Vintage Food Posters

Something I think about a lot: how diverse humans are, how competitive and troublesome and argumentative and delightfully different from each other.

And yet we all have to eat. We share biology, we learn tastes, we acquire cultural references. We need to eat, but we learn how.

I remember studying for a Masters in Art History, and peering at a fresco painting, my nose as close to the surface as they would allow, and thinking:

'Okay, so that streak, that's where his hand touched the wet paint, and that big long curve, that's made when you swing your arm from the shoulder, not the elbow, like - so.'

And then standing back and thinking something like 'Holy crap, I've got the same length of reach as Leonardo.' And getting the chills.

It's silly, really. Of course we have the same reach. I'm a fairly tall, well-fed twentieth century woman and he was a middle class illegitimate son (which means access to food was probably good, not the best) - and so we could very conceivably be the same height.

Of course we share biology - humans haven't changed all that much in 500 years. But we forget. We think it's different. It is -- and it isn't.

So here we are, online, looking at food posters from the past.

The text apparently translates as: "When the dining is well- run the spirit of production will rise." That's a cultural context if ever I saw one. But I also see a welcoming smile, a platter of food, a group of people, a family and a sense of festivity.

My cultural frame notices the facemask (I thought those were new, only since avian flu. Apparently not.) I notice the size of the main figure - she reminds me of a fertility goddess, she's beautiful and large. But in the West we might criticise (though I probably wouldn't, not being one to throw stones and looking rather a lot like her myself). We complicate: that's a better word.

The cook in me wants to know what's on the menu, the academic wants to read up on how the food halls operated, were managed and maintained, the art historian looks at the shape and composition of flat elements, and wonders about propaganda posters from all sorts of cultures.

What do you think? Is this about unity - or about diversity?



Posters - Top: date, artist unknown, North Korea; Bottom: c1959, artist unknown, China. Accessed through Poster Gallery at Nanyang Technical University: http://webposters.adm.ntu.edu.sg/site/page/poster/158 

Mindful gardening

I bought a book today - which in itself isn't unusual, because it happens all too often, but this one looks different, interesting.

One of my most cherished books is Zen and the Art of Quilting, by Sandra Detrixhe - I have read it, and re-read it nearly a dozen times. Thinking of that quiet book with calm confidence saying yes, I do know what I am doing with my quilts -- I picked this one up. The Art of Mindful Gardening, by aptly-named Ark Redwood. (If he was a character in a book, you'd never believe it.)

It helps that it's cute. And so 1930s in style (I freely admit that I'm a sucker for 1930s design ethic: I am reading a biography in the 30s now, and I love classic prints in the style like this cover).

So, what am I doing, blogging about a book I've barely read? I'm excited and I wonder if it will live up to the dippings-in I have tasted and enjoyed.

The garden is lush now, the tomatoes this week measured not in numbers but in bucketfuls. The season is changing and mists in the morning on the farm tell me the days of summer are almost gone.

I read, once, that the true measure of a garden is in the delight it gives you as you notice daily changes. The slow ticking turning of the year. Today I admired new shoots on the scarlet runner beans (maybe another crop is coming) and enjoyed my rustic wooden trellis, the red flowers all tied up with scraps of gingham red-and-white fabric. I delighted in snapdragons pushing out second shoots short but fat with flowers, seed pods rattling dry - break them open to gather next summer's colour. Zucchini for dinner, round ones the size of a tennis ball and two little long dark, dark green ones. Black beauty, they're called. Grilled. The sweetness of tomatoes from the bottom of the bucket.

I can't think of anything much more mindful than a garden. Let's see how this one goes...

Grey

Grey but happy, I love this quilt!

See how there are patches of flowers and writing in the trucks and cars? I wonder if each vehicle was hand-appliqued or created on foundation paper and then applied.

Gorgeous. Fun but not hokey. Just right.

Another bit of gorgeousness from Luana Rubin's photos of quilts from the 

Tokyo International Quilt Festival. One of these days I've got to go!

Turquoise green

More inspiration from summer holiday thinking.

I'd love to make a quilt with these colours, or to try to paint this vase.

Photo by Luana Rubin courtesy of her Flickr Japanese Textiles and Flea Markets collection.

I love the shape and how you know it would just be the right heaviness in your hands. Also, the mottled surface in each colour - it's old, perhaps not top quality. (The photo was taken in a flea market in Japan.) I even love the rectilinear lines at the bottom that at first read like Greek key designs (you know, square maze trails) but turn out to be irregular compartments.

I think most of all, I want to watercolour paint this image with wet swirly colours bleeding into each other. An inspiration - and a challenge!

Breakfast beasts

First extra day off after a very long time of hard work and travel. Yes indeed, that means it's a long weekend for me! (chorus of angels) And how should we start? Why, with a large cup of coffee and a sit-down to check out all the yumminess of fabric that's out there on my favourite online shops. Yeeeah.

Truth is I can't wait much longer for the parcel winging its way to me from Sew Mama Sew. This breakfast fantasticness of munching beasts is by SammyK at Spoonflower. Roar.

Update: I ordered a fat quarter of this fabric - now what should I make with it? 

Plats du Jour

I picked up this beautiful cookbook in a second hand bookshop last weekend.

Front and back covers 

I'm shameless. I bought it simply because I love the cover. Both front and back. Plus it was $4. And it's full of basic classic French and Italian dishes, with a very few Eastern and Northern European recipes, too. 

Thankfully, no photos frighten the reader with bilious coloured late-50s carrot flowers and piped mousses, yet it's clearly written for a British public who were just getting an inkling about Continental food (published 1957). 

But that's not what I bought it for. I bought it to read and enjoy the period piece it is. And for the illustrations, because they're just plain gorgeous.  

David Gentleman is the illustrator. I knew it was a bit of a classic cover, but I hadn't realised what a famous illustrator Gentleman is. His long and varied career has covered illustration, poster, book and stamp design. Apparently, he's one of the UK's most prolific stamp designers ever. I couldn't find a lot of his other work online (book illustration is mainly under-represented as art), but there's this nice collection of Gentleman's works in the Tate.

Gentleman draws hairy-armed men on bicycles with swags of onions, but he also depicts the cuts of beef and how to cut a schnitzel (across the garin of the meat, in case you are wondering - which Marcella tells us means the meat won't curl in the heat, of course). He draws hunters standing around with a dog, and the kitchen range, and a variety of lovely things I'll scan and share when time permits.

Clarity of line and good humour. But not too cute. I love it. (The wine was nice, too.)

D'ya remember when...

.. I got a copy of Ottobre magazine and was all excited about it? Well, I also bought a single back-issue, of their autumn/winter designs (it being autumn then), and when it arrived, I pounced on it with glee, took it on the train with me to read on the way home from work-

- and promptly lost it.

I spent days convinced it had just slipped out of my purse under the filing cabinet, but no. Completely gone.

No more lovely autumn coat, cute trousers or funky overdress shirts for work. Humph

So today I finally bit the bullet and re-ordered a copy. I've seen it (briefly), so I know I want to make several things in that issue! And while I was there, I ordered another one, and a t-shirt pattern pack, too. In for a europenny, in for a europound.


Now I just have to sit and wait for the boat (plane/mule/reindeer) to get here ALL THE WAY FROM FINLAND. It could be a long wait, but luckily I found fifty-two billion unfinished projects when we moved, so I have plenty to do to pass the time...

When I can't quilt.

Life's kinda busy at the moment. The party this weekend, a small matter of dinner for 200, editing and ideas and chocolate cake and - oh, I'm not going to bore you.

We all have times when we're just unable to quilt. Or to draw, collage, stitch or embroider. Whatever yoiur craft addiction, I'm sure you know what I mean.

And at times like these, I like to flick quickly through pictures that inspire me. It's like slurping down a chocolate milkshake all at once, because you can feel it filling you up for hours to come. (Okay, so that's not the best analogy in the world - note to self: revise.)

Tiny bits of inspiration can percolate while everything else is going on. And I promise myself that soon - soon - I will draw something like this.

(This is not a slab of chocolate. I know what you were thinking, Curlypops! No, it's the carved wooden screen across the quire of a cathedral in northern England, near the Lake District. note to self - look up cathedral name...!)

Looking and thinking, travelling to some summer

I've been playing out in the wide world, looking at the colours and thinking of pictures and creations. As usual, getting away reminds me of who I am and of all of the images and ideas, colour and creations I want to be part of my life.


Travel opens possibilities. It wipes the veneer of weekly, daily, monthly work and routine out of my head and reminds me that life is short and is here to be lived to the full. Bloom and fade: celebrate and burst with colour.


The things I see make me want to draw all day, paint all evening, dream all night.

I did do a little painting on this trip, and lots and lots of drawing. Constant doodling. I made the commitment not to worry if it was any good; just to do as much drawing as I could. Even though we're back and the wind is wuthering (and we've got the traditional post-air journey sniffles), I'm doodling most days. It feels great.

And this is one of the photos from the trip that I find most wonderfully, richly satisfying.


Doesn't that just make you tingle? They look rich and full but pokey and prickly all at the same time. Can you see how big these barrel cacti are? I purposefully poked my toe in the bottom of the photo so you could see just how bloody enormous they are. I imagine if you sat on them, they'd pop. Or slump. (And poke billions of little cacti-holes in your delicate derriere.)

These photos were all taken one sunny fine day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as I went around the botanical gardens and sculpture park. Big thanks to my lovely host, Jennifer, for suggesting it -- somehow I never fail to find inspiration in a great garden.


Especially one with vistas like this that remind me of the summers in Canada and big fields of wildflowers.

Now all I need is a big floaty dress and a sunhat. (Too bad they lost my luggage and all I had was my Melbourne winter black. But that's all forgiven and in the past now, right?)

Ahh, holidays. > dream <

Sleepy Sunday

Ribbon that's good enough to nibble...

Sweet stitching, working on a project I can't show you yet (she reads the blog), drinking tea with a lovely friend while kids go wild on an old pogo stick out in the yard. They're popping up and down on the path and they occasionally hit the grass, where the pogo plug takes out a round ball of grass and dirt. Surreptitious looks at us inside, pretending we don't notice as they quietly pat the grass and dirt back into place. Nice kids, her pre-teen and a friend.

I've had a headache all day and it puts me in a dreamy space. Not unpleasant, not really, apart from the ache and the way things sort of -shift- as I look at them. Won't be on the computer for long.

But what I have been doing is astounding me with the beauty of what people create. Look at this.

Illustration by Finnish artist, Hanna Konola - whose quiet little people are deceptively simple.

And this, also by Hanna Konola.


And so many things at the Buy Olympia site - such as

- Papercuts by artist Nikki McClure, who inspires and delights with her intricate and quirky 1930s-looking papercuts of people, trees, and the world.

- Or these gorgeous cards from Jill Bliss and Saelee Oh. How tempting to order up big and have them delivered to my North American address, for happy hopping all the way home with me...

And planning for travel. I've been researching gorgeous crafty destinations in the Seattle area, as it turns out I'll be there for the weekend, the weekend after next.

Hunting online for markets, studios and interesting places. Finding out about neighbourhoods (seeing as I choose the hotel, I'm choosing one somewhere near a good market, right?) And great suggestions would be welcomed! (I've never been there before and so it's a solo craft adventure while Mr Tacc admires aero-planes.) I find a weekend on my own in a new, foreign city inspires me with equal parts anxiety and glee. Excitement at exploring; fear at not knowing how things work and where they are, but mainly concern that I would miss something WONDERFUL, AMAZING, FANTASTIC.

Do you get like that at times, too?