October 2017 | Salem House Press

Ellen Raskin: Illustrator of the Week

October 30, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

Little Nobody

Sometimes I think she is the little nobody. Several times I have looked up the illustrator of my favorite book as a child Moose, Goose, and Little Nobody. What kept me from finding anything at first I thought it was Moose, Goose, and the Little House… which they are looking for Little Nobody in his gable. I am glad to see she did several books. Thanks to the site listed below I can now go off and find the rest of her books. It has a complete list of her picture books and chapter books. It is the best bio I found on her yet.

Below are some examples of her work:

For More Info:
https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/authors/raskin/bib.htm

Cheers,
Chris

Joe Petagno: Illustrator of the Week

October 30, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

Iron Horse We Ride…

To honor the passing of “Lemmy” Ian Kilminster we look at the art of Joe Petagno who created Snaggletooth. He also helped design several Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd covers.

Petagno was born in Portland, Maine and left the United States in 1972. He worked with Hipgnosis before meeting Lemmy in 1975. He designed “War-Pig” (aka Snaggletooth, The Iron Boar, The Bastard, or Little Bastard) for the band’s Motorhead album and has continued to design the majority of the album and single sleeve covers for the band. Petagno refers to Motorhead’s mascot as The Bastard (or Little Bastard). Joe Petagno came up with the concept after studying skulls of wild boars, gorillas, and dogs.

For more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Petagno

Cheers,
Chris

Cool Places in America~ Dixie Square Mall and the Blues Brothers

October 29, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

Here is a tale from a few years ago before this building got torn down. I always loved the Blues Brothers. It was my father’s favorite too. So I was overjoyed when my parents got a contract to work in Harvey, Illinois. Well not at first…then they told me the mall in which the famous chase scene in the mall which started with a Kermit the Frog was in that town. It became cooler. Then my father asked if I wanted to go urban exploring into this dead mall, Harvey got way cooler!!!

Dixie Square Shopping Center was an enclosed shopping mall located in Harvey, Illinois, United States, at the junction of 151st Street and the Dixie Highway. It stood vacant for over 30 years, more than twice as long as it was in business. It was famous for having been used, both inside and out, for the mall chase scene in the movie The Blues Brothers. More recently, it achieved notoriety because of a growing Internet cult following (including local urban exploration groups) dedicated to covering the mall’s deteriorating condition. Like other “dead malls“, it had been characterized by high vacancy rates and low patronage, which led to its closure. However, while other dead malls were redeveloped or demolished, Dixie Square stood out due to its extensive neglect, vandalism damage, and sordid history.

~Tyler

To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler’s latest book “Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida” on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises…

Cool Places in America~ The Musical Road

October 26, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

Hello again. I know you probably think I have lived everywhere in America by now, but the truth is that there is still a good 14% I have not been in yet… Thanks to my contract working software engineer parents.

In Lancaster, California in 2008, the Honda Motor Co. approached civic officials and asked them to turn one of their roads into a marketing campaign. They wanted to cut grooves into a road that would would play the William Tell Overture once driven over at 55 mph. They did and it drove the neighbors crazy with people coming from all over to hear it and hear it again. Then they moved it out by the airport in a remote section of town. Why did they not think about that in the first place…

I always like the William Tell Overture. I have to admit I heard it first on Bugs Bunny, and then the Lone Ranger. Not the original, but he 1980’s Saturday afternoon cartoon and live action versions on YouTube. I still have not gotten to the original black and White. By the way Tonto means ignorant in Apache I think, and Kemosabe is more of a South American native word for ‘doesn’t know any better.’ One of my favorite collections of short stories is by Sherman Alexie called Tonto and the Lone Ranger Fist Fight in Heaven.

One of my other favorite things is the musical stairs in Boston at the Science Museum. I love playing on that!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCvpregdcC0?feature=player_embedded]

~Tyler

Cool Places in America~ McDonald Observatory

October 26, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

Its your favorite child travel adviser, Tyler, once again bringing you the best in last minute vacations. Your road trip planner for the weekend getaway to the coolest and strangest places in America. How do I know about them all? My parents are contract workers in the software industry and keep moving the family every 6 months….

Near Fort Davis is this mountain which is 7,000 feet above sea level and 150 miles from any light pollution. My parents had a contract to create software to plot the movement of a certain galaxy back through time. How cool is that they were creating a software program that acted like a time machine!

Well, McDonald Observatory is on top of that mountain. We used to sit outside and have picnics under the stars. Stars, there were millions of them available to the naked eye. I never seen so many stars since Hog Wallow back in the Pine Barrens on that large Cranberry Bog. Then 3 times a week we could look through their largest telescope and the universe opened up to us. It was amazing.

People come up here to have evening talks to astronomers, have dinner under the stars, and well…look at them in all of their grandeur. During their “Star Parties” they let you use their largest telescope. Here is their link for more info.

http://www.mcdonaldobservatory.org

~Tyler

James Bama: Illustrator of the Week

October 23, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

Cowboy, Indians, and a Savage…

James Bama is another artist I had admired throughout the years within the Greenwich Workshop catalogs my mother got over the years in the 80’s and early 90’s. I am always surprised to find one of their artist in another venue. Sometimes their work was starring me in the face on books or movie posters I owned, never knowing they were the same people from the catalog. Speaking of which I do have the Turn Me On Book below…

Bama’s activities during this period were highlighted by artwork for the New York Giants football team, the Baseball and Football Halls of Fame, the U.S. Air Force and The Saturday Evening Post. Fans of pop culture may know him best as the artist who portrayed Doc Savage on sixty-two memorable book covers. Then Bama decided it was finally time to do what he most wanted to do. He moved west to Wyoming, where an artist “can trace the beginnings of Western history; see the oldest weapons, saddles and guns and be close to Indian culture.” He sold his first Western fine art painting soon after the move. The distinctive work of James Bama combines tradition with modern realities. In his much-acclaimed studies, Bama shows the contemporary West preserving its traditional culture. His portraits of inhabitants of the plains and mountains capture the true character of the West. Today the paintings of James Bama are part of many prestigious collections. Bama has been represented in major exhibitions throughout the West and has been presented in one-man shows in New York City. Bantam Books published The Western Art of James Bama in 1975 and The Art of James Bama in 1993. Jim was inducted into the Illustrator’s Hall of Fame June 28, 2000. Through his portraits of real people of the new West re-creating their history and heritage, Bama pays homage to the Old West and is renowned in yet another realm of the art world.

For More Info:

Gallery of Prints for Sale

Profile on Greenwich Workshop

Cheers,
Chris

Cool Places in America~ Las Pozas

October 19, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

Well technically, this place is not in the United States, but it is still in North America. So I guess it still counts… Yep my parents once took a contract outside of the country. My friends on Snapchat thought we were nuts, but my Norwegian relatives go to Mexico all the time. Dumb Americans…

Edward James made his surreal vision of Paradise, right in the heart of Mexico. Located in the North of Mexico City, Las Pozas is a combination of nature and sculpture. From natural pools to small waterfalls and a wide range of trees, flowers and plants decorate this fairy tale-like garden. It looks like if Dali’s Destino was animated in a jungle instead of a desert.

From 1949 to 1984, the art collector and his guide, Plutarco Gastelum, gradually designed the garden. Over 35 years and $5 million Plutarco Gastelum prepared the jungle for the sculptures, James created columns, spiral stairs leading nowhere, doors made of stone, concrete flowers and other unique sculptures.It was paid for by Edward James selling his art collection at a private auction. Even Dali though this guy was nuts, but then look at his museum in St. Petersburg FLA…

A man’s endless passion for surrealism, his imagination and over 150 employees created this wonder of the world. You can find it at Camino Paseo Las Pozas s/n, Barrio La Conchita, 79902 Xilitla, S.L.P., Mexico.

~Tyler

Cool Places in America~ Vollis Simpson’s Whirligig ‘s Wilson North Carolina

October 19, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

I remember watching Vollis make one of his Whirligigs when my parents had a contract with this company in North Carolina. I got to hand him wrenches and even paint an old weather vane he stuck on one.

When Vollis retired at 65, he got bored and started erecting windmills that resembled wind toys on his neighbor’s houses and fences. For the next 30 years he kept building them until he died a few years ago at 94. Now they are moving them from his farm to a dedicated park. He sure was an old wise cracker.

Check them out:
http://www.wilsonwhirligigpark.org/

~Tyler

Dean Morrisey: Illustrator of the Week

October 16, 2017February 14, 2020 adminLeave a comment

I am Back…
Been a while. I just found time to commit to the 6 blogs I have.
Dean Morrisey I first encountered doing puzzles with my mother when I was a kid in the 80’s. In fact that painting of a wizard which the puzzle was based on I got to see while on a Hulton family reunion while in Annapolis at the Green Dragon art gallery.

Then Dean would pop up in my mother’s Greenwich Workshop catalogs with other fine artists. Then I got his Ship of Dreams book many years later and his Christmas Carol. Both are excellent.

Take a look at his art:

For his bio and more of his images check out this link!
Cheers,
Chris

Early Musician

October 16, 2017 adminLeave a comment

Can You Play Jethro Tull…

No. My flute style is influenced by Native American flute, John Cage, and the Japanese styles of Noh and Shakuhachi. I have been playing for 24 years. I started when I was admiring a collection of Herman Hesse books and moved a flute off the shelf. My friend gave me that flute and her Herman Hesse collection.

I started out when I was tiny with the guitar, but I think somehow my parents made it disappear. The drums my uncle gave me vanished even quicker…

My parents did buy me a Casio PT80, I only learned Greensleeves (which sneeks out on the flute at times). Though the only one that stuck was the flute. Well the piano snuck in last year.

Cheers,
Chris