I made myself go to the meetup of “The Other Collage Group” today and it was good.

It wasn’t as crowded (loud) and an artist friend I’ve been thinking about was there and excited to connect. She had great tips for mounting my series on The Impermanence of Bone onto wood panels, with she uses exclusively. We’re planning to connect soon as we live close to one another.

The table of collage materials was rich! I scored an original Audubon’s birds of North America for a friend who has plans to collage some of her walls with vintage birds. I found some vintage children’s book pages I’m sending to another friend who uses them to make collages of found (filthy) poetry.

I found some great images for myself too, particularly this surreal image from an article about the history of fancy cakes in an art journal.

My friend and I were both gobsmacked when I went back to the image and we realized what we were looking at. Then she commented, “Well you have to do something with that!”

The photo is from a reception at the Officer’s Club of the Army War College in DC in 1949.

#SurrealHistory #WeirdHistory #FancyCake

Almost scares you at first glance. 👀

A Southern Song dynasty painting. I thought it was modern art.
It’s actually an ad — for eye medicine.

A street vendor covered head to toe in giant eyes.
Hat? Eyes. Robe? Eyes. Bag? Also eyes.
Even his arm has a tattoo.

He’s pointing at a man’s eye, not his head.
Marketing in the 1200s: dress weird, get noticed, sell more drops.

#SongDynasty #AncientAdvertising #EyeMedicine #ChinesePainting #WeirdHistory #ArtHistory