Flora tattoo #5 (and 6, 7, 8, etc.)

We've posted a series of photos of Floraphiles sporting skin art. We neglected this one—actually more than one—sent by Kelly Kimball in 2010. Multiple camera angles required to view the entire anatomical exhibition:

As best we can discern, the details are derived from Mambo for Cats, the Little Man Press, and The FCC's Expanding Demanding Universe, though there might be other sources.

If you missed our prior Flora skin art posts:

Fresh Ink and Flora tattoo #4
Bix, birthday boy
Fresh ink and Flora tattoo #2
Demonstrated commitment!

Fresh Ink and Flora tattoo #4

Reader/art lover Tiago writes: "I am a huge fan of Jim Flora’s work. (I have already bought books and prints.) I would like to share this image of my latest tattoo, from a Flora work. Hope you guys like it! It is a sincere homage to one of my favorite artists!"

The original illustration is from 1942:

This isn't the first time Flora has inspired skin art:

Bix, birthday boy
Fresh ink and Flora tattoo #2
Demonstrated commitment!

proud Floraphile

Musician Mike Keneally is a Floraphile.

Info on Mike at AllMusic, and here's his website.

Photo by my brother Dan Chusid, October 2014.

The book he's holding is our 2013 anthology

The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora.

music and art in the crib

Flora, grinning (ca. 1985)

Flora's daughter Roussie Jacksina has received her complimentary copy of The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora. She writes:

Hi Irwin, I received the book today and it is GORGEOUS! Where on earth did you find all that new material? You are amazing sleuths and the book is stunning. Assuming Dad is among us in the 4th dimension, I'm sure he is grinning wide.

I think the first music I ever heard was a record of Josh White singing "One Meatball" and I heard it in my crib. It's because of Dad's musical influence that I dropped out of college to hang out in jazz clubs and art galleries—not that that was his wish for me, nor was he very pleased.

Thanks so much for the copy. You, Barbara, and Laura did a fabulous job.

Roussie

Mambo for Cake

Someone who co-admins this blog recently had a birthday and his girlfriend concocted the above cake (based, of course, on this.) The (edible) elements were commissioned from a designer on Etsy and meticulously assembled by wondergal Beth Sorrentino on a chocolate cake she baked. The cake was presented to the surprised Flora archivist at Café Frida in New York. After dozens of cameras (including that of Otis Fodder, above) documented the delicacy, it was summarily disassembled with knives and forks.

Beth confides: although the original RCA Victor album was a 12" LP, the cake replicates the rare (in fact, never seen) 10" version.

artist at rest

Today in 1914, James Royer Flora was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio. Above our guy is pictured relaxing at home in the late 1980s. Interesting juxtaposition of bold patterns, with hunting jacket, slacks and chair vying for focal primacy. Cameo in the upper right by the Fab Four, depicted in 1964, tho it appears to be a hand-rendered (probably not by Flora) replica of a famous photo.

Flora's daughter Julia provides some family context:

I love this picture; this is exactly the way I'll always remember him, with that great head of hair and his flair (?) for mixing plaids (we used to tease him about that all the time). I'm fairly sure it was my brother Robert that took it and probably for some kind of promo shot Dad asked him to create.

In the early 1970s, Flora rendered an autobiographical montage, The First Five Years, in acrylic on wood. The work featured six stacked tiers depicting incidents during the artist's childhood. We posted one tier in December 2008. Here's another:

Flora books arrayed

Shelf display of Flora kiddie books in the office of Cynthia Johnson, director of the Rowayton (CT) Library. The glass-enclosed office is nestled behind the checkout counter, so patrons can view the display. (The plush creatures are non-Floracentric, but companionate.)

Cynthia is producing a jigsaw puzzle of a 1980 cartoon map of the town rendered by its illustrious Citizen Flora, a resident from 1946 to his death in 1998. The puzzle should be available soon at the library, and will be announced on this blog. Cynthia also plans to host separate presentations about Flora's children's literature and his fine art legacy early in 2011.

Photo: Beth Sorrentino

a little Flora brightens a room

To many who know him, our friend Takashi Okada of Tokyo is a talented graphic designer, music producer, historian, cultural connoisseur, cat lover, and gentleman. But unless you visit Takashi and his wife Tomoko's home, you might not know he has a deep Flora fixation. Takashi owns original art, album covers, Little Man Press artifacts, children's books, and fine art prints. We've long known about Takashi's love of Flora, but never having visited the Far East, we hadn't seen the shrine. The above photo was sent by our Japanese friend.

Yee-Haw Industries studio tour

We're honored to have worked with the fine folks at Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress, producing Flora limited edition woodcut prints (including the 1951 tour de force Railroad Town and the 1957 LP-sized Jugglers) and letterpress notecards and calendars.

Printmaker Brian Baker with Jugglers edition print (left) and vintage block (right)

Co-proprietors Julie Belcher and Kevin Bradley, along with the Yee-Haw staff, are committed professionals and we consider them friends. We're working with Yee-Haw on new projects, including a 2011 letterpress calendar based on a 1954 Flora woodcut entitled Sheffield Island, and more woodcut limited edition prints.

David Trawin of ThisIsProcess.com writes:

Last year I had the chance to check out the Yee-Haw Industries studio space/storefront in Knoxville. They were generous enough to give me the grand tour. Take a look.

Flor-riffic details:

Yee-Haw was fortunate to work with the estate of Jim Flora to print original block carvings made by the legendary artist. [ed.: below, Serenade, 1947; only proofs currently available]

[Kevin Bradley] showing drawers full of Jim Flora samples:

N.B. The above giclée proofs were produced by printmaker and Flora co-archivist Barbara Economon of JimFlora.com for planned fine art prints.

G3 in Tampico: the restoration

We launched our latest Jim Flora fine art print, G3 in Tampico (detail, left), earlier this week. The original 1970 tempera painting on artist board is shelved in storage at the Flora collection in Norwalk, Connecticut. The title is an enigma, but so are the figures (full work below). Here's a peek at the selection and restoration process behind our fine art prints.

The Flora catalog is huge; as co-archivists, Barb Economon and I have a growing list of works flagged for print production. G3 was not on this list. Most original works on paper have been scanned at high resolution, and oversized canvases have been photographed. The digital files then undergo a carpal-straining restoration process to prepare the images for print media (e.g., books, paper goods, fine art prints). This process is the purview of Barb, a specialist in digital image technology. It's become obvious during our research in the collection that Flora was less than fastidious in the preservation of his past art during his lifetime. It's likely that the large volume of historical works balanced against the ongoing creation of new works left little time for the artist to focus on safeguarding his legacy. Sunlight, humidity, careless shelving, aging, and accidents, as well as adhesive stains, paper acidity, and nicotine smoke have all taken their toll. After Flora's death, his family placed the entire collection in safe, climate-controlled storage (photo, lower left), where most of it remains to this day. The greater the deterioration of (or damage to) the original, the more restoration work is required.

A few weeks ago a small record label requested an image to license for a CD cover. Reviewing hundreds of digital files, I discovered G3 (previously unpublished and uncirculated) and sent the label a low-resolution jpg (along with a batch of additional images). On closer examination, I realized the image had not been restored. Strictly as a Zen exercise, I undertook some rudimentary cleanup over several days, and the figures began to percolate. I reached the limits of my restorative powers and turned the file over to Barb. She made additional corrections and adjustments, and decided to produce a test print. It was declared a masterwork, and we decided to issue an edition. The entire process from idle cleanup to print launch took four days.

Below is a before/after comparison of the images (click to enlarge). The original is in bad shape — there are faded areas, soiling, paint loss, and moisture spots. It's amazing what you can accomplish with painstaking mouse-clicks.

I considered purchasing G3 from the Flora family. However, considering the condition of the original, I opted for a print. The damaged work would be expensive to restore, and without professional restoration it will continue to deteriorate. (Its condition is effectively stabilized in limited light, climate-controlled storage.) The new print reflects the work much as Flora created it forty years ago, with a few minor aging artifacts.

Fresh ink and Flora tattoo #2

Some people dedicate their bodies to science. Shannon Wade, of Portland OR, dedicates hers to the art of Jim Flora. Not the first time, either.

The above distended figure originally appeared on the title page of GUP, a 1942 Little Man Press publication written by Robert Lowry and illustrated by Flora.

Flora as interior decor

Akiko Hashimoto sends this snapshot from her home in Japan:

The Flora prints displayed are The Big Bank Robbery (ca. 1963) and Gunfight on the Roof (ca. 1951). A series of original 1950s Flora LPs sits on a shelf below.

Charlie and Wallingford

Caution: archivists at work. Snapshot of two 1943 artifacts parked on a collapsible card table at CT storage facility housing Flora collection. Larger work is Charlie's Egg, a tempera on (the back of a) Columbia Records convention brochure; the bottom partial is one of two covers for an unpublished kiddie book, The X-Ray Eye of Wallingford Hume. Both images were fully reproduced in our third Flora anthology, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora.

Photo: Don Brockway, May 2006

"the rumors were greatly exaggerated"

James Flora was born in Bellefontaine, Ohio, on this date in 1914. Legend has it he passed away on July 9, 1998. However, some refuse to acknowledge his departure. We see evidence of Flora's presence every day, so perhaps they're onto something.

inside the art factory

We recently launched our third series of alphabetical Primer for Prophets screen prints (see preceding post). Minneapolis printmaker Dan Ibarra of Aesthetic Apparatus, where the series is produced, sent us snapshots of the production process:

Detail of WASHED:


First inking of ECONOMIZED:


Drying racks with ganged images after first ink pass:


Finished, dried, stacked, untrimmed prints:

We've now produced prints for the letters A, C, D, E, G, J, K, N, Q, S, U, and W (14 to go). While developing series 3 over the summer, Barb and I selected "U" (Underestimated) in anticipation of printmaker Dan's and wife Kelly's first child, expected in the fall.

Clover Isabel Ibarra was born 9 lbs, 7 oz at 9:31 pm, Wednesday, October 21, at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul.

No triplets this time.

About Clover's birth, Dan writes:

Assisted by our three amazing midwives and a slew of other nurses at St. Joseph's, we attempted innumerable ways to get Clover in the right position and deliver her through a natural child birth. The labor was extremely hard on Kelly (as 72 hours of labor can be) and in the end we exhausted all options and had to perform a Caesarian. Although we really struggled hard to avoid as little medical intervention as possible it turns out that complications with the umbilical cord around the baby's neck and the position of her head prevented anything of the sort.

Clover was amazingly tough through the whole labor, rarely ever showing any fluctuation in heart rate or stamina. Some people say that how we are born is very telling of our personality. If that's the case, this new little girl is already the toughest, most cool-headed girl we've ever known. (Maybe Clover Eastwood might have been a better name?)

5Qs 4 Eric Reynolds

Eric Reynolds has worked at Fantagraphics (our Flora books publisher) for 15 years, mostly as publicist. It's been our pleasure to conduct business with (and, in September 2007, meet) the affable Mr. Reynolds, an admitted Floraphile. He was recently booted upstairs by his bosses to the position of Associate Publisher. A large round of applause for that company move (though we'll miss Eric on the PR end).

Comic Book Galaxy's Trouble With Comics blog tendered "Five Questions for Eric Reynolds," which he graciously answered. Flora's name is dropped just once, but we don't begrudge Eric any perceived slight. Fantagraphics has a large artist roster and we're honored that Flora is part of it.

Above right: Eric at the Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora exhibit opening reception, September 22, 2007, Fantagraphics Bookstore/Gallery, Seattle.

unfinished tableaus

Unfinished figures in tempera and pencil, photographed on sketchbook page. The undated work is probably from around 1960 because the contours resemble Big Evening, a tempera from that year.

arts & Kraft

In an art class called "Soft Sculpture" at the University of Washington (Seattle), students were instructed to transform a favorite painting into food sculpture. SunShine McWane adapted Flora's untitled 1950-51 tempera we casually refer to as "Gunfight on the Roof" (original work below). The resulting mixed-media delicacy, entitled "Cheese City," was completed in January 2009.

The materials—ingredients, actually—used by McWane include cheese (cheddar, Swiss, Colby, jalapeño jack), acrylic paint, plastic (GI Joe figures), one wire twist-tie, and a Gummi Bear. The work is currently in SunShine's apartment, at room temperature, preserved with spray fixative. Its lifespan is uncertain.

The original painting was reproduced in The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora and released as a limited edition fine art print in 2008.

Thanks to Jillian Sutton for introducing McWane to Flora's work and for alerting us to the cheesy replica.

tweed cat

A work-in-progress (since finished) by the Angry Knitter. The background exhibit caught our eye.

Flora exhibit at A-D Gallery, New York

If you're planning to attend the above June 10 exhibit — you're 66 years too late. However, by historical accounts Flora's first New York City gallery show, held in 1943, was fabulously successful.

A few months earlier, Flora had been named art director at Columbia Records, replacing the man who hired him, Alex Steinweiss (at left with the artist in photo below). The whereabouts of the inscrutable petroglyphs on the wall? All will be revealed in our forthcoming book, The Sweetly Diabolic Art of Jim Flora, scheduled for August publication by Fantagraphics.