PSYCHIC SALLY.

November 12, 2009
1970s, 1980s, Artists, Children, Color, Graphics, Video, Women | 2 Comments

I really can’t believe in all these years I’d never heard of Sally Cruikshank. Though I remember seeing her animations as a child through the magic of Sesame Street. Surely, she’s inspired the contemporary weirdo comics and illustration community. And you must see her newer work. She’s bizarre + brilliant!! Thanks to Candy Ropes for showing me the psychedelic powers of Sally Cruikshank.

COMMUNAL SPIRITS.

November 10, 2009
1960s, 1970s, Artists, Designers, Foods, Hippies, Home, Music | 7 Comments

There is a lot to learn from community living of the 1960s and 1970s. One of the largest communes of its day was located in a small town in Western Massachusetts. Brotherhood of the Spirit (renamed Renaissance) was started by Michael Metelica and birthed the band — Spirit of the Flesh.

The most inspiring story is how Renaissance revived the town of Turners Falls in 1975 opening several businesses — a 24-hour grocery, a record store, an audio supply center and a stylized pizza parlor. The most successful ventures were the Noble Feast restaurant featuring diversely innovative cuisine, Rocket’s Silver Train which provided luxury-modeled tour buses to rock musicians and the forerunners of the now nationally distributed Silver Screen Design and Renaissance Greeting Cards. Sadly, Michael Metelica became addicted to drugs, bought a Rolls Royce and drove the Rocket’s Silver Train business into the ground.

Can we all just go out to Western Mass, build homes on vacant land, revive a township and start making things?! Please! We have so many great ideas to share!

via University of Massachusetts Amherst
Further Reading History of the Brotherhood of the Spirit/Renaissance Community
and thanks to Andrew Post for leading me to these archives today

LOS FOUR.

November 9, 2009
1970s, Books, Color, Graphics, The West | 3 Comments

I am going nuts over this 1973 exhibition catalog Los Four: Almaraz/de la Rocha/Lujan/Romero at UC Irvine and LACMA. The lined collage layout, roaming color blends and wordless spreads—speaks powerfully!

from Smithsonian, Their collaborative murals and public installations brought Chicano street art to the attention of the mainstream art community of Los Angeles. Theirs was the first Chicano exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for which Romero designed the foldout catalog.

via Smithsonian Archives of American Art

WALL DOWN.

November 9, 2009
1980s, Europe, Party | Leave a Comment

Today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall! Take a peak at the
NYTimes exhibit of readers photographs that were taken on November 9, 1989.

MS. HEYMANN.

November 2, 2009
1910s, 1920s, Designers, The East, Women | 4 Comments

Margarete Heymann—Bauhaus bad girl—unhappily left the school after one year.
She appealed to founder Martin Gropius for permission to study ceramics. Bauhaus/Gropius strongly encouraged women to study textiles and most did.
But Heymann refused, rocking the Bauhaus boat.
Read more about her life via NYTimes
Thanks to Carl Williamson for sharing this portrait. So so hot & cool!!!!