Blogs

One of Calvin Tompkins' Bachelors has shuffled off stage left. As the New York Times obituary makes clear, Rauschenberg's impact on the Visual and Performing Arts is pretty much incalculable.

I can't remember when I didn't know of Rauschenberg's work, having probably been exposed to a few pieces in my teens on a weekend getaway to the Art Institute of Chicago, but one of my favorite experiences that encompasses Rauschenberg and his cadre of New York pals was seeing the Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform at Lincoln Center in 1999. There in one place--literally and figuratively--were Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, David Tudor, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Morton Feldman, Bob Rauschenberg and, as something of a weird bonus Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gavin Bryars and Jim O'Rourke.

The Library for Performing Arts actually has a DVD of one night that I attended in addition to other videos and printed material relating to Rauschenberg's work with the MCDC as well as his experiments in Performance Art. In addition, the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs has a plethora of material outlining Rauschenberg's entire career.

Goodbye 20th century!

I’m going on hiatus again, and my destination is True West.

I’ll be traveling to Mesa Verde Country, in what’s known geographically as the Four Corners (where AZ, UT, CO, NM meet). After some short walks in Utah national parks, and visits to some still active Indian trading posts, my goal is an American Indian Arts fair, located right in Mesa Verde National Park on Memorial Day weekend.

I’ll be visiting Park City, Utah, and Durango, Colorado, during my vacation. Both towns are noted for attracting a more fashionable class of tourist. When I return, I’ll report on what the well-dressed locals and tourists are wearing these days.

On a beautiful spring night last week picture story teller Ben Katchor came to Mid-Manhattan to do a reading of his work. I had asked Ben Katchor to come do a program almost a year ago and through many correspondences and date changes Wednesday, May 7th finally arrived. To be honest, I discovered Ben Katchor a few months before I had invited him to speak at the library. In a conversation with a friend, his name was mentioned as someone I should come to know. Ben Katchor I learned is a comic strip creator unlike any before.

His comic strips reveal the absurdity of everyday life. He presents wonderfully drawn scenes, using characters who are quintessentially human. The characters, sometimes subtle and sometimes not, always pack an ironic punch. Katchor has the uncanny ability to show the funny side of the ordinary, the mundane and the pedestrian. His work focuses on the parts the rest of us don’t think about until we happen to read one of his comic strips. The obvious we take for granted is the palette Ben works from. This is where the beauty of Ben Katchor’s work lies. I admire and enjoy his intuitive understanding of what can be funny… for Ben Katchor it is anything.

Ben Katchor has been making comics strips for years and his work has been in many publications, currently his work can be found in Metropolis Magazine. He has published a number of books and written operas. He is constantly working. I was a bit nervous about meeting him because of his stature. He was the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship Award, a 500,000 dollar Genius Grant, an award aimed at gifted and largely unrecognized talents. Ben Katchor is a big name and I was enormously proud when he came to Mid-Manhattan to do a reading.

At 6:15 PM the room was filling nicely. I stood at my usual spot in the hallway, greeting the people as they arrived. Ben came into the hallway at one point and we chatted briefly. I discovered he was pleasantly warm and easy to talk to. He expressed pleasure and appreciation of the people arriving. At 6:35 PM my programming director, Debbie Hirsch, suggested we begin. I ushered Ben into the room. I told him I would introduce him and then he could begin. At 6:40 PM I stood at the podium and read my introduction. I then turned the stage over to Ben Kacthor and the lights went dark.

Ben Katchor’s work is wonderful on paper. However Ben’s reading of his panels, displayed huge on a screen is truly special. Frame after frame in beautiful colors appeared in front of us. The written narrative normally seen in his comic strips was hidden from view. Ben read the narratives aloud, in the most calm and understated manner, he then punctuated the narrative with the animated voices of the characters. The audience responded with appreciative laughter throughout the program. 70 people attended a most enjoyable and intimate event.

Picture Story: The Call of the Wall by Ben Katchor

Links to articles on Ben Katchor: Bomb Magazine, Identity Theory

Have you lived in New York City long enough to remember when it used to be dangerous? Even the Worst Case Scenario Handbook:Travel has a section on how to handle riding the subway here! While this city is now arguably a safe place to live it certainly has a history marked with violence.

Take riots for example. New York City has had many of them; in fact the anniversary of a bloody and misguided riot is upon us. On May 10, 1849 violence erupted, due not to a draft, or a food shortage, or low wages. The Astor Place Riot ensued over a petty dispute between two actors, Edwin Forest, an American and William Macready, an Englishman. The deeper issue, however, was one of nationalism and classism as expressed in this surviving broadside. You can read a very dramatic account of the riot and the events leading to it in The Great Riots of New York City, by J.T. Headley. The event was so dramatic that it actually inspired Richard Nelson's play Two Shakespearean Actors.

Can you think of a present day equivalent to the Astor Place Riot? The closest I came was a fight between the Blue Man Group of Berlin and the one working at Astor Theater over which city has the hippest art scene. But that wouldn't be dangerous, that would just be bizarre.

While men show a more unified presence in their two-and-three-piece suits, augmented by the ubiquitous power necktie, women have an interesting range of options for garments. Yet it hasn’t gone unnoticed that Hilary Clinton, while on the campaign trail, wears trousers as much or more than skirts. Nor does she don many dresses.

Personal appearance is a key factor in any campaign for elected office. Since fashion, however, is often a window into a person’s psyche, a look at Clinton’s, Obama’s, and McCain’s dress sense is justifiably revealing. Their political advisors (as well as spouses) have weighed in on their clothing. At present, McCain is running third in the sartorial sweepstakes, but he may have no problem with that. The last Republication to look really good in a suit was Ronald Reagan. Want more perspectives on the quiet competition between the sexes? Search in CATNYP under the heading Fashion—Psychological aspects.

Mark your calendars for May's round of classes! (Image from NYPL Digital Gallery)

I was just browsing the Library's May events schedule and am happy to report that Library branches across the city will be offering lots of craft classes for a variety of ages this month. Search the calendar for these keywords--knitting, needlecraft, craft, origami, jewelry, crochet--and you'll find knitting circles, children's needlecraft lessons, my own HandMade Then and Now, origami classes, jewelry making instruction, and more. So come to the Library and join our community of handmakers.

The Punch and Judy Show, which has become the Democratic Party’s campaign for presidential nominee, calls for analysis of every last detail. So why not fashion? At this point in time, Hilary wins hands down for her versatile wardrobe effects. Her pastel pantsuits have grown stronger in color, embracing cobalt, coral, rust, turquoise, and ever-cheery yellow. Her matching costume jewelry choices are truly awesome to me, and she drapes a truly elegant scarf round her throat when she wishes.

Gender studies related to clothing first appeared in full force in the 1970s. One of the best, however, is a Smithsonian Institution Press study from 1989, Men and women: dressing the part. Will this year’s presidential election be about two men in suits slugging it out, or be a true battle of the sexes?

Quakers gather to quilt. (Image from NYPL Digital Gallery)

While standing in line waiting for the doors to open for the Craftacular last Sunday morning, I overheard this snippet of conversation:

Lady A: Where are ---? Weren't they coming?
Lady B: They're at church. They'll come here after and meet us.
Lady A: Church? This IS my church!

And Lady A has, indeed, hit upon a truth. Creative acts have a role in spirituality that goes far beyond singing in church choirs. Anyone who knows of the meditative nature of knitting, or the way that focusing one's physical and mental energies on a single creative process can bring calm, will perhaps agree with Lady A.

In his book All In Sync: How Music and Art Are Revitalizing American Religion (available at NYPL's Humanities & Social Sciences Library), scholar Robert Wuthnow reports on how creating something--be it music, painting, sculpture, knitting, and more--is a spiritually soothing and community-building act. His work was striking to me because it reveals the great variety of ways that art and craft find homes in religious traditions and spirituality in this country today.

But the theme of spirituality-meets-craft isn't found just in Shaker communities or within the programming of traditional religions. The Church of Craft places the creative act center stage. I attended my first Church of Craft event as part of a DIY Salon night at the Museum of Arts and Design earlier this spring. The evening featured crafters from the New York Church of Craft who led us through lessons in the art of shrinky sheets, embroidery, button making, and more. The Church of Craft encourages people to gather and share the creative process within a community of individuals who value the spiritual elements of the handmade. There are pockets of Church of Craft all over, and the community is welcoming. They will surely welcome you too. They regularly announce their meetings in the Nonsense NYC mailing list, and you can subscribe here.

Programming is great. Not only do I get to select the programs I present, I am then rewarded 10 fold by attending interesting and entertaining programs and I get paid for it! What could be better? About a year ago I happened to be reading Christopher Gray’s Streetscapes column in the Real Estate Section of the Sunday New York Times. It is the first column I read in the Sunday paper. Generally the focus of the Streetscapes column is a building. However on Sunday, April 29, 2007 Christopher Gray did something quite different. On that day the Streetscapes column was devoted to a man, Paul Shaw. Mr. Shaw is a designer and design historian, specializing in architectural lettering.

The subject of the article was completely new to me and I found it fascinating, exciting even. In the article Christopher Gray went on a walking tour with Paul Shaw whose focus was on letters: letters on buildings, in the subway and on monuments, letters which appear everywhere in the city. After reading the article I had experienced a visual revelation, allowing me to see beyond my pedestrian eyes. I found myself looking anew at buildings, monuments and signs that before I would glance over.

I knew Paul Shaw would present a wonderful program and decided to invite him to come speak at the library. I contacted Christopher Gray and inquired about Mr. Shaw. Christopher confirmed my thoughts about Paul Shaw and happily provided me with contact information. After receiving Mr. Shaw’s email address I wrote a lengthy email to him, introducing myself and what I do, followed by a polite request for him to come speak at the library. My wishes were granted with a response of “yes, I’d be happy to speak at the library!”

Months went by and then came the creation of the promotional materials for the program. There was further correspondence between Paul and I about content and title of the program. Initially there was some confusion between Paul and I about what the title should be for the program. Paul’s title was, how should I say, not the most exciting it should be to attract an audience. Paul’s title seemed geared to a specific audience, with perhaps more expertise in the field of typographic design, definitely not appropriate for a general audience. We went back and forth on this discussion for a few more emails till Paul understood what I had been politely trying to tell him. We want people to come to the program, not avoid it. “Oh” he said. “You want something more jazzy sounding.” “Yep, exactly!” I said. The next title fell right into the perfect range of jazzy/sexy. Then came the wrangling with the look of the flyer. Naturally Paul wanted to see everything and I was happy to oblige. He is a designer and I was told by my supervisors to expect it. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be problematic. We create an effective, nice looking flyer, with an already established template. It was initially created with lots of input from present and former employees. Hence we produce a solid looking flyer. Many of our patrons have told me how handsome the flyers look and I take this as a good sign. Paul made some comments and some changes and I tried to appease his requests. Finally we came to an agreement on an appropriate flyer that he could be happy with. Phew!

The night of the event we got our biggest crowd ever, 135 attended. And Paul Shaw did not disappoint. If ever there was a blockbuster program, this was it! Paul worked hard on his presentation, you could tell. He had us on the edge of our seats. He presented a program in three parts: letters in the subways, letters on apartment buildings and finally letters on department stores (Paul Shaw counts Lord & Taylor as a former client). Interesting stories, as well as a bit of design theory and history melded into a fascinating and visually exhilarating experience. It's all in a letter, I just never knew how much. Paul Shaw will be coming back in the fall to do another program. I hope you can attend!

Generally in the same subject area, I have included a review of Helvetica, Gary Hustwit’s 2007 documentary that uses the legendary typeface to weave a broader story about typography, graphic design and visual culture in the last half-century.

If you like Japanese anime and manga you should see the new © Murakami exhibition (April 5-July 13, 2008) at the Brooklyn Museum. This is the first major retrospective on the works of Japanese artist/designer Takashi Murakami, who is known as the Warhol of Japan. It focuses on his work from 1991-2000, “when the artist began exploring his own reality through an investigation of branding and identity." From "© MURAKAMI: Brooklyn Museum Photo Gallery”
The colors are vibrant and his creations are fun, but nonetheless the show has been receiving some mixed criticisms. In the article “Popping Up In Brooklyn” by Lance Esplund (NY Sun, April 3, 2008) states the following:
“An unflinching and unapologetic, nearly 20,000-square-foot celebration of the lowbrow horrors and banalities of commercialism, materialism, fashion, and pop culture… nothing more than a marketing machine for the dissemination and blatant merchandising of a brand…”
In doing a basic search online for the exhibit, one gets bombarded with the fact that within the show is “a fully operational Louis Vuitton shop selling some of Mr. Murakami’s designs”. The entire exhibit does have a sense of commercialism, but that is the intent of the artist. “Mr. Murakami says his product designs are simply an extension of his art“ and the shop “is the heart of the exhibition”. From “Watch Out, Warhol, Here’s Japanese Shock Pop” by Carol Vogel (NY Times, April 2, 2008)
This is an interesting show to see and as an added bonus you can still catch the Cherry Blossoms in bloom behind the building at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (April 5th – May 11th).

Get the boys “out of the trenches by Christmas!
Thus began the Ford Peace Expedition of 1915, an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to convince warring European parties to make peace. The brains behind the project, short, stocky, bespeckled pacifist Rosika Schwimmer convinced automaker Henry Ford to finance the venture. Together, they chartered a ship—the Oscar II—and enticed a number of intellectuals, social and political luminaries, students, journalists, three small children, and one stowaway to join them on their voyage across the Atlantic.

The inspiration for the journey did not appear entirely out of the blue: Madame Schwimmer had met with diplomats from several of the warring countries earlier in the year, securing signed documents agreeing to consider a neutrally-brokered peace. She kept these letters safely tucked into her small leather purse, producing them when she met with President Woodrow Wilson and argued for an American role in peaceful intervention. His lingering isolationist tendencies forced her to search elsewhere.

And search she did, eventually landing upon Henry Ford, who agreed to lend his considerable wealth towards her goal. Once committed to the endeavor, Ford called a press conference at which he declaimed the famous phrase above, setting in motion the exciting preparations about a month before the actual launch date of December 4. On the 4th, the ship was seen off from the Hoboken port by a cheering crowd, including William Jennings Bryan and Thomas Edison.

Francis Bacon had a studio showroom in South Kensington that was reproduced in a 1930 issue of The Studio. He was one of three designers profiled for “The 1930 Look in British Decoration,” and his interior is sparsely geometric and modern, not the lavish French Art Deco style, but much more Breuer and Bauhaus. I asked Mark Stevens for some clarification about the motives behind Bacon’s visual leanings.

PAB: Does it make sense to you that he artistically gravitated toward the more austere modernistic aspect of the period?

MS: I think his desire was to find what was most radical or “advanced” in the period. A pared-down style probably seemed more challenging than more lush style did. Pared-down furniture was also probably easier – and less expensive – to make.

PAB: What about those white rubber curtains?

MS: Texture and touch was important to him from the first. Later, he would become a master of the flesh, with a truly tactile sense of the body. He often wore a leather jacket.

PAB: Certainly the early 1930s were a time of economic struggle in Britain, and by 1932-3, Bacon was moving away from design and into painting. Do you think that once he became acclaimed as a painter, he found his old work in the decorative arts to be an embarrassment?

MS: English society was not particularly interested in advanced continental design, and Bacon’s business was probably not very successful. Most of his customers were friends. For example, the Australian novelist Patrick White bought a desk. But I think Bacon, in his twenties, simply became more and more interested in painting as he grew older. He was already painting as a teenager in the late 1920s.

PAB: In interview after interview when he was older, Bacon consistently belittled his youthful experience as a designer. Why did he do this?

MS: Many artists like to imagine that they spring fully-formed into the world. They do not enjoy acknowledging that they were ever confused or uncertain.

PAB: The 1920s was the age when modernity shone with such new promise. Do you think this affected Bacon, even though his time as a designer was short?

MS: I doubt Bacon was ever very optimistic about the promise of modernity or that he took seriously the utopian aspirations of modernist design. But he remained interested until the end of his life in creating an environment that represents more than just a fashionable interior and, instead, embodies a powerful worldview. Today he is celebrated for establishing what may be the most chaotic and messy space ever inhabited by a sane artist. In fact, after his death, the artist’s studio – litter and all -- was placed on public view in Dublin. I’m sure that Bacon, who had an appealing sense of humor, occasionally smiled at the contrast between his mature working space and the clean, honed clarity of his youth.

While riding the subway over the past weeks I couldn’t help but notice the posters promoting the month of May as the month of the bike. Since 1990, May has been officially designated as Bike Month NYC, celebrating cyclists, bicycles and generally, all things bike, by sponsoring bike tours, rallys, and other events. Every May I see thousands of bicyclists pedaling through my neighborhood in the Five-Boro Bike Tour (which sold out rapidly this year) and every year I’m pleasantly surprised by the sheer number of people involved. New York City has had a long relationship with the bike. Admittedly it’s been a bumpy road, but really it was love at first sight, though perhaps infatuation might be a better term.

Way back in 1868, New Yorkers were swept up in a craze over the fore-runner to the modern bicycle, the velocipede. Developed in France, the two-wheeled velocipede made its way across the Atlantic to the United States in the 1860s and was taken up by middle-class New Yorkers as a novelty. However, within a few years a full-fledged velocipede-mania developed, eventually dying down in the early 1870s. In 1868 and 1869 alone, nearly a dozen riding schools and tracks opened up across Manhattan and Brooklyn and a number of velocipede manufacturers set up shop in the city as well, fueled by the high demand for more and better versions of the velocipede. Newspapers and periodicals of the day were constantly commenting upon the craze and the effect it had on city life, particularly in the streets and parks. The consequences of the introduction of the velocipede in New York City were many, ranging from discussion of the need for new laws to regulate traffic to debate over the propriety of women riding velocipedes. A nice little article from the New York Times describing the intensity of excitement over the velocipede can be read here

The New York Public Library, of course, has tons of material on the history and development of the bicycle. There are books on the velocipede as it was in the mid-nineteenth century such as, The Velocipede: Its Past, Present and Future, published in 1869, as well as more recent takes on the history of the bicycle like Herlihy’s Bicycle: the History. However, as I enjoy reading contemporary accounts of events I went to our historical newspaper and periodical databases to get some first hand takes on the mania that swept New York and the rest of the country. A good database to start with is the ProQuest Historical Database which provides access to historical runs of major U.S. newspaper and over a 1,000 periodicals. But there are many more electronic resources available, like Harper’s Weekly and America’s Historical Newspapers , both of which provide tons of material on 19th century America.
Another source to keep in mind, especially when researching a machine such as the velocipede, which was constantly being improved upon, is Google’s Patents Search. While periodicals in the 19th century, such as Scientific American, frequently updated readers on new patents and other technological advancements they don’t show readers the patent in all of its glory. My favorite thus far is the Land & Water Velocipede of 1869; but really any patent search for “Improved Velocipede” yields testimony to the endless inventiveness of Americans.

Happy Bike Month!

Bacon (1909-1992) is known for being a self-taught “force” in modern figurative painting. His subjects often provoke unease in viewers for their gritty, fleshy looks at the human figure laid bare psychologically. Therefore, I was greatly intrigued when I learned that Bacon could be counted among those fine artists (like Raoul Dufy) who had early stints as designers during the Art Deco years.

I turned to Cullman Center scholar Mark Stevens, who is currently at work, with Annalyn Swan, on a definitive Bacon biography, to give me some insight into what effect those years might have had on Bacon.

PAB: Bacon spent most of 1927 in Paris, where he was exposed to the height of Art Deco artistic energy. When he returned to London, he started up as a furniture and rug designer. Do you think his experiences in Paris led to this development?

MS: Before Bacon went to Paris, he spent time in radical Berlin. There he would have seen the most advanced furniture and rug design, and he also came to know elegant and raffish people interested in whatever was new. In Paris, he discovered Picasso.

PAB: One of my reference books up at the Art Desk says that Bacon considered his furniture designs to be “extremely bad copies of Le Corbusier.” Other books, however, state that his furniture and rug designs were actually quite good.

MS: I wouldn’t call them either extremely bad or extremely good. Remember, he was barely twenty years old. He had no formal schooling in art or design. When considered in that light, his work is remarkably precocious. Historically, however, it just amounts to an interesting example of period design. His pieces have flair, but are not especially original.

PAB: Bacon himself called his designs unoriginal and heavily influenced by contemporary French design. However, doesn’t his work seem to reflect a variety of influences from the period, including English and German modern trends?

MS: I’m not an expert in the design of that period – yet! -- but, yes, he seems to draw upon a variety of sources. Creating a pastiche is what most young artists do.

PAB: Did his early work with interiors help him with his later paintings?

MS: In his paintings, Bacon often sets his figures in an abstract geometric space that may well recall his immersion in the edgy designs of the twenties and thirties. The furniture in some paintings is also reminiscent of his early designs.

My father moved into my Brooklyn home about 10 years ago when my mother died, and thus began my career as his personal librarian. When he first moved to Brooklyn, I showed him how to use the bus system so he could travel to and from the Brooklyn Central Library. I gave him a simplified explanation of the Dewey system; telling him what I tell everyone who comes to the reference desk, “think of the number as the address where the subject or book lives on the shelf.” I knew my father’s reading preferences very well and it was with assurance that I sent him to the 940’s to find exactly what he would like. For the most part he took care of his reading material himself, with his weekly jaunts to the library. I would pepper his selections with other books I thought he might enjoy from the collections at Mid-Manhattan. Favorites in the category were Samuel Pepys: The Unequaled Self by Claire Tomalin , Sweet and Low: A Family Story by Rich Cohen, Wild Swans:Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, The Color of Love: A Mother’s Choice in the Jim Crow South by Gene Cheek and much more. His reading was varied, but mainly it was WWII history he loved and always non-fiction. While at my house he watched no TV. My father just read for his entertainment. As far as I could tell he loved it.

A year and half ago my father became quite ill. I had noticed he did not seem himself so I forced him to go the doctor. I was informed that my father was very sick with congestive heart failure, a common affliction of the elderly. He was so sick there was cause for concern whether he would even live. For 10 days I maintained a presence at the hospital. I sadly watched him turn old right before my eyes. I brought him books while at the hospital but they remained unread. I surmised he was distracted by his plight. Naturally he became depressed. Life was now different and he would have to adjust, or not. The trips to the library would now become memories. Within a matter of days his world became miniscule to what it had been. Miles of travel would now be reduced to blocks, if he was lucky. There was nothing neither he nor I could do; this was life, cruel and ironic.

Once home my father tried to manage a hefty depression. He now had to get used to a new self and that new self would be drastically different from a few weeks before. I brought him books, foolishly thinking reading would be a welcome distraction. How wrong I was. The books gathered dust and their beckoning was left unanswered. I finally broke down and bought him a TV and had cable installed. My kids were thrilled and my father became a zombie in front of the blue screen. He watched for hours and would sleep and then watch more. It broke my heart. He seemed unable to focus on a book. Outwardly he seemed fine, but to me he had become a mere shadow of himself. He no longer seemed an active participant in life, but rather a passive ride taker. I became resigned to my new father and just tried to make him comfortable.

There came a time recently when I brought home two books, the book I was reading A Death in the Family by James Agee and Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides the book I planned to start reading afterwards. My father is Greek and our family is from Detroit so I made a point of showing him Middlesex because of the Greek author and the Detroit setting for his book.

My father in his old age has developed a keen interest in everything Greek. I thought the Eugenides book would interest him, if not to read then to simply marvel at the author’s heritage. To my surprise it was the Agee book that caught his interest. He said about the Agee book, “I always wanted to read this book.” With that, I said “here pops, take it, you read it.” That was months ago and my father has been reading fiction every since. Perhaps by reading fiction my father has been able to recapture a part of life that he has lost in his own life. Author Paul Theroux once said “fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.” I bring him mysteries like: Georges Simenon, Henning Mankell, Elmore Leonard and other works of fiction from Ian McEwan to Somerset Maugham and many more. I am happy to be of service to my father for as long as it lasts. I am also so thankful to be working at Mid-Manhattan, with such an incredible collection of fiction to choose from.

Yes, a slice of pie will sustain him nicely during his upcoming shopping and socializing at the Spring Fling! (Image from NYPL Digital Gallery.)

Come one, come all, to the latest addition to the city's calendar of craft events: the Bust Magazine Spring Fling Craftacular! It's this Sunday, April 27th, from 11:00am to 9:00pm at The Warsaw (261 Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg). The event promises photobooth fun, handmade crafts aplenty, food and drink, and dance as well.

This event is organized by Bust, a mag that has long encouraged its readers' latent crafty and DIY tendencies with regular features on making great stuff. Its latest issue (available at the Library in Room 108, the DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room), includes a sweater pattern, a tutorial on making your own flocked wallpaper, and details on how to subscribe to the Pie of the Month Club (created by an artist and pie lover who designs and sends out recipe cards each month). Really, what's not to like about pie recipes delivered to your mailbox?

The Library has years and years of back issues of Bust, so come in anytime to take a trip down alternative women's magazine memory lane.

The Library is home to the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. Every year, a new group comes in with fascinating projects, and work extensively with the Research Library’s collections. This year, we were privileged to have well-known art critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Mark Stevens as a fellow. Mark, who has written about Willem De Kooning, is working on a biography of the famous twentieth century English painter Francis Bacon.

During my research into the Art Deco years, I ran across the fact that Bacon was a furniture and rug designer from 1929 to 1933, and had been influenced by travel to Berlin (1926) and Paris (1927). He lived and breathed the artistic atmosphere of that fascinating era, only to break off his design work and turn to figurative oil painting fulltime. Knowing that Mark has been working away downstairs, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to question him about Bacon’s early years. The next several posts, on April 29 and May 1, brief interviews with Mark Stevens, will recount what I learned from him.

For the past few months I have been working with a collection of photographs of various locations in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century. The collection will be available on our wonderful digital gallery in the future and I’m looking forward to seeing these images uploaded – some of them are really amazing.

I wrote a while ago about Hilah Paulmier and of the trail of documents that led me to verifying her identity. Recently I discovered another photographer who sparked my interest: William M. Van Der Weyde who captured the above image which is part of the Photographic Views of New York City Collection. While working on the images from the rest of New York I found some amazing photographs from Camp Black, a recruitment center for the Spanish-American War, also by Van Der Weyde. I will write again when these are available digitally.

Interested to find any published biographical information on him, I checked the catalog and various other biographical databases only to discover he isn’t a subject heading (though he is an author). After some research I found the 1910 and 1920 census records which list Van Der Weyde as a photographer married to a Katherine, who is also listed as a photographer (I wonder where her photographs are…). He was born South America, his father was Dutch and his mother was a New Yorker. How curious! Well, I found another Van Der Weyde in the process, Pieter Henry Van Der Weyde, a New Yorker and renaissance man of sorts (read his obituary to see what I mean) for whom we have a collection of papers. The collection guide mentioned correspondences with Pieter’s children, one of whom is John Van Der Weyde, a photographer living in Uruguay – ah-ha! While there is so much more I could explore I have to learn where to draw the line. It’s hard though, I still find myself wondering about the mysterious Algot Lange.

What happens to fashion when the global economy becomes strained? The answer isn’t clear, by any means, but there are hints from past circumstances. Generally, clothing stays conservative, or doesn’t vary from the ideas seen in the last pre-troubled seasonal lineup. I’d made some New Year’s predictions which seem to be falling short of expectations. Baby doll styles, shrunken jackets, and giddy colors can still be seen for sale en masse. The only thing I predicted that seems to be turning out as I’d hoped is a steady drumbeat for ecologically-minded, or green, fashion.

Which brings me to the 1930s, a time when economic bad news was pervasive. Ironically, some of the clothing to come out of that decade proved to be stylish, and came to be labeled as “classical.” Men’s suits, for example, received accolades for being glamorous: well cut, smart lapels, and textural dash. This had everything to do with the fact that Hollywood and its talkies had a great impact on popular culture of that period. Movie stars are still considered fashion icons. Financial recession these days, however, will mean that innovation is stifled. Lack of cash will force designers and companies to sit on big changes in garments. Look for classical to have a strong run this year…

From Shôchan no bôken, published in 1923. (Image from NYPL Digital Gallery.)

This weekend I attended New York Comic Con, an intense gathering of lovers of comics, gaming, and costumes. I went dressed as a librarian, in search of information on libraries' role in collecting, preserving, and making comics available to readers. Thanks to some great panels, I came away informed. And --no surprise here--I also came away inspired by the enthusiasm of readers and fans for this definition-defying genre.

In addition to wanting to learn about the role of comics in libraries, I was also on the hunt for publications that might combine comics and crafts. My favorite find is a series of books created by the team Aranzi Aronzo. From The Cute Book to The Bad Book, each of their books contains stories featuring a cast of quirky creatures, along with detailed patterns and directions on how to make your own little stuffed sewn versions of these strange characters. Brilliant!

Originally published in Japanese and now made available in English editions by Vertical, Inc., Aranzi Aronzo books are in dozens of NYPL branch libraries. So check them out (they are listed in LEO) and get started making your own handmade versions of the good, the bad, and the cute. If you are a fan of other comics-meets-crafts books, let me know your favorites!