Holiday greetings...

Bijibou's flag is planted firmly in the turkey's camp.

Norman Rockwell, 1917

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving...

 Enjoy your vegetables!

repose...

found...

Prizes from the thrift shop...

A sakura scarf from Japanese designer Hanae Mori.

  Kid gloves: 1940's?

 A new addition to the Floraline collection.

This timely seasonal treasure: a vintage turkey tin.

Halloween Greetings...

Ellen Leonard

Arthur Rackham

The Haunted Chamber                   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow                     Each heart has its haunted chamber,                    Where the silent moonlight falls!                     On the floor are mysterious footsteps,                     There are whispers along the walls!                   And mine at times is haunted                   By phantoms of the Past                  As motionless as shadows                 By the silent moonlight cast.                 A form sits by the window,                                 That is not seen by day,                                      For as soon as the dawn approaches              It vanishes away.                 It sits there in the moonlight               Itself as pale and still,                  And points with its airy finger               Across the window-sill.                 Without before the window,                  There stands a gloomy pine,                   Whose boughs wave upward and downward                    As wave these thoughts of mine.              And underneath its branches              Is the grave of a little child,              Who died upon life's threshold,              And never wept nor smiled.              What are ye, O pallid phantoms!              That haunt my troubled brain?              That vanish when day approaches,            And at night return again?               What are ye, O pallid phantoms!               But the statues without breath,              That stand on the bridge overarching              The silent river of death?

Arntzmobile...

Gerd Arntz was the German artist and graphic designer responsible for creating the pictograms of Isotype, The International System of TYpographic Picture Education developed by Viennese social scientist and philosopher Otto Neurath.  Isotype was a means of visually representing complex statistical information - the generic pictograms were typically used to illustrate stylized charts explaining economic and political data.   Isotype marked the inception of modern visual statistics, establishing a clear means of communicating to ordinary people esoteric information that was often difficult to understand.  In addition to the uniform human symbols, Arntz created pictograms for ships, automobiles, food, plants and factories.   Among the over 4000 symbols Arntz designed were these, my favorites, unsurprisingly: images of animals wild and domestic. 

These are wonderful images, and, quite unlike the majority of human figures he created, vivid and dynamic.  Not only are they examples of good design but they're cheerful and deserve to be seen.  With a little cardstock and some thread, I fashioned this mobile of woodland creatures - Rabbit, Squirrel, Frog, Mouse.  

 

 

 

If you're interested in seeing more of Arntz's work, the Gerd Arntz Web Archive is the place to start. There, you can also download the Gerd Arntz Memory App which is indeed a very pleasant brain-enhancing distraction.   And do spend some time meandering around the Gerd Arntz Archive from the Museum of the Hague.  Here are a few images to tempt you...

"the noblest of fruits..."

Conradus Schlapperitzi, Bible History, 1445

...or so thought Henry David Thoreau when writing his glorious paean to the apple, entitled Wild Apples, a meticulous account of the history and habits of both "civilized apple-trees" and those old, ungrafted trees which do not bear the burden of domestication.  Published by The Atlantic in November 1862, it was one of three articles commissioned by the magazine toward the end of Thoreau's life.   It is fascinating to read and a pleasant reminder that now is, indeed, apple picking time.  If this is precisely the sort of joy-making diversion that tempts you out-of-doors, a wonderfully helpful site, Orange Pippin, can direct you to over 2000 orchards in the United States as well as locations in Canada, the UK, India and Europe.  The site also provides (!!) an extraordinarily comprehensive A to Z directory of varieties you perhaps have not heard of, from the sweet and fruity Swiss Api Etoile, introduced in the 1600's, to an 1885 cultivar, the German Zabergau Reinette, a strong russet with the intriguing taste of nettles!

Educational plate, 1902

Leonard Leslie Brooke, The Three Little Pigs, 1904

Arthur Rackham, Hi, You Up There, 1915

Apple vendor, Boston Common, 19th c.

Kate Greenaway, A Apple Pie, 1886

(Images courtesy of NYPL Digital Gallery & Vintage Printable.)

long live the Queen...

Today, we're celebrating Foof's ninth birthday.  Since learning of the date a few years ago, I've created announcements proclaiming the glorious occasion - this year's inspiration is that other Queen's Jubilee.  After greeting in a distinctive manner some neighboring cats who came to pay their respects, HRH tucked into her favorite repast, a chicken and duck pate with a refreshing salad of oat grass.  She accepted, with typical grace, my apologies for being unable to stage, in her honor,  a stately, floating procession of gayly bedecked craft and instead, enjoyed a few moments in the bathtub.   On the advent of the next year of her triumphant reign, she is as majestic, clever and beautiful as one could hope for.  For a celebratory treat, she asked to hear the recitation of a favorite passage from Chaucer.  She is now resting, having exhausted herself over a tin of catnip sardines.

Vivat Regina, dearest Foo Foo, long may you live!

Mice Before Milk   Lat take a cat and fostre hym wel with milk And tendre flessch and make his couche of silk, And lat hym seen a mous go by the wal, Anon he weyvith milk and flessch and al, And every deyntee that is in that hous, Suich appetit he hath to ete a mous.  

from The Manciple's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer