Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Gweek 017 Podcast: David Hahn & another Hokum Scorchers' song



Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps and other neat stuff.
This week, Mark Frauenfelder interviews David Hahn, creator of of the comic book, All Nighter, published by Image Comics. David has also drawn for Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse.
The episode closes with another song by The Hokum Scorchers, a duo consisting of artist Amy Crehore and guitar maker Lou Reimuller. The song is called “I Got Your Ice Cold NuGrape" from 1926. (P.S. Here's the history of the NuGrape Song from a previous blog post!)
Link to Gweek:
GWEEK 017

High Fashion Ukulele Gals

Photo of the Day- Gals with banjoleles.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Chikanobu's Woodblock Prints (1838-1912)




CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGES
I've been meaning to blog about the artist Yoshu Chikanobu (a.k.a.Toyohara Chikanobu or Hashimoto Naoyoshi or Yoshu Naoyoshi) for some time. I currently have a calendar with his work on my wall from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Pomegranate). During the Meiji Era (1868-1912), Chikanobu depicted the changing fashions of the day with his colorful woodblock prints. He drew beautiful, complex scenes  featuring patterned clothing (plaids!) and exquisite color combinations. His work documented changing seasons, times of day, events, family life and fashions (showing western influence) with a clean, elegant, simple line.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Photo of the Day - Ukulele Girl 1918

 (click to enlarge)
This photo reminds me of the imaginary girls that I have painted, but it's the first time that I have ever seen it. The image is of a beautiful nude girl in an arm chair with her ukulele - taken by Albert Arthur Allen taken in 1918. 
Read about this California photographer on Retrorambling 
and here's a link to more photos.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Bob Dylan's "Opium" Painting

Top photograph (an autochrome) was taken by Leon Busy around 1915 in French Indochina. Bottom image is a painting called "Opium" by Bob Dylan (2010) from the Gagosian Gallery website
Looks like Bob Dylan used the Leon Busy photo as a reference for his painting.
 From Sept. 20, 2011 - Oct. 22, 2011, Bob Dylan will be showing his paintings, "The Asia Series", at Gagosian Gallery's Madison Ave. location. 
Bob Dylan had a show of 40 paintings just last year at the National Gallery of Denmark called "The Brazil Series".

You can see more photos like the one above on Steven Martin's Opium Museum website. Steven has a book out called the Art of Opium Antiques. He is also working on a memoir about collecting opium-smoking paraphernalia, to be published in 2012 by Villard, an imprint of Random House. Thanks go to Steven for finding the Leon Busy photo posted above.