Two Finds at the Wayzgoose

I think in all of my past mentions of the Wayzgoose at Hamilton, I may never have said exactly what a wayzgoose is. This time around I noticed there's a broadside posted at the museum that helps me answer that question:

(Click to enlarge for better readability.)

While at this years ’goose I learned a few facts I never knew. One short fact came in a presentation about "strike-on" type. 

Strike-on is any kind of type that involves metal hitting paper to make a positive image that's later pasted up to use in final reproduction (usually in offset lithography). Typewriters are considered strike-on, and in the 20th century there were also fancy typewriters — sometimes called compositors — that had variable-width characters for better spacing than on a typewriter. They could also set justified text:

In the presentation on this topic, I learned something about a famous 1948 newspaper front page:

We all know the headline, but check out the text below the headlines:

Yes, the text in those columns is not typeset with hot metal type, as was the usual practice at the time: it was done with strike-on cold type. I never noticed that!

Another presentation over the weekend covered a topic that was completely new to me: it highlighted the work of illustrator Joseph Low.

Craig Welsh of the Pennsylvania design firm Go Welsh became fascinated with Low's work and began collecting it, such as these inserts from Women's Day magazine, which appeared for years...or decades:

He connected with Low's daughter Damaris and talked with her. He arranged for her to attend the Wayzgoose at Hamilton and they tag-teamed the presentation. It was super-cool.

Clearly, Low was part of what I call cartoon modern. Given the dates of his work (like this New Yorker cover from 1940*), he was one of the earlier influences:

Low's Wikipedia page is barely more than a stub. This 2007 obituary from the Martha's Vineyard newspaper is pretty thorough. The New York Times obit, written by Steven Heller (the writer of all the design history articles, it seems) is paywalled but a friendly reader sent me a gift link (thanks!).

Welsh plans to do something — most likely a book — about Low and his work, in cooperation with Damaris. I look forward to it!

__

* I can't help noticing the visual connection between Low's 1940 New Yorker cover and Virginia Lee Burton's illustrations for the The Little House (published in 1942), especially the rendering of the trees. (Her Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel had come out in 1939.) Art is an environment and they were both in it. 

Finally Appreciating Leo and Diane Dillon

At various times, I've written about the illustrators of children's and young adult or chapter book covers that I love (such as Trina Schart Hyman, Richard Cuffari, Emanuel Schongut, Alan Cober, Virginia Lee Burton, or Ellen Raskin). One influential pair of illustrators I've long known about but never loved quite as much was Leo and Diane Dillon.

It's not that I didn't like their work, but it was almost too ubiquitous from the 1970s on, and some of it I found a bit mushy, maybe too airbrushed for my taste. A lot of it is beautiful, though, and now (searching around as I started to write this post) I found that some of their work I didn't even realize was theirs.

I got started on this because Cory Doctorow tweeted this startling piece of theirs from 1970:

It was used on this cover:

Here are some other cover illustrations from that same early-1970s era, which are not very similar to the works they are mostly known for in the children's book world:

I mostly knew about them back in the 1970s because of their woodcut illustrations on these covers for books by Erik Christian Haugaard:

1963

1965

1968 (I may never forgive the designer of Rider for those typeface and color choices.) 

1971

This cover for a John Christopher novel published in 1963, which I don't think I've ever heard of before, looks like a cross between these two styles: 

It's not a woodcut, though you can see elements of woodcut style in the rendering, but it also shows the beginnings of the expressionist psychedelia so clearly shown in the 1970ish science fiction covers.

Something else I learned today (or had forgotten) was that the Dillons did this original hardcover illustration for Madeleine L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and also did illustrations for reissues of A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door that were published at the same time. (Illustrator trivia: Richard Cuffari did the original cover of Wind, and Ellen Raskin did the original Wrinkle cover.)

I also learned that the Dillons did an Ace paperback cover for Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea that I've never seen before:

Pretty cool.

Five from the Kerlan Collection

I spent a short while a few days ago perusing the exhibit The ABC of It: Why Children's Books Matter at the Andersen Library on the University of Minnesota campus. Mostly it reminded me of all the amazing materials available at the Kerlan Collection, just a few miles from my house, that I will never see. But because of the exhibit, they had a few gems on display.


I never heard of Wanda Gág or her book Millions of Cats until I moved to Minnesota, but unlike many other Minnesota-centric cultural items, this one is worth the adoration. Shown here is Gág's watercolor sketch for the cover (the final art is viewable here). I also was drawn to the ink drawing of a tiny kitty sleeping under the plant.


I'm not sure I knew the Kerlan Collection had anything from Virginia Lee Burton, who I've written about quite a lot in the past. I'm especially fond of her book The Little House, from which they have these watercolor and gouache paintings.


Nine Days to Christmas holds a special place in my childhood. I never saw it in a library or had a copy at home; instead, I read it only when I went to the dentist my family visited until I was about 10 years old. I never new what its name was until I saw it on a list of Caldecott Medal-winners some time after I was an adult. (I learned what a piñata is from this book.)


I loved Garth Williams' illustrations in other books (especially The Whispering Rabbit and Other Stories), but I never heard of the Little Fur Family until Daughter Number Three-Point-One was little and we were given a copy as a gift. This is a first edition with a rabbit fur cover, signed on the title page by both Williams and Margaret Wise Brown, the author.


Vera B. Williams' A Chair for My Mother, published in 1982, was a favorite book when DN3.1 was in elementary school. It was lovely to see this bright watercolor and have it bring back the times we would sit with the story at bed time.

Mary Singleton

Wisconsin is a land of folk art. While traveling through recently, I saw some of the work of Mary Singleton, an Americana painter.


While I can see that Singleton's concepts may be based in a reactionary romanticism, I like the paintings anyway. 










The resemblance to Virginia Lee Burton's work, especially in The Little House, probably explains my interest in this work, though of course Burton's composition and drawing ability shine through.

I can't find any information on Mary Singleton, though the person at the shop in Mauston where I saw these told me she lives in Camp Douglas and is a well-known artist, featured in a particular folk art calendar each year. I can find lots of places where that calendar is for sale, but no one discussing her work and no bio for her.

It's kind of weird, in fact. But, oh, well. Maybe this is a start.

Minnesota State Fair 2017

Today is the last day of the Great Minnesota Get Together, so if you didn't already go, this blog post will have to tide you over until next year. (I feel compelled to throw in the requisite "if we're still here next year with a civilization that can support state fairs.")

First, a few photos of the Great Minnesota Knit Together, which I mentioned last week. As promised, it was arrayed along the giant ramp that leads to the second floor of the Grandstand: 


A buffalo...


...and its scatological butt, complete with rainbow tail and our state flower (the lady slipper) on the side.


There were several horses designed in a carousel format...


...but the humor is in the details. Corndogs with mustard, Sweet Martha's chocolate chip cookies, mini donuts, and a few pieces of fruit. Not sure where those apples came from; maybe they're meant to be eaten by the horse.


A classic State Fair picture.


These little bits of crocheting and knitting were near the sign about the warm "fussies" I mentioned previously.

I enjoyed the knitter-bombing by Knitteapolis and her helpers. It's a welcome addition to the Fair. 

Then it was on to the art show in the Fine Art Building:


This textile piece, Implosion 4 by Beth Barron, is made up of used Band-Aids. Yes, Band-Aids. It's very textural and made me think about how each of those disposable things is a piece of fabric that in some alternate world would not be thrown away.


This sculpture, Man of the World, is by one of the show's jurors, Allen Christian. Check out the piano parts in the torso. They look so odd, but at the same time so much like what could be under our skins.


Kyle Fokken, who made a steampunk dog back in the 2010 show, really appealed to me with The Jack in the Basket (Figurehead Series). This sculptor clearly has a nightmare science fiction imagination.

I didn't spend as much time as usual in the Fine Art building this year, and so not very many pictures to share. There was a lot more good stuff than I'm showing!

Part of the reason I had to run was because I was on a time limit of about four hours total. Hard to cover the Fair's territory in so little time, especially when you have to spend time with the crop art, which was much more crowded than in previous years. Maybe that was because I didn't go to the Horticulture Building early enough in the morning. (Oh, and they do need to organize the line better, too — people were going in two directions past the art and line-cutters seemed to not be aware there was a line at all.)


Amy Saupe paid understated homage to the recent eclipse.


Labor activist and teacher Julie Blaha nailed her message with this simple illustration.


Lindsay Warner's use of repetition and graphic simplicity was appealing. I love the way the lentils continue their arcs as the color changes from quadrant to quadrant.


Marita Stolee's corn roast is so well composed and the color palette is perfect.


Among the political pieces (of which there were many, as usual), I liked Mark Dahlager's the best. It didn't try to do too much.


My favorite portrait was by a beginner named Miriam Black.


Sarah Anderson's dyed material rendering of Gustavus Adolphus college brought to mind the work of Virginia Lee Burton.


Finally, Tony Pfaff gave us all a reminder that the lake previously known as Calhoun is now Bde Maka Ska.

The scarecrow entries are adjacent to the crop art, and many of them were political this year as well. This was by far the best one of those:


Erik Biever went after the "grate" one...


...with his Putin bucket face...


...holding a Trump marionette made of cheese graters.


Nancy Winholtz's scarecrow had a joyous found-object face, no politics necessary.

Outside of the knitting, the art show, and the crop art, I've got just a few more Fair photos:


In the Eco Experience building, a giant Paul Bunyan made of donated clothes swaggered over the displays about reducing and reusing. A few clothing facts I learned:

• Nearly 100 percent of donated textiles get reused or recycled, almost half as wearable clothing, with 20 percent being converted to general reused fiber and 30 percent going to wiping cloths.
• Recycled cloth rags use less water and energy than any alternative.
• Have you ever wondered what happens to that solo stretchy sock you put into the "clean cloth" bag at curbside pickup, or the worn-out teddy bears? They don’t exactly seem like candidates for use as fabrics to me. But the socks end up as pillow stuffing and the teddy bears become car seat stuffing.

Speaking of reusing, I liked this piece called Doing Dress by Erin Lavelle from the Creative Arts building.


And last but not least, what kind of Fair would it be without a photo of someone hauling around a giant, useless stuffed animal or other plush being for the day?

___

My past Minnesota State Fair posts:

• 2016 crop art
• 2015
• 2014
• 2013
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010 part 1 
• 2010 part 2 with art show and crop art 
• 2009 part 1 
• 2009 part 2 with art show and crop art
• 2008