Kam Wah Chung & Co.

photo from Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Park

Kam Wah Chung & Co., general store and herbal apothecary, is

an historic landmark located in John Day, OR that was

built by Ing "Doc" Hay and Lung On in the late 1800s

when thousands of Chinese miners came to the Oregon desert to

search for gold. There is a beautiful OPB video that shows the preserved contents of the store.

It is an amazing place to visit. I was reminded of it when a friend

showed me his pictures of a recent visit there.

You can find a lot more information and video here:

OPB

50 minute tube dress #2

50 minute tube dress #2
Originally uploaded by letslookupandsmile

From Life Magazine,
Feb 17, 1947

"The Laughter Makers"

"The Laughter Makers"
Originally uploaded by lovedaylemon

I can't help but blog
lovedaylemon's found images
(flickr).

Early Color Film Test for Kodachrome (1922)

via boingboing

The Beauty of Letterpress (New Print by Amy Crehore)

Click to enlarge

Shygals' Serenade 3-color letterpress print by Amy Crehore

I took a photo from the side just to show you the beauty of a letterpress print. The ink is pressed into the paper causing a deep impression. Please click on the photo to see what I'm talking about. I made an ink drawing with a fine brush first and then I used acetate to make overlays for each color (also using brush and ink). This is the old-fashioned way of doing it, so the result looks somewhat like an old children's book illustration. I used motifs from my paintings of gals and monkeys. I added a flyswatter and a ukulele for fun. I hand-lettered Shygals' Serenade with my own made-up typeface.

I want to thank a number of wonderful blogs for taking an interest in this print:

BoingBoing, Format, HeyStuff!, Internet Weekly, Inside The Rock Poster Frame, OrangeCulture, Creep Machine, The Little Chimp Society,

Ukulelia, Illustration Mundo

The Art of Amy Crehore

New Cloudy Collection Prints Released

NEW! The theme is: “Bunches, Crowds, Clusters, Piles, and Knots”.

What is it? A set of seven letterpress prints on 4″x6″ white bamboo paper with art by Frank Chimero (shown above) Maura Cluthe, Eleanor Davis, Matt Forsythe, Julia Sonmi Heglund, David Huyck, and Vincent Mathy

Get yours at:

CLOUDY COLLECTION

P.S. I had the honor of being in the very first Cloudy Collection Edition.

The Art of Amy Crehore

Check out My new letterpress print Shygals' Serenade , too.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Surreal Portraits

Vertumnus, 1590, oil on canvas by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

The Librarian, 1566, oil on canvas by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (one of my favorite museums) is having a show of 16 Giuseppe Arcimboldo portrait paintings. It opens on Sunday, September 19, 2010 and runs through January 9, 2011.

The show will travel to Milan, Italy after that. Guiseppe was born in Milan in 1527 and died there in 1593. "His portraits of human heads made up of vegetables, fruits, sea creatures and tree roots were greatly admired by his contemporaries and remain a source of fascination today" LINK.

These paintings are timeless. They are inventive, surreal, modern, masterfully painted and full of humor. Watch a video narrated by Isabella Rossellini on the National Gallery website.

On view together for the first time in the USA:

The National Gallery of Art

The Art of Amy Crehore