Monday, March 7, 2011

Plate 37


I am obsessed with phrenology images and have a collection of dozens of engravings from antique magazines, dictionaries, anatomy texts and encyclopedias. I found the detailed head above in the Peoples Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (Hunt & Eaton, 1881) and cleaned it up to make an image I could transfer for this quirky, pseudo-scientific piece.

It's part of the long-format series mentioned last week and which I hope to get back to soon. It's a mix of materials from a vintage postcard back and an almanac calendar to notations scrawled on a book binding to the engineering plate the collage gets its title from. The complex transfer turned out so well that I'm tempted to hang it in the studio to remind me they can work, which hasn't been my experience with the last few I have tried. 4.5" x 11.5" on canvas {SOLD)