Tonight's the night ...

Final Open Studios of the year 6-9 pm tonight at Brazee Street Studios. I will swing my doors open at 5 pm. Have rehung art, restocked cards, and added some holiday goodies. Hope to see you there (1st floor, right across from the gallery, which, by the way, has three pieces by me in the "Multiplicity" exhibit)

The elf - that would be me - is hard at work

Scenes from the studio in recent weeks, as holiday production geared up ...

It might look like a mess to you, but I call it production!
Various greeting cards fresh off the printer, waiting to be
gathered up, cut, folded, packaged and labeled. Newest
Christmas one - Season's Greetings from Cincinnati - at bottom. 

My first attempt at glass ornaments. My studio home
- Brazee Street Studios - houses a glass school.
On Monday, all Brazee artists were invited to try their hand
at making a trio of ornaments. Different shapes were available
but I stuck with circles. These are pretty rudimentary, but I
enjoyed making them under the guidance of Leah Busch,
who has to be the MOST patient woman in the universe.

My studio tree. It's a work in progress,
and is hung with collages - tags,
ornaments, etc. - that are for sale.
I stuck my glass ornaments on it, too,

Collage tags featuring vintage Santa images
from my Santa card collection (yes, I have one).
Most have been sold, or are for sale at
Nvision in Northside. Hope to whip up more
when I hit the studio today. 

The holiday Tinys - my new line of
petite gift enclosure cards. This side
of the rack is all Santa, but there
are plenty of other designs,
including non-holiday
(see earlier post). 

Santa's on his way ...

It's no secret that I'm smitten with Santa. He's appearing on all manner of paper goods from stamped gift tags - using my favorite image - and collaged tags to collages and prints.

I'm just finishing new Santa collages for this weekend's Showcase of Arts at the Woman's Art Club of Cincinnati (10-4 Saturday Dec. 7, noon-4 Sunday Dec. 8 rain, sleet, ice or snow … so they say).

Here's a peek at them … the first three are on 6"x 6" hardwood panels, and are ready to hang with a hanger on the back. They're sealed, and the sides are varnished. The second three are on covered book board - 4" x 7.75" - and hang from vintage seam binding threaded through the grommets at the top of each.

Hope to see you this weekend, but, please, be careful out there ...

The art of thanksgiving

Front and back of a Prang Thanksgiving card.

Over the years, hundreds of antique Thanksgiving postcards and greeting cards have been added to my collection. They tend to fall along the line of turkeys, pilgrims, children and turkeys, the fall harvest, and fields of plenty. Some are humorous, some are serious, and some are just downright weird.

Among them, are five that are my absolute favorites. They were published by Louis Prang & Co., of Boston. Prang is a name familiar to artists, and especially art teachers, to this day via the company's art supplies. But in the 19th century. Prang - a German immigrant whose father was a printer - made his name as a publisher of stunningly beautiful color lithographs.

He started out printing small replicas of well-known paintings, then, launched an art magazine. After a trip to Germany to catch up on the latest printing techniques, he began printing cards specifically for scrapbookers.

In 1874, he started selling Christmas cards in America, a year after launching them in England. Prang died in 1909, about a decade after his company merged with Taber. That company went belly up in the 1930s. But his legacy lives on in his beautiful cards, for which he is given credit as being "the father of the American Christmas card." I feel lucky - and, yes, thankful - to own ANY of his cards.

Here are the other four … note that the grape card is printed with a different greeting. It was common for publishers to recycle images.  These are blank on the back, which means that each was probably glued to a second card - similar to the back one above - with an edging of silk fringe sandwiched between them.

Introducing Tinys: big isn't always better

For the past two months, I've been designing a new line of gift enclosure cards - those petite cards that get tucked into all manner of gifts. I've named them Tinys, and they made a successful debut yesterday at the 19th annual Studio Collection Holiday Sale.

At the moment, there are four styles:
- Christmas Tinys - which introduce beloved images from my collection of antique postcards and greeting cards, as well as a few reproductions of my holiday collages.
- Body Language Tinys - how many people have ever given you a gift enclosure card with an image of a brain on it?
- Childhood Tinys - reproductions of images from antique story books, children's magazines, cards, etc.
- Deja View Tinys - random images that I hoped to use at some time or another, including antique fashion plates.

As with the regular greeting cards, they are blank inside, but there is detailed info on the back about the image source, maybe a little too detailed. Let's just say I got carried away despite the limited space! Here's a look at a few of the cards. The entire line is available at my studio, and a selection will be at Over-the-Rhine's MiCA 12/V later this week.

Adapted from a black-and-white engraving in
the December 1886 issue of Peterson's magazine. ©

Available in the three colors shown above.
The pattern was adapted from a black-and-white engraving
in the February 1899 issue of the Young Ladies' Journal. ©

Reproduction of a collage made with antique an postcard,
engraving, recipe and needlework illustration. ©

Adapted from an illustration in
Les Elegances Parisiennes, circa 1918. ©

   

Phrenology head adapted from an illustration in
The Werner Universal Educator (1901).