Trick or Treat!

I really love Halloween. The candy, begging, and costumes!

In my lifetime, I have found myself dressed as a Hershey Bar, king sized pillow case dyed brown, a Handy Man, complete with tool box, Gumby, green felt does NOT breathe, a scarecrow, a bat, a flasher, a pirate, a graduate, that was a cheap last minute one! Sadly though, looking through many pictures, none of these costumes have been documented!

What was your favorite costume?

One more and one more day!

And believe it or not, I have plans for one more for the big day!

31,536,000 seconds

That is how many seconds are in a full year. I was going to do the minutes, but then everyone would have thought of Rent, Season's of Love/525,600 minutes. Or I could say I have saved a minimum of 8,760 quarters or $2,190 this past year.

Anyhow, the news is that one year ago today, a mere 31,536,000 seconds ago, I quit smoking. I say HA! to all the nay sayers, of which there were actually few, thanks to that little purple pill! I also had wonderful, generous encouragement from many friends, and even some regular healthy snack deliveries from others to get me through the early days.

More bones

But there will be more pumpkins to come as we enter the Halloween homestretch!

Back in the patch!

Number 2 for the season!

Skeleton-A-Palooza

Every Halloween, the Cramps have a concert. This is a poster for them playing at the Fillmore in San Francisco. The poster was designed by Whit Clifton.

Mr. Death's Ephemeral Pageant

He sings a little song of the womb, it is like the roar of the sea in a shell, 2005
Graphite and colored pencil on handmade paper

Audrey Niffenegegger is an author, The Time Travelers Wife, an artist and a teacher. This is an image from her most recent show. She also has another great book which she wrote and illustrated called The Three Incestrous Sisters.

Flat pennies

These are three flat pennies from the Frazier Arms (arms as in munitions not limbs) Museum in Louisville. I love flat pennies. Who can dispute a genuine souvenir for the total cost of .51¢?

Well there are those that say it is a huge scam. They say that your quarters drop into a collection box in the machine as does the penny your drop in with the intent to be flattened. They say the machine is loaded up with already flattened and imprinted pennies of all the designs the machine has. So it is NOT your penny that actually gets pressed but a ready made one that is simply dispensed.

Even if that is the case, I like to believe otherwise, and that the penny I put in is being pressed as I turn the handle.

The Great Pumpkin

Here is the first pumpkin carving of the season. And knowing my history there are sure to be more!

Horse, bats and booze

Yup, that's Louisville! Had a great time and saw some great work. Strangest thing though. In Louisville, or at least the area around as well, when you see a horse in a logo, it is a logo for a horse, a horse breeder, a horse stable, a horse trainer or something else. But it will directly relate back to a horse. The horse is NOT a metaphor for anything.

One of my favorite and most surprising entries was for a brochure that was basically pimping out Smarty Jones. Thta's right! For the right amount of money Smarty Jones will get to know your horse intimately!

It is the right time of year to think bats, however, In Louisville bats are the baseball type as it is home to Louisville Slugger. WAYYYYYYYY cool! It was the one thing I and the other judge, Paul Elledge wanted to see. Luckily we were judging right across the street from the museum/factory! My personalized bat will be in my hands in a couple of weeks!

Maker's Mark. From the airport bar to the gift shop, it is all about the mark, Maker's Mark. Jack is around, but not as much as Mark.

The dining was great too. Jack Fry's, from what I read, one of the finest restaurants in Louisville and the North End Cafe. Jenn amnd I partook in breakfast at Lynn's Paradise Cafe. They like the word Cafe in Louisville. Did not have Hot Brown, a Louisville favorite, but I have the original recipe from the Brown Hotel. It is an open face sandwich of turkey, cheese sauce and bacon. Also had shrimp and grits, a local must have it seems.

Most important, the people are all kind and warm. Sometimes to friendly even. The inn keeper at the B&B we stayed, The Inn at the Park, just wanted to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. I think that is why she runs a B&B and me being an old grizzled city folk just wasn't much up for the talking.

I am looking forward to the Derby in May and returning to see some of the many sights not seen this visit.

Gone judgin'

Been invited to go to Louisville to judge the Louisville Graphic Design Association's 100 show. So I'll be gone a couple days. Hopefully I will have some interesting stuff to share upon my return.

Today is brought to you by the letter P

Edward Gorey, probably best known for the Addams Family, also had a great imagination. He created The Utter Zoo Alphabet, where each letter is represented by a creature born from his fanciful mind.

Britto Garden

A little Picasso, a little Warhol and a whole lot of Carnivale! This is the art of Romero Britto. The Brazillian Miami-based artist says "For me, art can reflect the celebration of the simple and good things in life." I could not agree more!

Crackin' Toast!

What do you get when you match up a cheese lovin' brit and a dog with the most expressive face and brow in the world? One of the best movies I have seen in a while! Go see Wallace & Grommit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit!

Where do baby redwoods come from?

The answer was found in Muir Woods in San Francisco.

Scariest movie EVER!

Imagine being a young boy maybe no more than 6 or 7. Your parents told you not to watch the movie that you would be scared. But you knew better. So you and the kid next door watched in their basement. You were indeed scared but could not say. Well, the next few weeks you were haunted in your sleep by nightmares and would wake the house up screaming! The truth came out. I told you so's were handed out. And eventually you slept through the night once again.

At the Wolfsonian

Armchair, c. 1934

Designed by Gerald Summers, British, b. Egypt 1899-1967
Made by Makers of Simple Furniture, London
Plywood, pigmented finish

Summers' admirably simple construction dispenses with connectors and almost with off-cuts, using one single sheet of plywood. Following a simple pattern, he separated the back legs from the back and armrests and bent the segments in different directions. The result was an organically shaped armchair, comfortable even without cushions, involving low material and labor inputs. Possibly the chair was conceived for use in the tropics - with its smooth surface and lack of metal connectors, it is hygienic and deteriorates only gradually. However, despite the constructive advantages, the back legs could not withstand great stress and snapped easily. In addition, the production costs, and consequently the sales price, were higher than the designs of the popular Scandinavian. As a result, Summers' company, Makers of Simple Furniture, Inc., founded in 1929, produced only 120 units of the chair. MSC
Text excerpted from 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, Editors: Alexander von Vegesack, Peter Dunas, Mathias Schwartz-Clauss; Texts by Peter Dunas, Mathias Schwartz-Clauss, Matthias Kries, Petra Rohde, Alexander von Vegesack, Christopher Wilk. Copyright Vitra Design Museum and Authors, 1996.

Door County, WI

Nuts

Every fall, mom would fill up a bowl with fresh mixed nuts, walnuts, pecans, filberts, brazil nuts, hazel nuts and whatever other nut the grocery had. The, of course, she would throw in the nut cracker and some nut picks. We never saw these primitive tools any other time of year!

No one ever ate these! They just sat there in the bowl through the winter and then when spring came, one of the spring cleaning chores was to get rid of the nuts.

Well, I found a use for these nuts, walnuts in particular. Using the nut cracker and applying pressure, you could open the two halves of the shell. Then inserting the pick you could slide it around the seam and cleanly separate the shell into two halves.

Here is where the fun began! I would then take out the nut meat, the real term, and glue the two halves together and return the empty walnuts to the bowl! It then was obvious that someone did eat those nuts, my father. He would be cracking nuts open for a snack and finding the walnuts empty!

The first few did not seem to phase anyone, but then they soon realized many if not all the walnuts were empty. I do not recall how it was discovered it was me, but it was. I still do a few every year.

Seen in London

Bacon number is 4

I got several emails telling me how the previous post about being connected to Kevin Bacon is totally incorrect. Many understood the humor. But for those others, allow me now to set the record straight.

My friend Alison Halstead was in a play called Just Say No (Bailiwick Theatre, Chicago, 1999) with Greg Louganis; Greg Louganis was in D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994) with Kathryn Erbe; Kathryn Erbe was in Stir of Echoes (1999) with Kevin Bacon.

Therefore, I have a Bacon number of 4.

Adult tanagram

I always liked tanagram puzzles. And I came across these mature subject drawings which were studies for larger works. They are figures made of various triangles very reminiscent of tanagrams.

Buttons

Just lovin' these little 1" buttons. They are great little give aways and they are really cheap to produce! Check it out at Busy Beaver.

Birdseed

Two head lights, a bumper, Jayne Mansfield and a squeeze
Charcoal on paper
Rich Kryczka

Who can deny breakfast, birdseed, as it is called, in a great American diner? This is a charcoal drawing done by Rich Kryzcyka as part of his Masters Thesis which he did on American Diners. It used to hang in my kitchen, but now hangs over my dining room table. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the exact name of the piece, but it includes short stack, fry two and let the sun shine, oh gee, and a cup of joe.

Viftig Gulden

One of the casualties of the euro is that many countries no longer have their own beautiful currencies. Hey, that sounds like a topic for a thesis! Anyhow, one of my favourites, notice the European spelling, since my first visit across the pond were the notes from the Netherlands. And of those notes, by far one of the most famous is the 50 guilder note fondly called "The Sunflower."

Keep It Simple Stupid!

Mendell and Oberer, Germany, 1985

Students always overthink. Well maybe not always, but much of the time. This is one of my favorite examples to show them how strong a simple a great design can be. It is a simple idea for a sailing regatta, well executed, not a bit of PhotoShop! A simple white corner of paper placed on top of a piece of blue paper.

Lost in art

This is a watercolor piece by Tom Torluemke. It is about 6 feet long and hangs in my living rooom. Every day, I look at it and often get lost in some new area of it. That's it.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

The players:
Marcia - friend and former neighbor
Kim - friend of Marcia's in Denmark, WI worked for a paper company
Brett - former co-worker from Chicago
Jim - friend and associate of Kim
Me
and of course. . .Kevin Bacon

Here we go!

So Marcia used to be my neighbor when I lived in Chicago. We also taught together at Columbia. She moved a few years back, 5 or 6, to Denmark, WI. I went to visit Marcia in Denmark and a friend of hers, Kim, comes over for dinner. We all have a fine time, and I figure I will next see Kim when I go back up to Denmark.

Vancouver, B.C. - AIGA National Conference, 2003
Coming back to the Metropolitan Hotel, I see a familiar face on the steps out front. Kim? Richard? Who knew we would next run into each other in Vancouver. That evening we all get together and she brings a few friends. One of them being, Jim from Arketype in Green Bay. So we all meet have a great time at the Conference and once again part ways.

Boston - AIGA National Conference, 2005
Kim is no where to be found, but Jim is there so we connect again and say hi, exchange new business cards and really do not see each other much during the conference. Upon returning home we exchange some emails, one which asks if I know of anyone looking for work or an internship. Enter Brett.

I email Brett about the opportunity as I do not know many students from Chicago willing to relocate to Green Bay, and Brett just moved up there earlier this year and I know he is looking for work.

So Brett emails me back saying he did a couple freelance jobs for Jim a few months back and they have been in touch off and on but Brett is overqualified for what Jim is looking for etc. Brett emails Jim saying he knows me. I email Jim saying you already know Brett. Jim emails me and says he really likes Brett's art, Brett is a painter as well as a designer.

I own the cd Forosoco by the Bacon Brothers, one of the brothers being…Kevin Bacon

Moose knuckle - noun

When a man's pulls up his pants too far, typically somewhere between the navel and the nipples, a condition south of the belt-line develops called moose knuckle. Moose knuckle is the outline of the male genitalia as seen through the fabric of his pants; the equivalent of the female camel toe.