Jim Flora notecards

Back in stock: letterpress-printed cards with cool 1940s and '50s music and turntable illustrations by Flora. The cards were designed and printed by our friends at Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress, in Knoxville. Packaged in sets of four: Dig You Later, Stardust Moon, Deluxe-O-Tone, and Trees.

legacy

Part of Flora's is also
part of Columbia's.

Deeper into Flora

This is a test.

Go here.

In the green menu at the left, click "request a song."

Select a letter (or a number) at the top — any one.

Select an artist — any artist. One you know, one you don't — it's just a drill. (Caveat: a band whose name begins with "The" appears under "T." Hence, there are more "T" artists than any other letter.)

Click on album title (not cover thumbnail).

Request a song -- any song. It's just a drill.

Note pop-up window illustration. Smile a little. Please?

As long as you're Deeper Into Music, stick around and listen. Is there another station in the galaxy where "The Death of Ferdinand De Saussure" by Magnetic Fields and "Shang a Dang Dang" by Lambchop are in heavy rotation?

At last -- Spring!

It's been a long time comin' here in Minnesota -- at last I can milk the cow, play some records and mow the lawn! Ah, yes -- but it still drizzles. Hence the umbrella. And cigar.

Saturday Evening Post advertising promotional booklet, 1955.

The Flora Faded Line

Jim Flora's art has appeared on record album covers, in magazines, in children's books, and on fine art prints. You'll soon have more options about where to display your Flora:

Jim Flora Art LLC is working with the Colorado-based Faded Line Clothing Co., who are designing a very cool line of t-shirts, hoodies, and assorted apparel featuring Flora's mischievous and curiously sinister art.

Above are proposed designs, of which there are a half-dozen others being developed. The apparel line has not been finalized, and shirts not yet manufactured, so don't place orders. We'll update as the line comes closer to launch, hopefully by Fall 08.

Primer for Prophets prints now on eBay

The long-awaited series of fine-art screen prints PRIMER FOR PROPHETS are now available on eBay. Very cool Flora illustrations of the American nuclear family (and their weird pets) during the 1950s, when people had fried-egg eyes, dog food tins were edible, and teens grew bonus legs!

Subtitled "A Flora '50s A-B-C," the images derive from a 1954 trade-only alphabet booklet titled Primer for Prophets that Flora illustrated for CBS-TV. The booklet was not circulated to the public, but was intended to attract corporate advertisers to the emerging medium of television. Each page featured iconic Flora illustrations of past-tense verbs (A to Z) that reflected daily activities of the typical American family, suggesting products they would purchase.

The first four prints produced are "ATE," "DROVE," "JIVED," and "SMOKED." They are available as single prints or as a set.

The PRIMER series was produced in a limited edition of 100 by Minneapolis screen studio Aesthetic Apparatus. Production specs are detailed in the eBay listings. Each print is hand-numbered and authenticated.

Over the next few years, we'll extend the series to cover the entire alphabet. The PRIMER illustrations reflect Flora at his post-war commercial peak. That same year, he began illustrating RCA Victor album covers, creating some of his most popular images (such as Mambo for Cats). The PRIMER characters are consistent with the best of his RCA album sleeves.

NOTE: The 10-day eBay listings for these prints have expired, but the prints are now available through JimFlora.com. The above links go directly to the individual print pages on the site.

Jim Flora greeting cards

Now on eBay:
Spanky new from Jim Flora Art LLC and Yee-Haw Industrial Letterpress, Knoxville: three different sets of four unique cards each. The cards are hand-printed letterpress on recycled paper and come bundled with kraft envelopes in a clear sleeve. Fun to mail, funner to receive, but also klassy-kool for framing.
Above: quartet of 1955 hepcats from the "Plant You Now, Dig You Later" set. Below, the "Deluxe-O-Tone" line of retro-record players (1940s- and 1950s-era):
Here's the "Stardust" series (1954 illustrations):

Music fosters domestic harmony

Now, as it did in 1943 when Flora provided this illustration for a Columbia Records magazine ad:

The smiley flora has antecedents:

Title page, Pip Pap Po, print from woodcut,

Little Man Press (Cincinnati), 1940