when bakers made art...

i've been collecting catalogs from the museum of contemporary crafts' exhibitions of the 60's and 70's for awhile. the books are always nicely designed and the exhibitions are all over the place - including histories and contemporary works related to bags, enamel, pottery, paper, as well as experiments in "contemplation environments" and decorated blue jeans. i recently came across this one - cookies and breads / the baker's art, featuring an array of breads and bread sculpture from all over the world.

the catalog gives some history of bread sculpture in various religious and folk cultures, as well as offering images of contemporary works by children and "artists". the sixties seemed to be a good time for folk art to enter into a relationship with the artworld and contemporary design. many of the images here certainly reference the interests of herman miller textile designer alexander girard - not to mention a resemblance to the wonky plaster food sculpture of claes oldenburg. like most kids of the 70's, i remember making bread sculpture in school.

the images from the top down are as follows:

book cover featuring sculpture of candy and gingerbread by ilse johnson,
victorian house by marion buckley - hussian school of art philadelphia,
mexican bread dolls for all soul's day,
egyptian coptic bread seal of clay used to sanctify ritual bread,
sicilian bread sculpture by salvatore purpura,
ukranian easter paska of bread dough decorated with icing and candy,
spettkaka swedish holiday cake, cretan wedding bread,
pressed cookies by the class of karl schmid - school of applied arts zurich,
bird of baker's dough by christopher johnson age 8.

not immune to colors...

a series of photos of the top scientists studying the immune system circa 1968 from an issue of life magazine. what is stunning of course, are the strange and wonderful backgrounds. created by an anonymous artist, the paper cut outs are certainly in line with the illustration and design of the era, clearly related to the work of textile designer alexander girard and designer on disneyland's "it's a small world" mary blair. it's amazing how forty years later, much of these backgrounds resemble a lot of what's going on in contemporary painting.

when treehouses become cages...

when i first started buying photos, i looked at the subject and the overall mood, but i generally paid little attention to the background. the nice thing was that once i got home i would discover other things, incidentally or accidentally captured in the background... a street sign, a ghost image, a person, an object, etc.

nowadays, i usually scour the background of images pretty thoroughly at first approach, because there's always a chance i'll discover something more interesting than the central subject...

the above is a pretty nice picture of a band, probably from around 1890. the band and the instruments are great, but i was struck much more by the treehouse in the background. the form reminds me of german expressionist architects' drawings, and the forms of bruno taut. the two triangle forms, forming a square seem right out of alexander girard's vocabulary. the repeated curved elements of bent wood, just totally amazing and evoking that great painting by manet (even though manet's balcony railing forms are totally different)... this is folk art at its highest outsider homespun form.

if you look at the detail, you can see a little child hiding within what now becomes a cage (in a strange connection, in manet's balconly painting there is a little dog hiding in one corner). the deep dark serious eyes have the child looking very much like he was transported here from a 70's italian horror film (or perhaps as the reincarnated anger of manet's little dog). the blurred edges of the blankets make them seem like animal skins, and the atmosphere evokes a kind of tribal poetic darkness... is the youngster the king or the captured.

if one looks again at the band, you begin to wonder about the expressions on their faces. they don't look as happy as they did before you noticed the kid... in fact they look downright uncomfortable and slightly unsure...

for me, it's the beauty of not knowing the truths in these photos, that allows me to engage with them in so many different ways. in many cases their truths are, of course, unknown to me; and similarly, their subjects have no personal connection to my own family history. there is no baggage from overwhelming memories of a subject, so it is possible to enter an image from so many different vantage points - not only through eyes, but emotionally as well as the thinking mind.

the unintentional emptiness of specific known histories, allows them to exist as pure images, leaving the determination of life stories, value, and meanings to be brought to the table by any viewer. each captured single moment of stillness contains a wealth of possible narratives (both leading up to their moment of capture, as well as what might have come after), and allows one to continually be immersed in these tiny pictured worlds.