Viagra, 1940s Style

My great-aunts dabbled in the chiropractic so I often come across booklets and instructional things...I opened this little one up hoping to find some cool anatomical diagrams or something.  Instead I found an early (likely snake-oily) version of America's most beloved male pharmaceutical, Viagra!

Seems simple enough...

Whoa!  Okay, you have my attention.

$12.00 in 1944 has the buying power of $161.41 in 2014 dollars.

Seems legit.

I wonder how much an ad like this cost at the time...Three color, thicker paper, widely distributed booklet...  And, YES!, Dartell Labs is still around, but I can't find any info on them besides their phone book entry.  

Made It: More Experiments

I've been on a tear playing with new materials and throwing caution to the wind!

Let's start with the skeletons (all sizes are 5 x 7 inches unless otherwise noted):

matboard, tea-stained old book page, acrylic paint, vinyl

matboard, found sheet music, acrylic paint, vinyl

I painted over the vinyl and tried to scrape it off...works better on the thick black vinyl.

matboard, painted found sheet music, vinyl

squiggle time

matboard, painted found book page, vinyl

matboard, found seed catalog page, paint, vinyl

8 x 10--salvaged wood, acrylic paint, vinyl
I actually have a tentative title for this one:
"Fill My Hollow Bones"

9 x 11.5--salvaged wood, acrylic paint, fabric paper, vinyl, gel medium

Gotta finish those edges!

Hearts!

matboard, found book page, vinyl, acrylic paint

matboard, painted found book page, vinyl, acrylic paint

 I painted over the top of this and then scraped it off, sgraffito style

matboard, layers of found, painted, and/or made papers, vinyl, paint

 throwback:

matboard, found painted hymnal page, vinyl

matboard, found and painted collaged paper, vinyl, acrylic paint

domestic goddesses:
matboard, music pages, paint, vinyl

 I have so many ideas, and I'm just not going to settle for one image style.  I love the weird, macabre skeleton and heart images, because everyone brings something different to those, depending on their history and feelings about health, guts, death, life, color, whathaveyou.  And the retro images just make me happy.  More of a Pop Art feel comes from those, and having some levity in a line of work isn't a bad thing.

I have a one day show this weekend in Lee's Summit, MO, during a bike race--Tour of Kansas City-- so I'm pumping out lots of stickers and other fun cycling-related paraphernalia.  Plus, it's the first day of summer, and I love spending the solstice outside all day.

Here's to the makers out there.  Keep plugging away!

Made It: Experimentals & Flower Clocks

I've been tinkering around with many different materials the last couple weeks.  First, let's see some new desk clocks:

California Poppy

Field Daisy

Partridge-Peas

Thistle

Mayflower

I found a 1964 field guide to North America's wild flowers, and the images are just the perfect size to fit my mini table top clocks.  They're listed on Etsy.  I want to make a gazillion more, but I also want to make a different line of work that is categorized as "non-clock" and I'm really trying to actually plan this stuff out.  So I've been having fun playing around.

Here's some of the prototypes:

Large painted nails and string from the barn, leftover wood for the frame,
and salvaged painted wood as the backer.

8 x 10 matboard, early 1900s booklet pages, paint, vinyl.

5 x 7 matboard, painted hymnal page, vinyl.

5 x 7 matboard, 1970s seed catalog page, paint, vinyl.

I don't know quite where I'm going yet with the nail things, but I'm ruminating...I really like the TV and the skeletons, which will fit in with my small anatomical hearts...

But here's a biggie!
10 x 12 including frame; found wood, paint, "fabric paper," vinyl

I have many more painted papers to play with, so watch out!

I'm getting ready for a yard sale this weekend--my first ever!  There are two or three bins of old art I'm going to try to unload and maybe some clocks that just never sold but are fine otherwise.  If you're in KC, check out the Hyde Park Neighborhood Yard Sale on Saturday, June 14th (my half-birthday, BTW, in case you want to drop by some cupcakes or half of a whole cake).  Hopefully it won't be sweltering and/or raining...?

Found It: Diseases of Cattle!

So...gross.  These are gross, at least the colored ones, but, actually, also pretty cool?  And the black and white illustrations are quite exquisite just as pieces of art.  Check it out and if you stick around you can learn about how I got these things.



Who wants Tuberculous Lungs and Contagious Pleuro-Pneumonia?!





Ergotism and more tuberculosis!





The miracle of birth...? Sold to a lucky buyer in New York.



And my favorite: MONSTROSITIES!

I pulled these pages from the book “Special Report on Diseases of Cattle” by Dr. Atkins, et al., 1908.  As our farm used to be an actual working farm, this book may really have been used at some point.  It was, however, buried deep in the barn under many other things, including several other books, so who knows when it got there, let alone saw the light of day last.

Considering that all sorts of critters probably scuttled across the binding of this book over the last century, the pages are in great shape.  There's a nice patina along the edge and a few pages that have some water spots, but otherwise, perfectly frameable!  I've sent three sets of these plates to New York and Texas, and although I don't know what finally happened to them (framed or used in a piece of art or something), I'm glad that I could save them from their inevitable demise.

I'm keeping the Monstrosities page, though.  It's too cool.

The book pages I pull from worm-eaten old books or papers I find are in my Paper Ephemera section of The Retro Ranch's Etsy store.