I love this page on The Selby (a showcase of inspiring personal spaces), featuring Jessica Grindstaff and Erik Sanko. Amazing handcrafted marionettes, sculptures, displays…all around fun oddities to gaze at.
See the rest of the collection here.
Category: ephemera
-
I wanted to post about John Purlia a while back, but I wasn’t able to save images from the website (appropriately titled Wind Up Dreams and Vinyl Nightmares).
These photo collages of vintage toys, kitsch and ephemera are rather close to my heart because Mr. Purlia and I have a surprising amount of artifacts and images in common (particularly the Kewpie dolls and robots).
I’ve been wanting to get my hands on one of those devils!
I’m not going to spoil it by typing them out here, but all of these little vignettes have titles that further add to to narrative. They are really fun to look at.
See more in the galleries.
-
I could wait another 11 months for the Christmas season to roll around again and post this, or just admit that I came upon this series of cards a little late.
Here were have the politicization of Yuletide’s beloved figurehead. Santa is rarely pictured with a machine gun nowadays. I love these ephemeral renditions of an otherwise unchanging legend.
Of course, we also have the delightfully retro-futuristic Russian Space Santa.
-
Sometimes life gives us pleasant synchronicity. I was planning to post my old collection of Russian spaced themed Christmas cards, and woke up to an email from Vlad containing a portion of the cards in my collection…and then some!
I’m not sure why I love the combination of outer space and Christmas so much. Perhaps it’s because if we’re going to celebrate a man who defies the laws of physics, why not go ALL OUT with it?
Wow…a lot going on here…
I could easily use up my image space by posting many more…but I’ll hold off.
See more here.
-
I’m a bit out of the bubblegum card loop (I think I stopped collecting after I amassed thousands of Garbage Pail Kids in the 80’s). Are there any modern cards as awesome as this Mars Attacks series from 1962?
I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Tim Burton flick, featuring these lovely martians:
But I encourage you to check out the original art by comic/pulp artist extraordinaire, Norm Saunders.
(Might I suggest the photo above as an e-card announcement for newly engaged couples?)
See the whole series here.
Artist siteAnd thanks to Monster Brains for reminding me of these.
-
I could have sworn I posted these last year, but it doesn’t look like it. The one (and only) redeeming quality of parades, in my opinion, is the collection of bizarre, surreal and kitschy props.
Here’s a collection of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Floats from the 1920’s and 1930’s.
-
Pink Tentacle has a great post about Japanese visions of the future from a 1969 illustrated magazine feature entitled “Computopia.”
My favorite:
More pictures and descriptions here.
-
Ah, how the times change.
-
Worth a thousand words…
Caption, anyone?
-
What everyone surely needs to start a holiday weekend off right: freakish caricatures of Edwardian music hall performers.
George Cooke was a caricatures artist who drew Edwardian music hall performers for the Grand Theatre of Varieties, in Hanley Worcestershire. He compiled them in a series of albums.
More on the fabulous Ephemera Assemblyman, along with info/descriptions.
SheWalksSoftly 