Tea Time
From New York Times, Mid-Week Pictorial, Jan. 5, 1922; and American Type Founders, ATF Specimen Book and Catalogue, 1923

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
Big news for graphic design fans. David Armstrong, owner of a Toronto-based home business, Sevanti Letterpress, uploaded a high-quality scan of the mammoth 1200-page ATF Specimen Book, 1923 edition. Here's Armstrong's explanation: "These specimen books may, at first glance, seem like dry offerings of gibberish. However, they offer the student of history an incredible record of the dominant form of communication for centuries: the printing press." I have always enjoyed Font Specimen Books and have used the 1900 ATF catalog here before. In a rush to find out how to apply the book's border specimens to my work here, I grabbed the first image at hand, a 1922 magazine ad for Cantilever Shoes, showing high-toned ladies with a serving maid, headlined "Poise begins at the feet," saying comfortable shoes can give women social grace. I used a border from the Font Specimen book, Rosa Border #5 from page 646. The crisp detail of the border did not survive my digital process, but the loss of detail covered up flaws in the corners. I like its look and will probably experiment further.

Two Factory Scenes and a Sculpture Representing Immortality
From American Blower Company, "ABC" equipment for factory heating and ventilating, c. 1920; John Lane Co., The International Studio, June 1915; and "H.H.", Letters from a cat, 1879

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, and Link3 to originals
Two factory scenes from almost a century ago. On the left, Detroit's Essex Motor Car Co.'s chassis finishing line, with ABC's underground paint fume exhausts. (My paternal grandfather worked as an auto paint inspector at a competing Detroit auto plant, Packard Motors, around that time.) On the right, ventilating fans and "air-washers" on the roof of the S.F. Bowser pump manufacturing plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana. (The "F" in Bowser's name stood for Freelove.) The statue pn the lower right is called "L'Immortalite" by Belgian sculptor Paul De Vigne, shown in a War Refugee exhibition in London around 1915. Finally, underlying the whole composition and making up the frame and border are the end-papers to a children's book on Cats.

Macedonian Man and Textiles, with Arizona Telescope
From Martin Cohen, In Quest of Telescopes, 1980; and Unknown, Macedonian Treasure Trove, Vol. 7, 2013

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
The roundish image on the center and right is from a book written by a writer who traveled around the world visiting space telescopes. It shows a technical detail ("the primary") of a telescope on Mount Lemmon, near Tucson, Arizona. Other elements in the image are from the seventh and latest issue of the noncommercial digital magazine Macedonian Treasure Trove just uploaded to the Internet Archive's Open Source library. The magazine deals with the art and culture of Macedonia. I used a Macedonian translation utility to discover that the face was a portrait of poet Radovan Pavloski, who takes a controversial stand on Macedonian "antiquization" -- the attempt to claim Alexander the Great and his father as ancestors; check out the comments. The portrait was drawn by caricaturist Nikola Angelkoski. I like Pavloski's aging, craggy, somehow handsome face. The telescope detail is superimposed on a some bright Macedonian textiles -- as is the case with the border. (I muted the bright reds and blues for color balance.)

Dancer and Magnetism
From Etienne Weill, Photographer, Cecile Barra, 1955; and Arthur & Germaine Beiser, The Story of Cosmic Rays, 1964

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
From Gallica, the French PD site, another photograph from Parisian theatre photographer Etienne Weill, showing a performance by Cecile Barra of Maurice Bejart's dance company. I don't read French very well, but it seems that Barra, trained as a ballet dancer, went on to become a flamenco dancer -- and a Professor of Dance at the University of Avignon, where she still performs and teaches as late as last year. She also, if I read correctly, went to India to study Yoga. Interesting woman, still active, beautiful and graceful 58 years after this photo was taken. I superimposed behind her a drawing of the lines of force created by the poles of bar magnets, used in a book on cosmic rays.
I left this message (in English) on her blog: "Is this you, Cecile Barra, in 1955, dancing in Paris? (link to photo) Respect ... and Happy Valentine's Day!"

Elizabeth Forbes' The Fisher Wife, Remixed
From Walter Sparrow, Women painters of the world: from the time of Caterina Vigri, 1413-1463, to Rosa Bonheur and the present day, 1905 and Sylvanus Hanley, The conchological miscellany of Sylvanus Hanley, 1854

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
I return to that 1905 book of women painters. That book's illustrations were probably four steps removed from the color originals (engraved, microfilmed, scanned, turned-into JPEG) and had devolved into high-contrast black & white images with little color or detail but strong composition. Here is a work by Elizabeth Forbes, "Mrs. Stanhope Forbes," as she is listed in the book. Forbes and her husband Stanhope were leading lights of the Newlyn School, an art colony in the fishing village of Newlyn (Cornwall), on a peninsula at the bottom of the island of Great Britain. Artists liked it because of the cheap rents, the abundant light, and the colorful fishing culture, in much the same way as France's Barbizon School developed rural subjects (and impressionism). Here is Forbes' waterercolor of a worried young fisherman's wife saying her rosary as she looks out to sea. I couldn't find a better reproduction, but here and here are better reproductions of Forbes' other work. With The Fisher Wife, Remixed, I simply removed the heavy black areas and replaced them with another image: the pattern on a large seashell from a naturalist's book. In part, this represents a move away from the collages of many items from different sources, such as yesterday's. Simple two-source images allow me to focus on effects. Again, background/border is marbleized end-papers from an unrecorded source.

Jinx Eyes in an Insignia Sky
From Publisher Unknown, Yank Magazine, April 27, 1945; Andrew Lang, Aucassin et Nicolete, Done into English, 1887; Portland Cement Association, Continuity in concrete building frames, 1935; and Flying Cadet Publishing Co., Flying Cadet Magazine, January 1943.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, Link3, and Link4.
Another miscellany. Center image is a building under construction in Montevideo, Uruguay, from a book on the use of cement in building frames. To the left, an illustration from an edition of an anonymous 13th century "chantefable", Aucassin and Nicolette, unusual because it includes musical notation for singing/recitation of the story. On the other side of the building, a photograph of the tail gunner position on a World War II bomber, from Flying Cadet magazine. In the background, the huge eyes of actress/celebrity Jinx Falkenberg from a pinup in Yank magazine and a display of the collar insignia used in the WWII Army Air Force from Flying Cadet. Background/border is marbleized end-papers from an unrecorded source.

Thinking about Vision, Heiroglyphics, & Mortar
From Anne Swynnerton (artist), The Sense of Sight, 1895; Torsten Schlote et al., Pocket Atlas of Opthalmology, 2006; H.C. Rawlinson, The Cuneiform Inscriptions Of Western Asia, 1861; and National Lime Assn, Masonry mortar, c. 1934.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4 to originals.
Thinking about vision because a friend of mine just had a (successful) cataract operation and I face a visit to the eye doctor next month. The Swynnerton image, titled "The Sense of Sight," is explained in the previous entry. From a book on Opthalmology, rotated vertical on the left, an array of "gazes" used in diagnosis and, top and bottom. From same source, a photo of the parasitic worm that makes a home in the eyeball and causes "River Blindness" in 18 million people a year. ("Female worms live parasitically for up to 14 years in connective tissue modules under the skin." -- yuck!) Lightly overlaid on that is a pattern of white cuneiform -- just because I like the look of cuneiform. No idea what it says. Finally, the background/border image is a photograph of the brick and mortar wall of a 250-year-old house in Rock Village, Massachusetts.

Early Women Painters from Microfilm Original
From Walter Sparrow, Women painters of the world: from the time of Caterina Vigri, 1413-1463, to Rosa Bonheur and the present day, 1905

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original
Women Painters of the World was recently uploaded to the Internet Archive by a Canadian library and provided some special challenges. Because it was based on a microform black & white original, the pictures were way too contrasty. Most had been reduced to areas of solid white and solid black. While this destroyed detail, it also provided some compositional interest. I assume the paintings are much more impressive in color and fine detail. For instance consider the bottom right (blue) picture: that is Anne Swynnerton's painting "Sense of Sight"; look at it here in color. Anyway, I've provided links to better images when possible, but it was difficult to even read the artists' names and editor Sparrow's naming convention introduced confusion between "maiden" names and married names. The paintings' style was sentimental and romantic, as befitted the time, and portrayed idealized women in familiar social roles. The four pictures show their female subjects as (reading clockwise, from bottom right): an angel (Anne L. Swynnerton); a lady of the manor (Florence [White?]), a nun caring for babies (Uranie Colon-Lambour), and a mother visiting her imprisoned son (Louisa Starr [Canzioni?]). My solution to the technical problem of the intense black was to make a collage of four images, distorted and recolored, with the overpowering black muted by an overlaid maze-like white pattern. I also borrowed the art-deco border from the book's dedication page as a bordering device, also overlaid with a white pattern.

Opera Couple, Metal Wall and Ceiling Tile, and Structural Steel
From Edwards Manufacturing Co., A few facts plainly told setting forth the merits of Edwards metal roofing, siding, ceiling, etc., 1909; Revue Theatrale (Paris), Photograph from Opera "Amica", 1905; and J.E. Moss Ironworks, Structural steel, c. 1924.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, and Link3 to originals
In the center, a bathroom pictured in the Edwards metal catalog, showing off the company's metal ceiling and side wall tile. Then, where there was once a window, there's a picture of a glamorous opera pairing from pre-World War I Paris, handsome baritone Maurice Renaud and fetching soprano Charlotte Wyns in costume for the opera Amica, the story of two brothers in love with the same woman. Finally, off to the sides (in blue) a couple scenes from the Moss catalog showing steel used in building construction, an exterior shot of an addition being built in Wheeling, West Virginia, and a bank staircase in High Point, North Carolina. A simple border.

The Clamor of Arguing Mimes
From Etienne Weill (photographer), Publicity shot for "Mimodrames by Marcel Marceau", c. 1955; Maison Rouard, Catalog of porcelain and glassware, 1932; and Dupuis Freres Limitee, Papier-tenture: Sunworthy, semi-rogne, c. 1930

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2 and Link3 to originals
Reknowned mime Marcel Marceau, on the left, in another theatre shot by Weill on Gallica. Again, I use photos of crystalware (in blue) from the Rouard catalog as a compositional element. Note that the intensity of the actors' wordless gesture and stance commands the viewer's eye, so the incongruous giant crystalware recedes to the background. Unlike Claudel, below, Marceau was a heroic figure, a World War II Resistance hero who created a community of fellow artists. The composition is colored by eye and framed against a sample of wallpaper from Dupuis Freres, a Montreal company.

French theatrical photography and crystalware
From Etienne Weill (photographer), Publicity shot for "Tete d'Or", 1959; and Maison Rouard, Catalog of porcelain and glassware, 1932.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, and Link2 to originals
On Gallica, the French PD site, someone recently uploaded prints from an exhibition of theatre shots by photographer Etienne Weill, who died in 2001. These included this shot of a 1959 production of "Tete d'Or" at the Odeon Theatre in Paris. "Tete d'Or" is a long verse play written by Paul Claudel. An English translation of Claudel's play is available, although the play is not light reading. (I couldn't finish it.) It begins on a rainy day: ("O Day! Having felt, like the touch of water upon the head, / the desire to be alone and weep where none could find me..."). Claudel was a devout Catholic and a right-winger. A 2004 Guardian article on Claudel was headlined "Evil genius: Paul Claudel was a misogynist, an anti-semite and an Islamophobe. He was also regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest dramatists." I like using movie and theatre publicity shots, because they are always staged for drama and expression. Here, the actors are not identified. I also added two pictures of crystalware, a cruet and a stoppered bottle, from an old catalog. They were shot against a black background and I liked the way they worked with the deep blacks of Weill's theatrical shot. I have abandoned the idea of coloring works by using old color schemes and the 5-5-7-11 border; I didn't like the results. Here I colored and framed the piece by eye, with a border of marbleized endpaper, source not recorded.

Feminist Character Objects to Process -- of Violence
From Coordinamenta Femminista e Lesbica, ATTI - Il personale e politico, il sociale e il privato, 2012; Habib Boulares, Histoire de la Tunisie, 2011; and John Lucas & Co., Practical suggestions on exterior decoration, 1898.
 
(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, and Link3 to originals
On the OpenSource library at Internat Archives, an Italian feminist collective published a poster and pamphlet announcing a demonstration protesting violence against women. The pamphlet featured graphic work by talented European cartoonist Nina Nijsten, including a simple cartoon of a woman using the triangle hand signal that means "I object to the current process" -- at least that's what it meant when used in Occupy Philadelphia. I superimposed that figure on a scene of bloody, centuries-old mayhem as if she is objecting to the process of War. (The scene is a detail from a 16th century print by Maarten van Heemskerck, showing Charles V's Conquest of Tunis in 1535, in which 30,000 civilians were killed; it is in the British Museum and was reproduced in a history of Tunisia.) Nijsten also did a whimsical collection of circles and spirals that seemed to symbolize the diversity of a free society, and I faded that into the picture, as if that blooming richness is part of the future. Continuing my color studies from old sources, the coloring was drawn from a 19th century color scheme for a house from the Lucas paint sample book, seen in small image at right. It's rather garish to my eye. 5-5-7-11 border includes Nijsten's circles overlaid on marbleized paper, source unknown.
Nijsten asked folks who use her image to write to her, and I did. Her reply was friendly and encouraging. "Actually the meanings you added to my artwork were not the ones that I thought of, but I like them anyway. The hand symbol stands for the yoni sign. It symbolises female power and was used a lot in the second wave feminist movement. I didn't know it had another meaning in the Occupy movement." My fanciful story of the young cartoon feminist placing a "Point of Order" objection to centuries-old slaughter guided me in making the piece. That's the power of personal artistic RE-creation. Something new is added. (This is also not the first time in my life I have been clueless on the subject of yoni.)

Dancing Amid Destruction
From Charles Hiatt, Picture Posters, 1896; Milliken Brothers Mfg. Co., Milliken buildings, permanent - fireproof, all-steel, approx. 1915; N. and G. Taylor Co., Selling arguments for tin roofing, c. 1911; Emile Prisse d'Avennes, Atlas of Egyptian Art, approx. 1873.
 
(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4 to originals
A swirling dancer from a 19th century French theater poster designed by Jules Cheret. She is dancing in front of a composite of two images: one is a picture of a catastrophic fire in Philadelphia, used in the Taylor brochure to make the point that tin roofs are fireproof. The other is a picture of the interior of a Milliken prefabricated building, containing -- can it be? -- bombs. Perhaps it's just coastal buoys. Anyway, that Milliken building photo is split: the roof is at the top, above the fire; the stored items are at the bottom. It's all put together with a color scheme and frieze pattern from a book by Egyptologist and artist Emile Prisse de Avennes, seen in the small image on the right. All finally framed in rough 5-5-7-11 fashion with a modern vector pattern.

Medieval Dorothea in 1920's Stovemaker Factory
From American Cement Tile Manufacturing Co., Bonanza cement tile roofing, 1917; David Lupton & Sons, Pond continuous sash, pond operating device, pond truss roof design., c. 1926; Wilhelm Bode, Geschichte der deutschen Plastik, 1885; and John Lucas & Co., Practical suggestions on exterior decoration, 1898.
 
(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4 to originals
Engineering drawing of a roofing tile seam -- the joining of two surfaces -- from the Bonanza trade catalog. It is superimposed on another industrial interior, this time a stove manufacturer in Cleveland, from Lupton's prefabricated roof catalog. Off to the left of the primary image, a picture from the Bode book of a stone statue labelled Dorothea from a church in Wurzburg. In a smaller image to the right, in another color experiment, I chose one of the color schemes in the Lucas book of house colors, the last page, shown with my RGB notes. It was a rather dull color scheme. Border again follows 5-5-7-11 and is filled with a marbleized pattern, source not recorded.

Power Plant with Virgins
From David Lupton & Sons, Pond continuous sash, pond operating device, pond truss roof design., c. 1926 and Wilhelm Bode, Geschichte der deutschen Plastik, 1885

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
Another image based on those old factory buildings that once made America the "Arsenal of Democracy" in my childhood. This is a power-generating station in Cleveland. I added to it a statue from an excellent book of medieval German statuary, a Mary figure from a church in Freiburg, superimposed on each furnace. The frame again follows the 5-5-7-11 rule and is filled with a marbleized sheet from another book, source not recorded.

Roof Vents for Prewar Steam Locomotive Barns
From United States Gypsum Co., Gypsum roof tile for railway buildings, c. 1920

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original
All of the images combined here come from a trade catalog for the gypsum roofing material used to cover railroad terminals. Big drafty structures, usually located downtown, where steam locomotives (like Hogwarts Express in the modern Harry Potter series) sat huffing and puffing, waiting for passengers. The vertical image in the center is a photo of the curving wall of a station with vents sending out steam (duplicated, rotated, and set back-to-back, until it's not recognizable). At the very bottom is a photo of a terminal rooftop with its vents; above that, an engineering drawing of how those vents let steam escape. Finally, on the far left, a hand-wheel mounted on the wall, used to control the opening and closing of the rail terminal windows. The image's border follows the 5-5-7-11 rule of thumb and is filled with a leather binding from an old book, source not recorded.

Jungle on one side of fence, sophisticated lady on the other
From American Steel & Wire Co., Wire and steel products for the farm, c. 1939; Conde Nast, Gazette du bon genre, 1912; and Albertus Seba and others, Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio, et iconibus artificiosissimis expressio, per universam physices historiam , 1734.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, and Link3 to originals
Background is a wild Dufy wallpaper (see previous entry) called "The Jungle", showing an elephant and tiger among palm trees in garish purple, orange, and blue. Superimposed on that are some snake images from the Seba book, two diagrams from the farm fencing catalog, and a haughty creature of fashion from Conde Nast's Gazette.

As he mends fences, farmhand dreams of Paris
From American Steel & Wire Co., Wire and steel products for the farm, c. 1939; and Conde Nast, Gazette du bon genre, 1912

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
Sidepanels and central figure of smiling, behatted farmer are from a 1939 catalog of farm fences. Lady in green holding a feather and background wallpaper is from a 1912 fashion magazine with French roots. If I translate the caption correctly, the wallpaper was drawn by Raoul Dufy.

Tragedienne of Classical Paris Theatre
From Edward Robin, Twelve Great Actresses, 1900; and Gustav Tamman, Lehrbuch der Metallkunde, 1932

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
Drawing of Madamoiselle Rachel, a 19th century actress with a dramatic rags-to-riches life, an independent streak, and a tragic end. She was a lover of Napoleon's son; when he scolded her for her other lovers, she said "I am as I am; I prefer renters to owners." She died of tuberculosis at 37. Her image is here superimposed on two diagrams from a technical German book on the chemistry of metals.

The Politics of Public Domain
From R.H. Beddome, Supplement to The ferns of southern India and British India, 1876; and Anders Sparrman, Museum Carlsonianum, in quo novas et selectas aves, coloribus ad vivum brevique descriptione illustratas, suasu et sumtibus generosissimi possessoris, 1786.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
Political art. A quotation, superimposed on a silhouette of one of Beddome's ferns and two of Sparrman's birds (as well as the marbleized endpapers of Sparrman's volume). The quote is from Aaron Swartz, see my note on Swartz's death.

Little Girl Interested in Nature
From Unknown Church, Svetilnik_1, 2012; R.H. Beddome, Supplement to The ferns of southern India and British India, 1876; and Albertus Seba and others, Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio, et iconibus artificiosissimis expressio, per universam physices historiam , 1734.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2 and Link3 to originals
There is a church style of illustration, seen in tracts and prayerbooks, highly realistic and idealized. Here it is in a recent Russian-language Christian youth magazine, uploaded to the OpenSource collection of the Internet Archive, showing a young girl looking at her reflection in a mirror. I used the Marian Blue from the previous entry as a keynote color, and added a highly detailed fern from Beddome's work and some turtles from Seba's work. I also imported from Excel some colored pie charts to add background color and used PaintShop Pro's framing utility for a new frame look.

Special Mission: Blueprint/Marian/Biblical Blue on Digital Parquetry
From Los Angeles Pressed Brick Co., Roofing tiles, c. 1915; Northern Hemlock and Hardwood Manufacturers Assoc., Hard maple in the industries, c. 1924; and North Carolina Pine Association, North Carolina pine: its beauty for panelled walls, beamed ceilings and polished floors, c. 1923.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1, Link2, and Link3 to originals
The main purpose of this piece is to preserve what I call Blueprint Blue, the incredibly pure color used in my youth for engineering drawings. Here is an example in a drawing for a tiled roof in the Mission Revival style, from a California tile company's 1915 catalog. Just for the record, the color in computer-geek talk (RGB) is Red=96 Green=118 Blue=221; in HTML colors it's #6076DD, seen in the horizontal line below. This style of engineering print-making was replaced with other reproduction methods in the 1950's, although the term "blueprint" still remains, like a ghost of this lovely blue. The color was often used in depictions of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in my childhood Catholicism. (A similar blue called Tekhelet appears often in Jewish scripture.) The blueprint is placed here upon a horizontal sample of what the author calls a "fanciful grain" in Hard Maple, and vertical samples of the effects of different stains on North Carolina Pine. Incidentally, check out the NC Pine book for its drawings of 1920 interior fashions. Also check out the long entry on various wood samples, entitled "Rare and Fancy Woods in Natural Colors," on my Public Domain Restorations page

Evolving Construction Techniques
From Cement Gun Construction Co., We do the work, illustrations of recent cement-gun work done by Cement Gun Construction Company, 1919

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original
Composite of two images from the 1919 trade catalog of a Chicago construction company, the oddly-named Cement Gun. To the left, Cement Gun's image of man using the company's pressure sprayer to apply a mixture of water, sand, and concrete to a surface. The result, the company promised, is fireproof and waterproof. Superimposed toward the right, an image of a coal bunker in Duluth which was rehabilitated with sprayed concrete. I like the geometry of these building equipment publications. The man's face seems to have been blacked out in the original. I kept it that way because I think it gives the sprayer the look of a construction worker in an outer space suit (except for the fedora), like the space station workers in the movies Outland and Alien.

Southern Pine, Swamp Cypress, and German Confessional
From Southern Cypress Manufacturers Assoc., The manufacture and uses of cypress by Hermann Von Schrenk, approx. 1926; Southern Pine Association, Painting and finishing of southern yellow pine, specification and design information and data for the use of architects and engineers, 1926; and Karl Revetzlow, Der Priester und die Frau im Beichtstuhl, 1939.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1; Link2; and Link3 to originals
Sometimes I think I'm a tree-worshipping Druid. Here's some images from two 80-year-old lumber trade publications, one on the swamp tree called Southern Cypress and the other on the evergreen Southern Pine. In the upper-right is a picture of a stand of cypress trees. The picture below shows the Cornell University stadium, with seats made of Tidewater Cypress. The combined image sits on a wood sample of pine treated with silver-grey stain. The small image in the lower left is from a wholly different -- and rather unpleasant -- source, a Nazi-era German-language book, something about a relationship between a woman and a priest. The image shows the priest's confessional. The original shows a priest talking to a sobbing woman in that confessional. I don't read German so I don't know what's going on. Instead of the priest and woman, I have placed a rotated sample of the southern pine sample.

...Speaking of Wood...
See long display on various wood types ("Rare and Fancy Woods in Natural Colors") on my page of Public Domain Restorations.

Three Women: Dido, Salaambo, Ozma
From L. Frank Baum, Ozma of Oz, 1907; and Habib Boulares, Histoire de la Tunisie, 2011

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
Three black-haired beauties. Far right, Ozma, an Oz resident who befriends Dorothy in L.Frank Baum's Oz series. This is from an illustration by Philadelphia illustrator John R. Neill. To the left of Ozma, an 1896 Alphonse Mucha print of the character Salaambo who appears in Gustave Flaubert's Salammbo, a historical novel based on an incident during the Punic Wars. To Salaambo's left is Dido of Roman legend, lover of Aeneas, as portrayed in 1530 by Leonard Limosin. These last two were reproduced in Boulares' interesting book (in French) on the history of Tunisia, recently uploaded to the Open Source collection of the Internat Archive.

English Seapower Rampant
From Ian Buxton, Warship Building and Repair During the Second World War, 1998; and Max Wundt, Die deutsche Schulphilosophie im Zeitalter der Aufklarung, 1945.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
A shipbuilding scene from a book on World War II, showing the battleship Duke of York ready to be launched from the Clydebank, Scotland shipyard in 1941. The ship went on to sink the German battleship Scharnhorst in an 11-hour running battle. Overlaid on this hectic maritime activity is a stylish decoration (lion rampant, in heraldic terms) from the title page of a German philosophy book. It may have been the logo of publisher Olms, but it is no longer used. Again, the strength of this piece is the shipyard detail, visible best at full size (1427 x 1358 pixels).

Reverie of a Canadian Coed
From University of Western Ontario, Occidentalia, 1949 and 1968

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
The University of Western Ontario (UWO) publishes a student yearbook called Occidentalia. UWO recently uploaded some of those yearbooks to the Internat Archive. Here is a whimsical combination of elements, some from the 1949 edition and some from the 1968 edition. From the 1949 yearbook, the cartoonish panels at top, left and right; they accompanies an article called "Class Prophecy '49." In the center, a photograph of a student relaxing on gym bleachers. Superimposed behind her is a fine photograph of a wintry window -- or is it a painting? -- entitled "Tree: A Psychological Portrait." In technical terms, this is the largest image I've done in this series -- 1815 wide by 3130 pixels. Click on through to that size for the full effect. The University is in London, Ontario, a lovely town I have visited in my youth.

Prisoner of Cthulhu
From B. Flower (ed.), Arena magazine, Vol. 40, 1908; and Pittsburgh Steel Co., "Pittsburgh perfect" steel fence catalog 1904.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
Whimsical fantasy image, featuring a picture of 1908 actress Edith Wynne Matthison. The picture illustrates a theatre review in the early 20th century progressive periodical, The Arena. It is superimposed on (1) a garden fence from a 1904 fencing catalog and (2) characters from the fantasy font called Cthulhu Runes, a 1997 freeware font from now-defunct OMEGA Font Labs. Cthulhu is a fearsome and popular monster from an H.P. Lovecraft story. I am surprised at how "strong" Matthison's image is to override the double overlay of a fence and font.

Archer Gods and Heroes in 600 B.C. -- before the Hunger Games
From Ryan Bonfiglio, Archer Imagery in Zechariah in in Light of Achaemenid Iconography, 2012

(Click on image to enlarge) Link to original
From an article in the Journal of Biblical Literature which looks at images of archers in Cyrus the Great's Achaemenid Empire(or the First Persian Empire) in the Sixth Century B.C.E., interpreted according to a chapter in the Judaeo-Christian bible. I always thought it was spelled Zachariah, but evidently not. I read neither Zechariah nor the article, but I thought the images were well-executed line drawings. They show bow-hunting (not warfare) images, but the archer is sometimes winged and sometimes seems to have a scorpion's tail. The top three pictures are coins. The article was uploaded to the Open Source library of the Internet Archive.
This graphical treatment is an experiment influenced by my Fonts Project. I use Arbuckle Fat type in the background to provide color for a black and white image.

Happy New Year
From Charles Hiatt, Picture Posters, 1896; and American Type Founders, Desk Book of Type Specimens, Borders, Ornaments, Brass Rule and Cuts, 1900.

(Click on image to enlarge) Link1 and Link2 to originals
According to the Social Security Lifespan Calculator, I have about 16.5 years left to live. For my money, that puts me in Bucket List territory. As another page peels from the calendar, I check to make sure I'm doing what I want to be doing -- which, perhaps pathetically, is this.
The newly-uploaded Hiatt Picture Posters book has some marvelous black and white illustrations. This original painting is signed in lower left by someone named Sedgwick -- artist? printer? -- but the poster designer is Walter Crane. The product being advertised is Haus Champagne, from the Champagne-Ardennes region of France. I covered the original lettering and re-did the lettering with Algerian font and an ornament from a 1900 type catalog.

Repository of Previous Work
2012 accumulated works.