(click to expand image) L. Frank Baum’s Silver Shoes notoriously became Technicolor Ruby Slippers, but lesser known is this pair done in an Arabian style–more fanciful but not entirely unlike W.W. Denslow’s original illustrations–and rejected, after testing. Until recently these were held by Debbie “I’ve been collecting for 45 years and I’m only 40.” Reynolds.
“Dorothy [...]
The extraordinary collection of Pamela Kibbee with one of our favorite songbirds, Yma Sumac (Voice of the Xtabay). We made the mustachioed portrait of Pam in the mid-nineties. Can also play this here.
We visited (what remains of) the splendid 18th Century Cabinet of Curiosities of Bonnier de la Mosson, at the Bibliotèque of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. Considered by many the richest and most imaginative French cabinet of the early eighteenth century, this curiosity cabinet was housed in the hôtel particulier, as the city residences of aristocrats [...]
Back in Paris we spent much of our time flaneuring, but did spend an afternoon viewing the ethnographic archive at the Albert Kahn Museum and gardens. You can see the autochromes commissioned by philanthropist Kahn from some 50 photographers sent around the world here. The project was abandoned when the crash of 1929 brought [...]
After a month seaside, I spent the day saying goodbye to Laguna and tying up a multitude of loose ends, including the pressing need to catalog the seaweed. Love that Prussian Blue (aka ferric ferrocyanide).
Cylindrical landscape paintings, effulgence, lemonade, sinister foliage, Flopper and Boris (bunnies), prospectors and grizzlies (painted), the surprise of old friends. A magical night passed here.
My day began in the company of three kids, two grown-ups, a dog, and a curious kitty who would have been quite interested in a certain exhibit at the Museum of Jurrasic Technology…
Also on display were the Micromosaics of Henry Dalton. This image is through a microscope, and made of bits of butterfly wings.
We also saw the Floral [...]
“(Swinburne is) a braggart in matters of vice, who has done everything he could to convince his fellow citizens of his homosexuality and bestiality without being in the slightest degree a homosexual or a bestializer.”
Damn, Oscar Wilde, throw down the decadent gauntlet! Nevermind Wilde himself was derided by Edmond de Goncourt as lifting his poncy [...]
Leave it to the Dutch. In Maastricht one finds the Selexyz Dominicanen bookshop, housed in a 13th century Dominican church repurposed by architects Merkx + Girod. Featuring 14th century ceiling frescoes, and a café situated in the former choir (with a cheeky cruciform reading table), this shop is designed essentially as a giant, walk-in bookcase [...]
Woke before dawn and watched the sun come up on a new decade, from a window I will soon sadly relinquish. Made coffee for my honey, who bravely accompanied me to Passy, a wealthy area of south-west Paris that was once a commune, as I begin to wrap up the research that brought me here. [...]