Ray Yoshida’s Museum Of Extraordinary Values by Karen Patterson My rating: 5 of 5 stars I’ve had the privilege of seeing Ray Yoshida’s art collection only twice, the first time in 1994 when I was co-curating a show of bottle-cap art for Chicago’s Intuit. Ray was gracious and loaned some pieces. His collection was spectacular, but tellingly, it did not seem out of the ordinary. If it was finer than many I had seen (my own included), it was not fundamentally different in style and approach. The mix of Maxwell Street flea-market finds with masterpieces is a hallmark of the
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Review: The Family Circus: Daily and Sunday Comics, 1962-63
The Family Circus: Daily and Sunday Comics, 1962-63 by Bil Keane My rating: 5 of 5 stars I liked Peanuts as a kid but I loved Family Circus. Where Charles Schulz used his kids to make universal points, Bil Keane tried to be about real kids and real parents. It was a chronicle of post-war suburban life, and I could relate. It also was probably the greatest source of insight I had into the parental point of view (well, along with Dave Berg’s The Lighter Side comics in Mad Magazine, with had some similarities to Circus in style and point
Continue readingSpam {comment|message|kudos} of the {day|week|month|year}
Every once in a while I take a look in my spam folder and find something really {awesome|amazing|very good|superb|fantastic|excellent|great}. This is one of the better examples — kind of a how-to for composing a spam comment. Really, it’s a template you could apply to writing almost any kind of message. I’m sure “samanthablanchette@—.com” would be happy for {other folks|folks|other people|people} to make use of it. {I have|I’ve} been {surfing|browsing} online more than {three|3|2|4} hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. {It’s|It is} pretty worth enough for me. {In my opinion|Personally|In my view}, if all {webmasters|site owners|website
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Roadside Indiana
A roadside art trip on the gyros trail through northwest Indiana ended in Michigan City. Not so much gyros there, but some fine paintings, including one of the best wall signs I’ve seen, at Up-In-Smoke Rib Shack. Also some lovely constructions by Tim Bruce along the way.
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The Gyros Project
The Gyros Project Rebuilt and Expanded More gyros signs, hundreds of them! Each a bit of vernacular art genius The Gyros Project started as a way of collecting fine examples of Chicago-school hand-painted business advertising. The gyros was a graphically strong object, with lots of sellers all over the city, and typically promoted via one-off signs. Hot dogs, the most commonly advertised product on Chicago streets, were less interesting since they tended to be merchandised via Vienna Beef-supplied printed materials (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it just wasn’t my primary interest). I also had a particular affection for the gyros in
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Lawrence Avenue Vernacular, Again
Lawrence Avenue is a paradise for muffler men and auto parts, not to mention food images. Click here for an earlier installment of the Lawrence Avenue gallery of vernacular art.
Continue readingReview: John Baeder’s Road Well Taken
“John Baeder’s Road Well Taken,” by Jay Williams, Vendome Press, 272 pages, 300 color and b&w illustrations, 2015. 978-0865653191. Hard cover $45 John Baeder is legendary among roadside architecture enthusiasts for Diners,” his book of photorealistic diner paintings that turned out to be one of the most culturally influential publications of the 1970s. Baeder, the subject of a new biography by art historian and curator Jay Williams, appreciated 20th century roadsides and the buildings that populated them before they became old, when they were just ugly rather than a source of popular nostalgia.Widespread fascination with highways like Route 66 and
Continue readingShort Review: Sue Williams
An important book about an important artist. I confess I’m biased, since I collected Sue Williams’ art early in her career. But that art’s development, in its formal variety and conceptual complexity, has demonstrated a deepening of her talent and intelligence. This book is thoroughly illustrated, of course, and the essayists do a creditable job keeping up with the evolution it shows, especially the artist’s shift from explicit messages literally written into the work to an embrace of abstraction that is stylistically powerful and still intellectually challenging. You can find it here on Amazon.
Continue readingThe Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist
A good survey of Daniel Clowes’ career, with plenty of biographical insights. I used to live for the next issue of Eightball. I found his drawing style engaging — not true for me with many comic artists — and his sensibility was exactly on target. The fact that he once drew the House of Boris sign, then a North Side Chicago landmark, sealed the deal. Clowes is near the top of my list of all-time favorite cartoonists, which for the record also includes (not in exact order): Charles Addams R. Crumb Ernie Bushmiller Gary Larson Bill Watterson Roz Chast Chris
Continue readingReview: Martín Ramírez: Framing His Life and Art
Martín Ramírez: Framing His Life and Art by Víctor M. Espinosa My rating: 5 of 5 stars Victor Espinosa’s long-awaited study of Martin Ramirez — for most of his life an unknown inmate of an obscure California asylum but now an art-world star — joins the 5 or 10 most important books yet published on the subject of self-taught and outsider art. (Read my full review). View all my reviews
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