Flash Gordon and Atlas Rocket Chalk

I've been working on this one since the beginning of February. After seeing a painting by Teresa N. Fischer in late February I altered the layout a bit and included the box of Rocket Chalk. Matter of fact, you might want to look at some of the rest of her work because I'm thoroughly hooked on her approach to vintage toys in a big way.

I learned a lot about including something other that a fruit jar, although I'm still stuck on glass. I'm going to tackle some old paper in the coming months as I prepare for a one-man show in Eastern Montana because the focus of that show is OLD PAPER, and specifically it will include some pieces from the area. For now, I'm satisfied with the way this one turned out, and I'm back to working on First Day Covers for a while.

Western Heritage Artists Show

  

The Western Heritage Art Show begins on Wednesday, March 16th at the Holiday Inn in Great Falls, Montana. It's only my second year as a member, but it's the 30th Anniversary for this show, and I'm honored to be the Featured Artist this year. Hope Good, our Advertising Chairperson has put together a fantastic program again for us this year, and the first image above is of the centerfold page.

I met Christy Daniels at the Blackfoot Valley Art Auction in 2009, and we participated in our very first Quick Finish at that event. You have to see her sculpture to believe how well she captures her vision in three dimensions.  I shared a page in the program last year with her, and I think it brought us good luck.  At least I came out a winner, and it was primarily due to two images - my lobby piece which caught the attention of art fans as soon as they walked into the Holiday Inn, and the major piece in my little quarter page in the program was sold as soon as I hung it on the wall.

I'm hoping for the same results this year. The second image above is of my piece for the lobby show.   The title is "He's A Pinned Ball Wizard". I wish I could have displayed a bit more white space in the online image, but the fact of the matter is - the image just barely fit on my large flat bed scanner. The jar came from my mother in law, as did the antique wooden clothes pins. It's the largest piece that I've done in at least thirty years. I'm so happy with the results, I've decided to start tackling some larger pieces to augment my Old Paper habit.

The Ball jar in the ad above will be hanging in the same spot that the ad piece hung in last year. And just in case you can't read the room number in the program above, my wife and I will be in Room 219  just to your left at the top of  the stairs above the lobby. We met a lot of old friends and made a lot of new ones last year, and you can view a lot of good art (besides my own) in the process if you stop by this year. We also are going to participate in a new event this year called the Paint Around, which happens Friday Evening poolside at the Holiday Inn, beginning at 7:00 PM.  I'm not going to reveal what I'm doing for that event, but I am doing another piece of mail art for the Quick Finish on Thursday, since my piece last year was a real hit. We hope to see you there!   

Marianne's Putnam Lightning

This billhead was purchased on eBay at auction on September 26th. Someone else besides me wanted it, so although they attempted to Snipe it once I had put in a bid, I went back and bumped my maximum bid up to what I thought would be adequate to cover any snipes. Although I have all kinds of paper waiting in my binder to be worked on, I knew I was going to put a fruit jar on it as soon as I saw this piece of paper come up for auction.

From the Pick Your Own website, "In 1882, Henry William Putnam of Bennington, Vermont, invented a fruit jar that used a glass lid and a metal clamp to hold the lid in place. These "Lightning jars" became popular because no metal (which could rust, breaking the seal or contaminating the food) contacted the food and the metal clamps made the lids themselves easier to seal and remove (hence the "Lightning" name) . There were many similar glass lid and wire-clamp jars produced for home canning all the way into the 1960s. Many can still be seen in garage sales, flea markets and on specialty food jars today."

Marianne Dow, a wonderful cyberfriend, has posted at least one article about my glass images, and fruit jars in particular, as the webmaster for the Findlay Antique Bottle Club, in Findlay, Ohio. When I visited Larry Munson of Devon, Montana, over a year ago I took no photographs of Putnam jars. Consequently when it came time to come up with photographs that I could use for reference and as a model, I asked Marianne if she would help me out. And she did - in a very big way.

I think this Lightning fruit jar is my best glass image yet. I would have liked to have portrayed one of the oddly colored Lightning jars as they can be found in a wonderful array of colors, but trying to put yellow or amber glass on a piece of blue paper would have required a lot of preparation work on a piece of paper that I felt needed to be kept the way it came to me. Marianne had a large Putnam Lightning jar in Cornflower Blue, so I chose to use that color as the base color for my jar.

So Marianne, I gave you a Ball jar in July of last year, so this time Lightning strikes for the first time. I hope it strikes again in the future! It's headed to the framers to be matted and framed and put behind archival glass as soon as I'm through posting this article.

Buried Treasure 2010 - The "Kilner" Jar

Seth Apter of The Altered Page is once again hosting a revisit of ancient posts - by invitation!

I've only been blogging for a little over a year and a half, but I had to look back and find one that I thought would be worthy of sharing. This one is particularly pleasing to me because it opened the door for me for some wide-spread interest in old paper - the way I like it.

The piece of Old Paper Art I'm sharing this time I actually covered in three separate posts, and I'm including the text from the finished product - but for the mat and frame. I sold this piece as soon as I hung it at the Western Heritage Art Show in March of this year. It had hung in a local gallery (where I had it matted and framed), but it didn't sell. I think it's a matter of exposure, really. The more people see how unique the art is, the more people are intrigued by what I've done with it. Unlike collage art or 'ledger' art, mine has to have something to do with the paper itself. These pieces of true ephemera are a tiny snapshot of business as it used to be. Business owners hired excellent artists to portray to the buying public the best image they could, for if the print advertising and packaging did not sell the product, it usually did not sell.

I like using original art work for most of my old paper as often as possible, but oftentimes I have to resort to utilizing the old advertising or packaging art. I particularly enjoy using glass as the subject for a couple of really good reasons: It is transparent. If it is colored glass, it tends to glow and reflect light, as well as project it. Because it is transparent the text can be seen through the image of the glass, which gives the impression to the viewer that the glass is 'in front' of the text, hence I've killed two birds with one stone without breaking the glass!

I also include a short narrative with each piece that I complete, giving viewers a word snapshot of why I chose it, and the history of the company and subject if possible.

In an earlier post here (Kilner paper) and HERE, I gave you a glimpse at what’s involved in getting my art onto a piece of old paper, and it always starts with – the paper. I purchased this piece on eBay from a gentleman named Tom Caniff after finding out that although there were no glass fruit jars listed as line items on this billhead, the primary business of the Kilner Brothers was to make jars for the preservation of food of one kind or another. Mr. Caniff also sent me a picture of a Kilner jar, but it was simply not detailed enough to use as a model.

The company had been doing business since 1857, and a Kilner (John) was making glass storage containers beginning in the year 1792. When John died in 1857, his sons took over the business. They continued to make glass containers until at least the turn of the century when many small glass firms were merged to create the United Glass Bottle company and the patents held by the Kilners were purchased.

With the help of a long time collector of canning jars, Larry Munson of Devon, Montana, I was able to portray the “Kilner” jar they produced. My last Paper Treasure Hunt and Photo Expedition involved a trip to Larry's for an afternoon of filling my camera with photos of over seventy varieties of fruit jars including the photo I took of the Kilner jar in the previous post that I used as a model for this piece.

Everlasting - In A Jar

I discovered that if I post an image that I get a much better feel for how the piece is going to look, and so I put this one up for my own perusal on Saturday. Not a lot of history to relate because I haven't completed the research on the Illinois Pacific Glass Company, but I know they made some fabulous canning jars, and this is one of them. I took photographs of two Everlasting jars while I was at Larry Munson's home, and this one appealed to me for some obvious reasons. The other smooth sided jar had many more bubbles in the glass, but this many-sided piece was simply more appealing to me. I have two more pieces of this letterhead, and I'll do the other as well.

The “Kilner” Jar

In an earlier post here (Kilner paper) and HERE, I gave you a glimpse at what’s involved in getting my art onto a piece of old paper, and it always starts with – the paper. I purchased this piece on eBay from a gentleman named Tom Caniff after finding out that although there were no glass fruit jars listed as line items on this billhead, the primary business of the Kilner Brothers was to make jars for the preservation of food of one kind or another. Mr. Caniff also sent me a picture of a Kilner jar, but it was simply not detailed enough to use as a model.

The company had been doing business since 1857, and a Kilner (John) was making glass storage containers beginning in the year 1792. When John died in 1857, his sons took over the business. They continued to make glass containers until at least the turn of the century when many small glass firms were merged to create the United Glass Bottle company and the patents held by the Kilners were purchased.

With the help of a long time collector of canning jars, Larry Munson of Devon, Montana, I was able to portray the “Kilner” jar they produced. My last Paper Treasure Hunt and Photo Expedition involved a trip to Larry's for an afternoon of filling my camera with photos of over seventy varieties of fruit jars including the photo I took of the Kilner jar in the previous post that I used as a model for this piece.

Kilner Paper – Part 2

Several weeks ago, I added a post of a blank piece of paper and explained why it was appealing enough to me to purchase it on eBay. There were several issues to overcome however in order to get my art on it: I had to find a photograph of a Kilner jar. The seller had provided me with one that was at least an example of what the jar looked like, but it wasn’t detailed enough to really make a good model. I contacted a fellow from my hometown whom I just recently discovered collects fruit jars, and he agreed to let me take pictures of all the fruit jars that he has in his collection. I made arrangements to make the drive (200 miles), and spent the better part of a day filling my camera card with some really nice glass. Remind me to take more than one card on my next visit.

Now you get to see where I’m at in the process. It may be a couple more days before it’s done, but I’ve included the photograph I’ve been using as a model and what it looks like right now. You can go HERE to see what the Kilner paper looked like before I touched a pencil to it.

OH YES! And I won’t pass up the chance to introduce a new friend. I met a lady sculptor (and her husband and son) in Lincoln, Montana, this past weekend. Her web site really doesn’t do her art the justice it deserves, but Christy Daniels art really blew me away. If you’ve seen the movie Dances With Wolves in a theater, you know what Lt. Dunbar heard when the migrating herd of buffalo woke him in the middle of the night. Check out ”Thunderheads” in her gallery to see what that looked like.

Kilner Paper

Seth at The Altered Page, alerted me this AM via his own post that this is Inspiration Wednesday. I had no idea. I thought to mark the occasion, I'd post an image of a piece of paper that I just acquired to put my art work on, and let you see what kind of raw material I look for.

The clue on this piece is not what's on it for line items, but what isn't.

So - that's what inspired me and caused me to purchase it on eBay.

Marianne, This Ball Is For You

On the third of July, Marianne Dow wrote a very nice post on the Findlay Antique Bottle Club Blog about my art work, and my fascination with glass. In particular, what she pointed out were the various pieces I've done this year on old paper. Although this piece isn't very old, only having been done in 1999, I thought that since it hasn't been seen but by those who collect my First Day Covers, I'd post this one and talk a little about the glass itself.

The stamp issue was called Art Glass, picturing four different types of collectible Glass. My mother-in-law was born and raised on a homestead South of Havre, Montana, and her mother canned fruit and vegetables to tide them over the winter months. Among those jars were Atlas and Ball jars, some with rubber rings and bales, but the colored Ball jars were my favorites. As I do with all of the pieces of art that I do, I had to give it a title. A Ball jar is not exactly Art, but to me it was beautiful - and utilitarian, so I titled it Working Glass. I've a few photographs of paintings that I've done which I may post here, but for now - you get to look at a Ball jar - on an envelope!

Amethyst Economy

This is a piece of paper that I found on eBay - and had to have. After watching two particular collectible categories, letterhead and billhead for two months, I finally saw this piece and could not resist. Even without the addition of my art work, this piece of paper is fascinating. The vignette which is an integral part of the letterhead depicts five women in various stages of the canning process - and includes a disembodied right hand placing a peach in a canning jar.

For those who don't know, I have a fascination with GLASS, and over the years have portrayed glass in graphite, pen & ink, acrylic, oil, watercolor and colored pencil. Looking at a piece of glass that has some color already in it is like holding a slide up to the light - your eye perceives true color without the distraction of other colors.

Kerr glass canning jars are primarily clear, unlike other glass canning jars, such as Ball, that come in a variety of colors. With the help of a long time collector of canning jars, Larry Munson of Devon, Montana, I was able to portray the only colored glass jar that Kerr produced, and I believe they produced it by accident. My gain!

What's A Drey Mason Jar?

I don't know an awful lot about Drey Mason Jars. When I bought this piece of paper a month ago, I looked at the long list of items purchased, saw the words "Drey Mason Jars", and decided to do a bit of research before putting any images on this paper. I'm glad that I did. A fellow by the name of Leo Drey (he pronounced it DRY) was the president of the Schram Manufacturing Company between the years 1908 and 1920, the year that he died. Schram Manufacturing was bought out by the Ball Brothers in 1925. There is a great deal of confusing information about the relationship between these two companies, but when I finally found a picture of a square Drey Mason jar, I knew what I was going to put on this old paper!