Vintage Cigarette Cards

Girls-with-animals-and-things-on-top-of-their-heads. It's all the rage. I can't count the number of contemporary painters who have followed this fad. Is this where it all started? Here are just a few cigarette cards from the NYPL collection of over 700 hundred series (totaling thousands) from before 1900 to mid-20th century. You won't believe this collection.

NYPL Digital Gallery

The Art of Amy Crehore

Woman with Flowers and more

Woman with Flowers 2009 12" x 9"

acrylic and oil on panel by Tasha Kusama

Project Room: Tasha Kusama"Prismatic"

April 15-May 9, 2009 (opening Wed 7-9pm April 15)

with a Liz McGrath Solo Show, "Shadowless Summer"

at a sweet little gallery on 128 Rivington in NYC:

SLOAN FINE ART

The Art of Amy Crehore

Crehore Tickler Uke #2 Coming...

Here's a glimpse of my design for my fine art Tickler Ukulele #2. As you can see, it is a pineapple shaped uke. I am all finished painting it now, so it is almost there! Built from scratch by a luthier, it has beautiful ivoroid binding around all sides, neck and headstock! Sweet. The top is spruce, the back and sides are mahogany. The neck is carved walnut. The wood is aged to perfection. Gold tuners with amber-colored buttons (I think), mother-of-toilet-seat fingerboard (pearloid), two rings of B&W rossette around sound hole, a thin strip of persimmon down the back of the neck. There is an end graft triangle of B&W ebony with an ivory border, plus an ivory "cloud" inlay on the bottom of the front (made from an old piano key). The bridge is ebony and there is an ebony cap on heel. It won't be long now (I know I promised it over a year ago, but who's counting). It just needs a few finishing touches and then I can photograph it and present it to you. I call it my hybrid Hawaiian/1920's Jazz design - featuring my trademark pierrot and a banana-skirted hula girl. My monkey in a sailor hat makes an appearance on the headstock.

The Art of Amy Crehore

P.S. Look for a spring sale of Tickler uke t-shirts and other prints on my website.

New prints are coming soon.

Jean Dupas (1882-1964)

This is one of my favorite Art Deco works. It was painted by Jean Théodore Dupas (born in 1882 -1964) a French painter, designer, poster artist, and decorator. He won the prix de Rome in 1910. In 1925, he showed this piece, at the Grand Exposition des Art Décoratifs in Paris. It is called "Les Perruches", one of his most famous oils on canvas. It's nice to see the preliminary sketch and a photo of the painting in it's location above a fireplace. Jean Dupas

The Art of Amy Crehore

Salvador Dali on "What's My Line"?

Thanks for the tip, Claudia Drake! :)

MAKE and the Maker Movement on Nightline tonight

If all goes according to plan (and there are no breaking stories to bump it), ABC's Nightline is running a segment tonight on MAKE and the maker movement. They taped a piece with Mark Frauenfelder and Mister Jalopy (Dinosaurs and Robots). There may be scenes from Maker Faire and Make: television as well. 11:35pm

MAKEZINE BLOG

The Cloudy Collection Letterpress Prints Go on Sale at 9am PST, 3/31/2009

My letterpress print (Amy Crehore)

Cloudy Collection, Volume 1, Edition 1 (limited to 100 sets). These beautiful images are pressed into ivory-colored bamboo paper using 100% vegetable-based inks. Printed by Boxcar Press in Syracuse, NY. "Cloudy Characters" art by Meg Hunt, Bill Fick, John Martz, Amy Crehore, Tom Kaczynski, Steven Weissman, and David Huyck. A percentage of the sales of the Cloudy Collection print sets will be donated to The Nature Conservancy. Only $35. with free shipping to the U.S. and Canada. These prints go on sale at 9am PST (noon, Eastern time) March 31, 2009. Brought to you by David Huyck.

THE CLOUDY COLLECTION

The Art of Amy Crehore