Sun Ra: Solo Piano (a la Flora)

Another Flora album cover—although in this case the product is digital-only. The illustration originally appeared in the December 1945 issue of Columbia's Coda new-release monthly, which Flora wrote, edited, and illustrated for three years. The detail was adapted for this digital album cover by Flora co-archivist Irwin Chusid, who also represents the Sun Ra estate. The album is available at iTunes.

Flora's album cover legacy has extended into the 21st century, with designers adapting his images for new releases, which can be viewed in the CD gallery at JimFlora.com.

Too Much Information - Part 2

More current activity in the Florasphere (see Part 1 here):

We're preparing several new fine art prints for release, including a Mambo For Cats giclée (the oversized screen print sold out last year, but the Mambo mini remains available). Above is a mockup of a proposed print that might make it into 2013's release queue.

Our Tokyo-based Floraphile friend Takashi Okada has compiled and designed The Raymond Scott Songbook, a magnificent two-CD set of vintage and rare Scott recordings from the 1930s to the 1960s. The package includes a 100-page booklet featuring a number of Flora spot illos from the 1940s and '50s, which we provided for Takashi's use.

Three full Flora works from the 1940s (Fletcher Henderson, 1942, pictured above) are being used as set dressing on the forthcoming Showtime TV series Masters of Sex. The series takes place in the 1950s, and portrays the lives and work of sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson. The series debuts in September.

An untitled early 1950s Flora black & white tableau has been edited and vibrantly colorized for a forthcoming album, Raymond Scott Rewired, to be released in September on the Basta label. The album features the entire Raymond Scott music catalog—from 1930s jazz novelties to 1960s electronic experiments with Scott's homemade instruments—remixed, mashed, and flipped by three expert audio hooligans: The Bran Flakes, The Evolution Control Committee, and Go Home Productions. You can hear three samples from the album here.

Too Much Information - Part 1

One of our representatives will be with you shortly. Your visit is very important to us, and we look forward to answering your questions. Such as: What's up with the Flora blog, the website, and Jim Flora art in general? The paucity of new posts in recent months does not connote inactivity in the Florasphere. Here's breaking news—and news which has previously broken:

Flora co-archivist Barbara Economon and I have completed a new book—our fourth— for Fantagraphics: The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora. It's a dual-purpose volume: 1) it replaces our long out-of-print and highly sought book from 2004, The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora, which featured the Flora album covers known to us at the time (along with a bunch of other cool stuff); and 2) it showcases the Flora album covers we knew in 2004 and others we've since discovered, along with a plethora of vintage Flora music-oriented art, most of which has not been previously published in our Flora anthologies. It rocks, it bops, and swings from the chandeliers. Projected publication: August or September. The book, which can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com, includes cheeky back cover blurbs from Gary Panter, Arnold Roth, James Lileks, Georgia Hubley, and Joost Swarte.

The Double-E Company (Eva and Elsa) have teamed with Astek to create several designs of Jim Flora wall coverings. Above is an example (piano not included). Here's another. And another. And here's the entire collection. Our books and website are attempting to spread Flora across the planet. You can do your part by spreading it across your home.

Enchanted Lion has reprinted two early Flora children's books, The Day the Cow Sneezed (1957) and Kangaroo for Christmas (1962). English is our favorite language, but editions of these books have now been reprinted in Italian, French, and Spanish.

Artifact Puzzles has produced a 302-piece wooden jigsaw puzzle of Flora's mid-1960s painting Big Bank Robbery (above). It comes packaged in a pine wood box, which (when you complete the puzzle) can be re-purposed as a parakeet coffin.

And finally, next year marks the Flora (born January 25, 1914) centennial. We're exploring several exhibition locales, with a strong possibility at Silvermine Arts Center in the historic Silvermine district of Norwalk CT. Flora and his wife Jane were members of the Silvermine Arts Guild, so it would mark a homecoming of sorts for the artist's works. Details forthcoming.

That's TMI Part 1. We'll post more updates in a day or two.

At the Cabin

That's the title of the new CD by Seattle's quirky genre-blending jazz ensemble Reptet. It's the group's fourth release to feature a licensed Jim Flora illustration (all usages initiated by the band's drummer, John Ewing). Information about Reptet, their music, and the gatefold letterpress CD package (designed by Tom Parson) can be found at the Artists Recording Collective. The above image is an inverted detail from Flora's masterful 1951 woodcut Railroad Town.

strange foot traffic

Duos, a collection of works by Charles Wuorinen composed for two musicians, is now available from Albany Records. The untitled Flora cover art, licensed for this release (by Howard Stokar), is from an early- to mid-1960s sketchbook.

Duos

Another vintage Flora illustration adorns a record cover: Charles Wuorinen's Duos CD (Albany Records, January 2009 scheduled release). The untitled tempera of pink, green, and brown criss-crossing pedestrians dates from the early 1960s. The CD joins a growing gallery of new releases carrying the Flora album cover tradition into the 21st century.

Thanks to Howard Stokar, executive producer of the CD, for requesting the cover image.

Update (Jan. 12): CD now available.

Daisy Holiday

Our friend Takashi Okada of Tokyo has become the pre-eminent Floraphile in Japan. Besides being an avid customer of Jim Flora fine art prints, Takashi recently designed the Daisy Holiday CD package, which adapts Flora's 1947 Green Mansions resort brochure illustration (licensed from the Flora estate). Additional Flora elements appear on the jewel case inlay and in the booklet.

Here's a Tokyo record store display flush with Flora. If you don't live in that part of the world, the CD is available from Amazon, cdUniverse, and YesAsia. When this display is taken down, someone is gonna have a rare Flora Daisy Holiday poster.

Takashi is also publishing a compendium of over 150 feline images from record album covers. The book's front will be adorned with Flora's classic 1955 Mambo For Cats RCA Victor LP illustration, and the back will feature a piano-perched kitty from the Shorty Rogers-Andre Previn Collaboration EP. We'll provide more info about the book upon publication.

Chicken or Beef?

The new CD by Seattle's Reptet, Chicken or Beef? (Monktail Records), adapts elements of Flora woodcuts from Murderpie, a 1939 Little Man Press chapbook. The package—which includes additional Flora imagery on the back and inner disc sleeve—was designed by Jeffrey Huston and Reptet drummer John Ewing. The original typography replicates Flora lettering.

This is the second release by Reptet to feature Flora imagery. Their 2005 Do This! was emblazoned with a critter we call a "Triclops."

Jim Flora CD Gallery

Extending the Flora album cover tradition, contemporary designers have been licensing Jim Flora images for CDs. At JimFlora.com, we've launched a gallery of recent digital releases that have been Floradized.

Interested in using Flora art for your CD? Just ask.