:Dept42:: Junk store finds

Junk store finds

03/15/2013

"Mahjongg" tiles to "Ordinary Decorations"

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".

Some more paper jewelry and brooches to explore:

http://blog.paper-source.com/ideas/lovely-paper-jewelry/

http://www.marthastewart.com/856349/handmade-paper-jewelry/@center/381713/handmade-jewelry#237525

http://tiakramerjewelry.com/artwork/1809509_Palpitation_Series_Brooch_I.html

http://blog.paper-source.com/ideas/lovely-paper-jewelry/

http://pinterest.com/search/?q=paper%20jewelry

http://pinterest.com/hiphiphoran/jewelry-brooches-pins/

Posted at 10:05 AM in Images, Junk store finds, Seeing Potential | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: brooch, Chad Valley, mahjongg, medals, paper jewelry, pins, tiles, vintage game pieces

03/13/2013

Ex Voto - thanks for the Miracle! ;-)

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.

Posted at 09:58 AM in Junk store finds | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: accident, electrocution, ex voto, junk, miracle, religious painting

03/12/2013

Industrial Design textbooks - too nice to throw away

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.

Posted at 09:22 AM in Images, Junk store finds | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: 1960s industrial design, design, discarded textbooks, gate design, industrial design, ironwork design, Italian industrial design, junk finds, vintage textbooks, workbook

03/07/2013

Big and Brown

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?

Posted at 09:30 AM in Junk store finds, Seeing Potential | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tags: furniture, junk, refinish, restore furniture

03/01/2013

A collage habit

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.