WPA Posters

So, I've been feeling particularly nostalgic for my days as a screenprinter. And, as such, have been debating screenprinting my super fancy calendar, even though that would then actually negate the necessity of making the ornate and detailed things that I'm currently indulging. However, as the interest was peaking, I purchased a wonderful history of WPA Posters. These are just a couple (cellophone) highlights, but almost every one featured was fantastic. Sadly, only a couple hundred examples remain of the nearly 35,000 that were originally produced. That, in and of itself, makes me want to make more posters...

Pop-Ups and Paperdolls

I've been escorting my friend Andrew about Seattle and today we visited Allen Library's Special Collections show "A Merry Company." I suggest watching the slideshow at the end of this link (( http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/paper-poetry-the-colorful-world-of-vintage-pop-up-movable-and-toy-books-with-slide-show)) An enormous collection of all types of pop-up books from the last 300 years, it also had a great range of paper dolls. (please excuse that these photos are all shot surreptitiously with my phone) These actually come closest to how I now envision my calendar. I especially like the headless Scotsman. The idea of physically removing myself from the objects also allows me to think about making the props themselves 2 dimensional.

I loved this pop-up anatomy diagram, the "human-o-scope." The body parts are attached to transparent pages, and printed on both sides, so you could remove the structure on one body then replace the structure on the opposing side. This could work wonderfully for actually showing the costumes, perhaps...

I know it's early in the semester, but I'm absolutely overwhelmed by how much work I have to do, and the incredible expenses I can only begin to imagine to carry out the work that interests me. UGH...