Entries in charley harper (3)
More Charley, Pie Town, and Other Assorted Ephemera
Tuesday, August 21, 2007 at 07:48AM The full Charley Harper piece is up at Design Observer. I particularly like that the author mentions Harper's titles, titles such as Family Owlbum, Raccpack, Herondipity. They're unbearably smile-inducing, made from the same cloth as the little jokes that made me love growing up in southwestern Ohio, family reunions, church luncheons, my Great-Great-Aunt Peg and her sideways smirk. A reader in the comments links to Dwell's Harper interview from last year. And how close am I to spending $400 on this?
Shorpy (if misplaced nostalgia is an addiction, then this site is my dealer) is having a barbecue in Pie Town, New Mexico. This picture tells at least seventeen stories by my count. I love the man picking his teeth with his pinky finger. And here, the nice folk of Pie Town prepare to say grace.
Nicole Krauss on walking and New York, a piece which reads endearingly like a series of Chris Ware panels. (via The Written Nerd)
I resisted the CD format as long as I could. In 1991, I won The La's single "There She Goes" on CD at a fair, and had a friend copy the CD onto cassette for me. It wasn't until 1992 when I bought my first CD: My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. I've never grown nostalgic for the CD format the way I am for cassettes and vinyl. Fifteen years on, and I just spent all weekend participating in its demise by recycling 300 jewel cases. (via The Morning News)
Why Super Furry Animals are amazing. Number 7 is dead on. We've seen SFA live at least five times, along with one Gruff Rhys solo show, and every time is phenomenal. For that matter, "God! Show Me Magic" is as great a song as anything that came after it. (via largehearted boy)
At Nothing But Bonfires, Holly Burns ponders her own nostalgia while assembling ingredients for a dinner in San Francisco's Chinatown markets. Here's hoping a recipe is soon to follow.
Ladybugs will save the world!
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 at 07:24PM Yesterday, as I was waiting in Province for my short rib and kimchi sandwich, I flipped through the most recent issue of Dwell, and landed on a sidebar in memoriam item in the letters section on Charley Harper, a Cincinnati-based artist who passed away in June. I stopped on the page and stared for a while at the picture, a striking print of a crane in repose on an orange background.
The bird man, Charley Harper.
His name had come to my attention a few times recently, once back in January when Dooce linked to these Harper-esque screenprints from Pushmepullyou Designs, and more recently, when I noticed a book of his prints at the AMMO table during BEA. "I know this guy's stuff," I said at the time. There was something familiar about it; the cardinals struck me in particular. But I couldn't tell you how I knew him to save my life.
So today I called my mom. As you do when you need a jab in the memory.
"Mom, have you ever heard of Charley Harper?"
"Sure. He just passed away this June."
"Do you see a lot of his work around southern Ohio?"
She thought for a while about the people she knows who own a Harper print, friends and colleagues. Even she has a ladybug print* at home.
"And then he did that mural in the science building..."
"Don't we have a picture of John standing in front of it with the artist?"
"Yes, that one."
"So we have a picture of John with Charley Harper? Wow."
"Uh-huh."
"I feel like I remember the cardinals."
"Well, grandma has a sweatshirt with one of his cardinal prints on it."
"That's why..."
And so he was there all my life, like something I've just noticed in the background of an old photograph. Prints hanging on office walls come into focus. My brother, shifty and impatient as a boy, still for a moment, posing in front of a mural with a friendly-looking gentleman. My grandmother and her lovely cardinal sweatshirts.
It's funny how the little things you notice can be a bigger part of you than you ever realized.
*Mom, if it's this one, then I look forward to my next birthday. (Cake is nice, but I'm holding out for a Harper.)
UPDATE (February 3, 2008) For those of you who ended up here looking for Charley Harper prints after the CBS Sunday Morning report, please visit Treadway Gallery or Fabulous Frames & Art.
charley harper, design