Month: April 2018

Calendar: April 30

A Year: Day to Day Men: 30th of April

The Mesh Pouch

April 30, 1952 was the date for the first advertisement of a toy on national television in the United States.

In the early 1940s, Brooklyn-born toy inventor George Lerner came up with the idea of inserting small, pronged body and face parts into fruits and vegetables to create a “funny face man”. Lerner would often take potatoes from his mother’s garden and, using various other fruits and vegetables as facial features, he would make dolls with which his younger sisters could play. The grape-eyed, carrot-nosed, potato-headed dolls became the principal idea behind the plastic toy which would later be manufactured.

In the beginning, Lerner’s toy proved controversial. With World War II and food rationing a recent memory for most Americans, the use of fruits and vegetables to make toys was considered irresponsible and wasteful. After several years of trying to sell the toy, Lerner finally convinced a food company to distribute the plastic parts as premiums in breakfast cereal boxes.

in 1951, Lerner showed the idea to Henry and Merrill Hassenfeld, who conducted a small school supply and toy business called Hassenfeld Brothers which later changed its name to Hasbro, Inc.. Realizing the toy was quite unlike anything in their line, they paid the cereal company to stop production and bought the rights. Lerner was offered an advance of $500 and a 5% royalty on every kit sold. The toy was dubbed “Mr. Potato Head” and went into production.

On April 30, 1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on television. The campaign was also the first to be aimed directly at children; before this, commercials were only targeted at adults, so toy adverts had always been pitched to parents. This commercial revolutionized the field of marketing, and caused an industrial boom. Over one million kits were sold in the first year.

In 1953, Mrs. Potato Head was added, and soon after, Brother Spud and Sister Yam completed the Potato Head family with accessories reflecting the affluence of the fifties that included a car, a boat trailer, a kitchen set, a stroller, and pets called Spud-ettes. Although originally produced as separate plastic parts to be stuck into a real potato or other vegetable, a plastic potato was added to the kit in 1964.

Permafrost’s 100 Series Wooden Racer

Permafrost’s 100 Series Wooden Racer

Permafrost is a Norwegian industrial design studio working in many fields: furniture, computer design, lighting, industrial and interior design, and marketing. The studio was formed by four Norwegian industrial designers: Andreas Murray (b: 1975), Eivind Halseth (b: 1972), Oskar Johansen (b: 1974) and Tore Vinje Brustad (b: 1976). They  all graduated from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design in 1999 and set up Permafrost in 2000.

Edward Kwang

Edward Kwang, Title Unknown, (Minotaur)

Vancouver-based artist Edward Kwong makes quasi-retro, noir-ish illustrations that reference old comic books, art deco, and other classic looking aesthetics. Full of angular, expressive figures, high-impact typography and often sepia-infused colors, his work captures entire narratives in single, meticulously-rendered images.

Reblogged with many thanks to https://k250966.tumblr.com

Calendar: April 29

A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of April

Lazy Sunday Morning

A pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was born on April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C.

Duke Ellington wrote his first composition “Soda Fountain Rag” in the summer of 1914 while working as soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Cafe. This piece was created by ear, as he had not yet mastered reading and writing music. At the age of 14, he began sneaking into poolrooms to listen to the poolroom pianists play, causing him to get serious about his piano lessons. With the guidance of Washington pianist and band leader Oliver “Doc” Perry, Ellington learned to read sheet music, project a professional style and improve his technique.

Ellington played in other band ensembles while at the same time working several day jobs. In late 1917 he formed and acted as booking agent for his first group “The Duke’s Serenaders”. He had a successful career in Washington D.C. playing for private society balls and embassy parties. When his drummer Sonny Greer was invited to join the Wilber Sweatman Orchestra in New York City, Ellington made the fateful decision to leave behind his successful career in Washington, D.C., and moved to Harlem, New York, ultimately becoming part of the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1925 Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra grew to a group of ten players; they developed their own sound by displaying the non-traditional expression of Ellington’s arrangements, the street rhythms of Harlem, and the exotic-sounding trombone growls and wah-wahs, high-squealing trumpets, and sultry saxophone blues licks of the band members.

In the late 1950s Ellington began to work directly on scoring for film soundtracks; one was the 1959 film “Anatomy of a Murder”, in which Ellington appeared fronting a roadhouse comb. Film historians have recognized the soundtrack of “Anatomy of a Murder” as a landmark – the first significant Hollywood film music by African Americans comprising non-diegetic music, that is, music whose source is not visible or implied by action in the film, like an on-screen band. The score avoided the cultural stereotypes which previously characterized jazz scores and rejected a strict adherence to visuals in ways that presaged the New Wave cinema of the 1960s.

Despite his advancing age in the 1960s and 70s, Ellington showed no sign of slowing down as he continued to make vital and innovative recordings: ‘The Far East Suite’, ‘New Orlean Suite’, ‘The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse’, and ‘Francis A and Edward K’, his only album recorded with Frank Sinatra. Ellington performed what is considered his final full concert in a ballroom at Northern Illinois University on March 20, 1974. At his funeral, attended by over 12.000 people at the cathedral of Saint John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, saying “It’s a very sad day. A genius has passed”.

Pierre-Louis Ferrer

Pierre-Louis Ferrer: Images from the Series “Invisible Paris”

Paris is generally recognized by its bright lights, historic monuments and world-class cuisine. Amateur photographer Pierre-Louis Ferrer wished to catch the dreamier side of Paris with the help of infrared photography with a distinctive all-white perspective.

The spectacular series of infrared photography titled “Invisible Paris” by Pierre-Louis Ferrer who turns the City of Light into a winter wonderland. “My main goal was to make vegetation the main subject of the pictures to create a dreamy effect, but at the same time an effect which looks natural. Paris is not really known for its parks and gardens, so I wanted to show how vegetation is present in this city… What I love about the City of Light Light is the number of different subjects you can shoot, and the important number of impressive monuments. I love walking along the Seine River.”- Pierre-Louis Ferrer

Pierre-Louis Ferrer has shot world famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame and Sacré Coeur and produced breathtaking shots using a converted full spectrum Canon 6D. His preferred filters are the 720nm and 665nm, it allows him to create dreamy pictures with a subtle effect.

One Locker Open and Two Jeffersonian Quotes

Photographer Unknown, (The Man and One Opened Locker)

“Not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise, and the weather should be little regarded.”
― Thomas Jefferson
“Brute animals are the most healthy, and they are exposed to all weather, and of men, those are healthiest who are the most exposed.”
― Thomas Jefferson

Perry Blake, “This Time It’s Goodbye”

Perry Blake, “This Time It’s Goodbye”

This song is in the soundtrack of the French-Belgian romantic drama film “Presque Rien (Come Undone)” directed by Sebastien Lifshitz. It depicts the stormy holiday romance between two 18 year-old guys and what remains of that relationship eighteen months later.  It stars Jérémie Elkaïm as Mathieu and Stephane Rideau playing the character of Cedric. Rather than having a clear, chronologically ordered narrative, the movie switches between the summer and the winter plotlines, depicting the differences in Mathieu’s life at both points.

Calendar: April 28

A Year: Day to Day Men: 28th of April

A Road Well Traveled

April 28, 1879 was the birthdate of Edgard Tytgat, the Flemish painter and etcher.

Edgard Tytgat was a Belgium based artist: a painter, author, and engraver.  He studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts where he discovered the new movements of symbolism and  post-impressionism. It was artists like Cezanne and Bonnard that influenced his work.

One of the publications with woodcuts that he produced in 1917 after the death of his friend, Wouters, is the volume “Quelques Images de la Vie d’un Artiste” (Some Images of an Artists’ Life), of which he singlehandedly printed forty numbered copies. By every one of the sixteen intentionally naïve prints Tytgat wrote a short text about the life of Rik and Nel Wouters, whom he knew so well.

Tytgat’s style evolved from local Fauvism to a wayward Expressionism with a popular and naïve character. During his career Edgard Tytgat painted nearly five hundred canvases and made countless watercolors, woodcuts, etchings and drawings. Even though he belonged to the group of artists associated with the journal Sélection, his work cannot be placed in any one particular camp. It is difficult to divide his work into well-defined periods, and it lacks clear chronological development. His earliest works are considered impressionistic, while later works can be described as expressionistic or naive.

Tytgat’s world was bittersweet. He was thoroughly familiar with art history and often drew inspiration from classic themes. His works are often bathed in an atmosphere of lost innocence or youth, fantasies, and eroticism. Everyday life and incidents from his own environment were also a great source of inspiration. However, Tytgat’s real strength was his virtuoso manner of storytelling. He invested images that at first glance seem naive, childlike and cheerful with a dark side. In this way he was able to create a complex web of meanings. A multitude of scenarios play out within a single image.