James Ensor

Just thinking about Ensor's work...inspiration

TRANSIT MAPS OF THE WORLD by Mark Ovenden

Every page of Transit Maps of the World can hold past and current rail transit map(s) from every city in the world. The graphic design strikes a chord in my brain: uniform lines and lines and lines and lines....lovely! Through the collective subconscious of memories of differing landscapes, each culture gravitates towards its own aesthetic, which is interesting to see in the design of each map.

London and Toronto's transit maps are imprinted in my mind as familiar, thus comforting. However, they are a deception of the true nature of the rail lines. Topographically, transit maps are distorted: if designed topographically correct, a right mess is created, like spaghetti noodles.

^ After 1975, St. Petersburg

^2007, Toronto

^1977, Moscow

^2007, Moscow

^1916, Paris

^1925, London

^2007, Stuttgart (angled 3-d effect design)

Benjamin Chee Chee

Over the weekend I discovered an artist new to me, his name is Benjamin Chee Chee. His designs are excellent. Chee Chee's control of ink is incredible and I like how he minimizes a subject to linear design. I like his use of colour, space and line.

I was very sad after I read that Chee Chee had committed suicide when he was age 32, in 1977. There is a fine book on Chee Chee which I will pick up at some point.

In addition to admiring Chee Chee's work, while visiting Tofino, Vancouver Island, I went to the Roy Henry Vickers gallery. The building design is incredible and the lighting inside, to show the artist's work, is perfect. His prints are truly amazing; the colour gradation he achieves indicates that he is a very gifted printer and artist.

Paris Exposition 1900

I lifted this from Flickr.com. Originally uploaded by Brooklyn Museum.

Pretty amazing images. Click on the image and take a peek, well worth it.

A tree for "The Knee"

A tree for The Knee.
A tent to go, and the northern hemisphere.
The verse goes as thus:

On earth there roams a lonely knee.
It's just a knee, that's all.
It's not a tent, it's not a tree,
it's just a knee, that's all.

A knee for 'The Knee'

On the way to working on illustrating Morgenstern's charming poems...

This is the decided 'knee', for his poem The Knee.

Daguerre and Dioramas

Although my dioramas tend to be large, thimble sized....

While Daguerre was experimenting with photography, he was the director of the immensely popular Diorama, in Paris. This was the result of a partnership formed between Daguerre and the distinguished artist Charles Bouton. The first Diorama show opened in Paris in July 1822. Daguerre was an expert in lighting and scenic effects. In addition, he was a theatrical scenic painter and stage designer. Bouton, however, was the more accomplished artist. To create a scenic illusion that stood 70 x 45 feet, naturalistic scenes were painted on both sides of a translucent canvas. Bouton would paint one side of the massive canvas and Daguerre the other. By means of a complicated system of lighting, the front painting was illuminated by reflected light, and the rear painting partially revealed by colour lighting. This created a seemingly three-dimensional scene that could ‘imitate aspects of nature as presented to our sight with all the changes brought by time, wind, light and atmosphere’. To display such grand dioramas, a large rotating amphitheatre was built which seated 360 people. The building also required space to hold the various lighting contrivances which sat on many high platforms and sky-lights. In 1830, Bouton withdrew from the partnership; he went to London, and eventually charmed Londoners with the Diorama.

Pence Dreadful

MR. AND MRS. BROOMHEAD

Donald Broomhead
built an impressive shed,
before he wed the young Isabella,
in haste.

Isabella Biggles
couldn’t stop her giggles,
before she married the kindly gentleman,
what a waste.

Six months down the line…

Isabella Broomhead
kept her new husband well fed,
until a helluva flu,
rendered her dead.

Donald Broomhead
feeling like lead, because
he was unfed,
stayed in bed.

Until one day,
he was found dead,
by his puzzled nephew,
Young Ed.