Produced by the Exhibit Supply Company in 1935, these postcard-sized fortune predictors were dispensed at fairgrounds from arcade machines for a small sum. I hope they were intended to be comical or interpreted comically like the Chinese fortune cookie fortunes of today. Heck of a way to anticipate how your children might be.
Here are some more links to images of things that prove our modern faith in astrology and "mediums" is not a new thing:
A local friend and architect, Romano Adolini, has a passion for all types of caves. In his design process his love of cave-like homes shines through. Weekends he often takes long hikes along our region's rivers. For millenia, these rivers carved pathways between steep tufa cliffs, and a regular intervals along the cliffs there were caves. These caves served the ancient Faliscans as burial spaces, centuries of shepherds as shelters, and even as temporary wartime homes for local families during WWII.
The caves of Northern Lazio are as much a part of the local landscape as cave-dwellings were in Matera where significant investment has fashioned a chic and popular hotel among the formerly-ruined dwellings there. This current speculative project grew out of his love for cave structures and out of his desire to see environments like this abandoned quarry find new life. Often such sites become garbage dumps and eyesores as they return to their wild state and are abandoned for new sources of stone to extract.
Here is Romano's own description of this fanciful architectural project:
Project: NEW CLIFFSIDE RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX
Place: ABANDONED STONE QUARRY in Civita Castellana
Year: 2013
Designer: architect Romano Adolini in collaboration with architect Chiara Ercolini
"A new residential complex, carved into the vertical face of an abandoned tufa stone quarry in Civita Castellana, near Viterbo, is located in a landscape characterized by steep natural gorges, where there are extensive remains of both religious and residential ancient cave structures and settlements.
A settlement for "cosmic era cavemen" as expressed by the author Ermanno Rea, whose purpose is to reinstate the cave as an archetypal dwelling that has cultural and anthropological significance in the relationship between man and nature.
This scheme is a modern reinterpretation of a manner of living and behaving which responds to the need to distance oneself from outside, a new dimension of hidden isolation, of seeking silence and meditation. It is also a new solution to the rehabilitation of quarry sites, currently abandoned and forgotten industrial by-products, located in wonderful landscapes and destined otherwise to become illegal dumping grounds.
It represents an intervention in the negative, of subtraction, the enormous south-facing tufa wall perforated with geometric openings that filter natural light into the large double-height spaces, that are characterized by niches and rooms carved into the rock.
A perimeter body of water reflects the rising walls that still bear the signs of cutting tools used to quarry, accentuating the sense of isolation and defense, equipped with wooden bridges that function as links to a system of stairways, inspired by Piranesi, a passageway of transition between exterior and interior."
The quarry walls in their current state - figures for scale (monumental!)
Current state
The new facade: wall pierced by windows with entry doors at ground level, accessed by footbridges over the reflecting pools in front of them. The reflecting pool is a modern take on the castle moat.
Facade view with section showing double-height spaces behind, and indications of service corridors.
Section of internal space.
Section of interior showing stairways that connect the interior spaces to the entrances, exits and other dwellings.
Here's Romano's site in English: http://www.romano-adolini.it/en/architecture/. He designs public and private buildings and also acts as a "designer for hire" for manufacturers of sanitary wares and stylish high-end bathroom accessories (faucets, flush mechanisms etc).
Local junk shop strikes again - mine for under 3 euros:
The box has definitely seen better days, but the contents were abundant, complete, and very transformable. The set must dae to the 1930s or 40s and no instructions were enclosed. The tiles are cardboard rather than wood or bamboo, and they are of a good size, weight and solidity. The pins were envisioned as the equivalent of military medals for non-military ("ordinary") commemorations - so they are not all practical to wear. Each one was paired with a small card that had been monoprinted or collaged by me in some way. I punched holes in the small display scards to allow the pin-back to sit more comfortably.
I have been applying small images from vintage comic books, antique illustrated dictionaries and encyclopedias, and other ephemera sources and making pins and brooches out of them. Sadly, I will soon have exhausted all of them and new sets are hard to find, and expensive. Needless to say, if you have one I would happily buy it from you at the right price - as long as it's equivalent of what my junk store would charge.
Top left is an original game tile, the others are covered though awaiting a glossy surface treatment and "ribbons".
Who hasn't sat on a plane before take-off making a karmic bargain with some supreme being in exchange for not dying a fiery death? Even atheists indulge in this sort of atavistic behavior. Please please please let me land safely and I'll have a local artist friend paint you a picture to celebrate and give thanks for that miracle. Ex voto paintings are proof that some bad things have been avoided and that people are grateful for them, even if they credit the avoidance of bad things to miraculous intervention.
A few weeks ago a large group of ex voto paintings appeared at my local junk shop. They initially looked pretty convincingly old, or at least vintage. Each had a hand-numbered label affixed to the back on top of 1950s-era Italian newpaper pages that held the small, painted panels firmly in place. They looked good, but I think they are modern fakes. The paintings are all on thin composite board (compensato). The frames are re-used and simple or cobbled together from older things and the paintings are adapted to fit into them as well as possible. However, the hand is assured and the compositions are pleasing. The subjects are wonderful - although I may be reading extreme irony and humor into them that the artist never felt or intended to express. Priced from 30 to 70 euros each I had to make a small selection from the many available. My choices were: passengers saved from a bus that has careened off a road into a ditch; a little girl ("our daughter Gemma") saved from death by electric shock as the result of what appears to be using a live wire as a jump rope as her almost equally shocked family looks on; and a fortune-teller who regrets snookering her credulous customers and is moved to refund their money. Details below. All I can do now is envision truly modern re-imaginings by a skilled painter of motifs and scenarios that might appeal to modern thanksgivers. The only copy of a first novel miraculously salvaged despite hard disk failure. Discovery of young acting genius by Hollywood agent at the child's 3rd grade Christmas pageant. Wedding not ruined by the early arrival of first child but its miraculously quick delivery becomes the centerpiece of the wedding reception as baby arrives during first dance etc etc....
Here's a sociological analysis of similar panels in modern Mexico which is interesting, but misses the irony that appealed to me about these small images.
In my local junk store (I am protecting its name and location to protect my precious resource - out of pure selfishness) I found a freshly arrived bag of books that had not even been priced yet. Bless those folks who only get the bug to dispose of their grown children's school books the week I revisit my favorite junk store. Most people would have thrown these texts away. In thanks, I offer up my good wishes to their previous owner, Marcello: I hope you learned much from them and have put that knowledge to good use since school, if indeed, you still are among us (and I very much hope that you are!). Secondary school always seems much more appealing at a great distance, doesn't it? These Italian workbooks date to 1960 or so.
What gems! The example drawings and diagrams are so lovely and so inspiring. When the weather warms I'll be using them for photocopy lithography and collage.
This small hotel is conveniently located across from to the Magliano Sabina on-ramp from the main A1 highway. They renovated not to long ago and people tell me you can eat pretty well in the newly refurbed restaurant. They don't have a bar, though, so no stopping in for a quick espresso before zipping off to Florence. What you can do, however, is check in for a few blissful hours of afternoon/evening/weekend delight. In case you couldn't tell just by looking at the place, or its location, they put a big old sign at the entrance that informs you that inside it is possible to conduct both business and romance. Or maybe the business of romance.
I am cursed with an inability to resist buying pieces of seemingly irredeemable furniture, as long as they seem like bargains. Re-doing them often appeals to me more in the abstract than in the concrete. The concrete entails groundsheets, painter's tape, sand-paper, primers, brushes, rollers and lashings of elbow grease. An absence of cat hair would also be a bonus. Normally such a project would also require another person to help get me motivated to start or finish the renewal process, as well as to help me move the big lump around during work, and when work is (miraculously) done. My garage, literally one of the dampest places on the planet, is full of junk store side tables, mirrors and brown objects that no one else seems to see potential in.
Inspired by reading Chris' Just a Girl blog about her methods of refinishing similar big brown pieces, I have decided to have a serious go at it myself. While in the U.S. I can find some of the Benjamin Moore Low Lustre Metal and Wood Enamel and a small roller (indispensible for a great finish) to take back to Italy with me.
A few weeks ago I found this sideboard in my local junk store and figured I could chop off its legs and use it as a repository for some of my ephemera collection. I think I have decided that matt black will work well for its intended location. This baby is 96 inches long and about 41 inches tall with its soon-to-be-ex feet. How those two poor guys sweated and grunted delivering it to me at home. If I ever move again, it could literally, with a more sensible top, be fully half of a kitchen.
Is black too much? How would you propose I improve it? Can this sideboad be saved and live a useful life again?
In the winter my apartment is cold, except for one room that is blissfully pellet-stove temperature controlled. The cat loves the one warm room. The cold - not so much. Me neither. My limited table space by the stove means that, in winter, I concentrate almost exclusively on very small-scale paper projects. In my cold studio room my hands and brain freeze up and I lose the will and the ability to hold an exacto blade or do anything much at all.
On a recent walk I found the bedraggled paper packaging from a nasty "befana" doodad, left over from the last day of the endless Christmas season. In Italy the holidays seem to last an entire month. No one really goes back to "work" until mid January. There it was laying on the Ponte Clementino. It had a scallop-edged handle, to allow tiny fingers to grip it more easily before it was ripped, unceremoniously, to shreds to get at the Chinese-made tat inside. Pleasing shape, so I picked it up, took it home, stiffened it with liquid medium, and used it to cut scallop-edged shapes from a mountain of ephemera in my workroom.
A word about picking stuff up off the ground: I come from a long line of proud and shameless garbage-pickers. My mother grew up in the Depression and stopped everywhere to pick up change from the ground. She also picked up discarded furniture, cut logs left by the side of the road, and almost anything else that she came across. We all crouched down in the back seat of the car in shame, or pretended not to know her at all (teenage years), terrified that we'd be seen by classmates in the act of garbage-picking. With age one loses any feeling of shame and develops a sense of wonder about discarded things and an appreciation for what they have endured. Yeah, it's dirty and potentially nasty, but my mother always said that found money was lucky and who can ignore free (if beschmutzed) luck? And a girl naturally needs all the luck she can get as she matures. As I walk my eyes are constantly trained on the ground looking for dog shit, and sometimes I find interesting things that I take home and re-use instead of excrement. Sometimes I even manage not to step in the dog shit. I figure I've found at least twenty dollars or so in cash money, so averaged over all the miles I've walked in that process I guess I have earned about 1/100,000 of a cent per mile or so. But every one of those cents, pence, eurocents, centimes, drachmas was LUCKY! I am perpetually grateful for every single bit of luck.
Back to the collages. Doctors in the family/genes. The diagrams are a bit creepy but so lovingly and carefully executed. One Seattle Library sale yielded a Manual of Operative Surgery from Fort Worden, late 19th century. One of my favorite Christmas present books from my mother was a book entitled Oddities and Curiosities of Medicine. It impressed me for life. Perhaps scarred is a better word? Sadly it has been lost in one of my many moves, but I still seem to come across them regularly and I always love poring over them. So, diagrams were culled, cut, scalloped. Italian 1908 magazine pages (junk shop find in December - wonderful BLUE pages) were also culled and scalloped, etc etc. Lather, rinse, repeat. Exacto knife kept me busy for many happy hours, and all nine seasons of Cold Case on the DVD player and a contented cat kept me company and entertained.
There were enough diagrams for a dozen. Here are a few, and the rest are viewable, if you are so inclined, on my flickr photostream. What do you think? Too gory? Too blue? Too scalloped? Just right?
Contents list: Medical diagrams, commercial paper, monoprinted paper, magazine images 1910-1950s, Italian train record book, found envelope, nautical map, old photographs and photographic postcards, Italian medical textbook, atlas of the ancient world, vintage children's book illustration, Fabriano Rosaspina paper, PVA glue.
Intrigued by this site: http://acollageaday.blogspot.com/, I bought Randel Plowman's Collage Workbook recently. After creating a small stash of roughly 3 x 3 inch backgrounds using black and white ephemera, I decided to try his technique of using color-photocopied images on tracing paper as the foreground subject of a collage. The illustrations and step-by-step instructions made it seem easy to obtain a good result. Using a small, vintage paper pamphlet I found in a junk shop in Amsterdam of cross-stitch subjects, I set out to merge the background and foreground layers using the book's recommended adhesive. The first one was a challenge - the tracing paper curled, buckled and resisted adhering to the background surface despite vigous rubbing with a bone folder. In the end I resorted to a quick application of medium, swift placement of the tracing paper, and a fast pass through my etching press, sandwiched between two layers of wax paper. Only after using the press did I achieve a smooth and regular surface. After 30 repetitions, I think I have it down. What do aspiring followers of Randel do without a press? Am I the only workbooker to have had this experience? Many more images here.