Praeterita

Regular reader and commenter on this blog Ted Dawson sent me this photo of a nice old car, in response to my call in last week's Art and NASCAR post. Unless someone corrects me, I think it's an old Volvo. And the picture was probably taken somewhere out in the Western US, knowing Ted. They don't make them like this any more. Classic cars, I mean. And guys like Ted. Who has his own blog which you should look at some time. See also: On Art and NASCAR (1) On Art and NASCAR (2)   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Students in J+S Class “What is this drawing? Not once in describing the shape of that mass did I shift my eyes from the model. Why? Because I wanted to be sure that nothing evaded my grasp of it... My objective is to test to what extent my hands already feel what my eyes see.”—Auguste Rodin.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

What do these three people have in common, starting with stop-motion master Ray Harryhausen above? Then me: And finally Hugh Hefner, seen below posing with some attention-seeking blonde woman: Answer: our names are listed consecutively in the 'Acknowledgements' section of Sam Weller's Ray Bradbury biography . I happen to know Sam, and this in no way influences my opinion that he wrote an exceptionally good book about Bradbury's life, and his influence on American culture. I'm a bit mystified as to why I am in that list (for it is indeed I to whom he is referring to). But by coincidence, Sam linked together two very important people in my early teenage life. I was a huge fan of the stop-motion animations of Ray Harryhausen, particularly the Sinbad films . This might have been at the back of my mind when I made my own stop-motion animations as part of an installation a few years ago. And I, let us say, 'put to good use' my stolen copies of Playboy...

This is my 100th blog posting since I started 'Praeterita' in the last days of 2009. It's also eight years to the day that Patty and I were married. In honour of the occasion (the blog milestone: wedding anniversary celebration plans are somewhat different), here are some photos of a new handmade book that I completed a few days ago. Called 'Party of One', it's an origami book that uses a map fold, so that it folds and opens flat just like a NYC street map. Materials: an offcut of an acrylic painting, with more hand-painting, pencil drawing, and collage to complete the image: If you're reading this blog for the first time, please browse around the other pages, or look at the posts that other people have been reading most often. And leave a comment to let me know how I'm doing.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Here is the sixteenth of the weekly Meditations on Art. The subject is a 1920 painting by Otto Dix, called 'The Skat Players'. I remember going around the bookstores on the Charing Cross Road in London, trying to find a book about this artist. I kept announcing to the assistants 'I'm looking for books on Dix', and wondered why they kept directing me to the Gay section.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Woman asleep on train, late 1986 “The sketch hunter moves through life as he finds it, not passing negligently the things he loves, but stopping to know them, and to note them down in the shorthand of his sketchbook.”—Robert Henr i.   Subscribe to Praeterita in a reader

Courtyard in spring sun.