Flora Does Esquivel

Almost. The Flora pretzel-ized trumpet that graces the cover of this rare RCA Victor Living Stereo "cartridge magazine" originally appeared in 1958 on the back cover of the LP Portrait of Shorty Rogers. The illustration was recycled by RCA Victor's art department on this 1960 Esquivel package, whose format was the (failed) forerunner of the cassette.

The LP version of this classic album by the Mexican maestro had a completely different photographic cover. RCA also marketed a consumer cartridge recorder, demonstrated here.

HT: Jeffrey (Dr. Ashtray) Ferguson, who discovered this on eBay in 2006.

Jim Flora 2008 calendars

Jim Flora Art LLC is offering three hand-printed 2008 calendars: swingin' sax, boogie-beat drummer, and starlite moon. We have a limited number (30 each) to sell. That's it. It's not a numbered edition — 500 backing cards each were printed by Yee-Haw Industries (Knoxville), but due to scheduling demands, the production team could only finish a few hundred calendars for retail boutiques. JFA LLC received 30 sets for our customers.

Sales are first-come, first-served. Each calendar costs $12.50 + s/h (see below). We accept checks and PayPal (info@JimFlora.com).

The backing cards are letterpress printed on recycled stock, measuring 10" x 4-1/2". The attached calendar, with 12 pull-off pages, measures 3-1/4" x 4-1/2". The Jim Flora illustrations date from the mid-1950s. Those little flyspecks you see around the images are a natural byproduct of the hand-printing process.

These cards have been distributed by Yee-Haw to select boutiques, but we don't have a list. One difference: unlike the cards sold in shops, our small stock has been authenticated on the back with the Jim Flora Art LLC seal. Instant collectible. And useful: it contains ALL 12 of your FAVORITE MONTHS, in correct sequence (four years ahead of schedule)! Guaranteed to include YOUR BIRTHDAY as well as those of your family and friends, or your money back! Pin-up hole included at no extra charge!

With the balance of the print run, Yee-Haw will produce the same line in 2009. But if you can't wait, we've got a handful. There's no limit per customer, while supplies last.

UPDATE (10/24): We are no longer accepting orders via the blog. The remaining stock is available thru a 10-day Buy-It-Now auction on eBay, after which the item will be listed in the Jim Flora Art eBay store.

science geek 1

Illustration, "Human Engineering: Tailoring the Machine to the Man"

Research and Engineering magazine, February 1956

Demonstrated commitment!

Floraphile Shannon Wade, of Portland, isn't content to admire Flora art in books, on album covers, or displayed on walls. It's not enough for her to wear it. She wants to BE it. Shannon combined elements from two of Flora's more well-known album cover illustrations—the Pete Jolly Duo and Mambo for Cats—into some nifty skin art. Design-in-progress (at right), with color added (below).

Shannon writes:

"This was my first tattoo, and it was done in Austin about seven years ago by a wonderful tattoo artist, Chris Gunn.

"I first saw Jim Flora's work a few years before that in Eric Kohler's book In the Groove. I was hooked from the start, and no one was happier than I when his stuff started appearing on eBay. I've collected most of my favorite covers, but I'm still desperately seeking the Pete Jolly Duo.

"I wanted a tattoo for many many years but was determined to wait for just the right image. Then I saw Flora's work. I asked the artist to combine elements from Mambo for Cats and Pete Jolly Duo. It's a bit simpler in design than the originals, the colors are different and the motion lines have been embellished, but I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. It took three two-and-a-half hour sessions to finish—one black session and two color sessions. It didn't hurt as bad as you might think. Folks ask me about it all the time, which always gives me a chance to spread the word about Jim Flora."

Update AUG 6, 2009: More about Jim Flora images and tattoos.

The weirdest ...

... "Jim Flora" exact phrase search result. And maybe the only time this blog will have one degree of separation from Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Posts about buildings and food

Flora was a failed architecture student. He had to forego a scholarship to the Boston Architectural League in 1933 due to Depression-era financial constraints—he was too tired to attend classes after shifts as a busboy. ("I earned seven dollars a week plus meals and had to work the entire day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This meant that I could not attend classes. Late in October the school said they could no longer hold my scholarship open.")

Throughout his artistic life, many of Flora's iconic illustrations, paintings, and woodcuts displayed an idiosyncratic passion for structures. Above is a slightly edited frontage montage from his 1964 children's book My Friend Charlie.

Flora exhibit photos

Fantagraphics has posted photos from the September 22 opening of the Flora exhibit.

So has Ward Jenkins. (Who also journals.)

And David Lasky.

The exhibit runs through October 24.

(Note: Flora co-archivist Barbara Economon could not attend the opening due to a family emergency.)

RCA Victor ad, 1954

Esquire magazine, September 1954

Flora takes Seattle

The cover of the Weekly, anyway (print edition, September 19-25 issue), in conjunction with the just-opened exhibition at Fantagraphics Bookstore/Gallery.

The illustration is a detail from Flora's 1954 RCA Victor LP cover Shorty Rogers Courts the Count. The Weekly's Fall Arts section includes this nifty Flora cavalcade and a dozen interior spot placements:

JimFlora.com finally updated!

Long overdue. Sorry. Not that anyone was expecting apologies. Please visit.

Lots of new content: 63rd Street fine art print page; Fantagraphics Gallery exhibit poster; more LP covers that are commonly mistaken for Flora designs; and a progress report on the Primer for Prophets series. The Railroad Town page has been updated. We also corrected typos, fixed broken links, and rearranged the furniture. You almost wouldn't recognize the place, except that it's still populated with strange Flora characters.

In fact, those strange Florabeasts seem to be EVERYWHERE lately!

Sept 22 "master piece"

Pencil sketch, ca. 1988-1991. Purpose unknown, but presumably an invitation to some festiveness at the Flora home. Coincidentally, the above date marks the opening reception for our Jim Flora exhibit at the Fantagraphics Bookstore/Gallery. If you're in Seattle on that date, you're invited! Exhibit runs thru October 24 and features original paintings, fine art prints, woodcut relief prints, record covers, music ephemera, and Little Man Press artifacts.

1948 Flora

"My days were peaceful and sheltered, my time generously idled away on pleasantries of no consequence—until Flora entered my life."

vintage Flora print now on eBay

Jim Flora Art LLC has listed on eBay a vintage hand-colored relief print of a 1954 Flora woodcut entitled Manhattan. The print was color-filled (with either tempera or watercolor), signed, titled, and matted by the artist.

The cityscape depicts many NYC landmarks, such as the Empire State Building, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the UN, Madison Square Garden, the Statue of Liberty, famous theaters and legendary musical bistros, Washington Square arch, a NY public library lion, subways, taxis, horse-drawn carriages and tourists.

An unknown number of Manhattan prints were gift-wrapped by the artist for gallery sale back in the 1950s. The print being auctioned remains sealed by tape. Several Manhattan prints are in the family collection, but this is the only one which will be auctioned, and there are no immediate plans to sell the remaining prints.

Update 1: Auction drew 24 bids, closed at $1,610.00.

Update 2: Message received. Due to popular demand, we will be issuing a limited edition giclée of this work. People feel nostalgic about New York in the 1950s. Who knew?

Update 3: Like magic: done.

coffin sketch

Untitled, undated pencil drawing on onionskin paper; later printed in Gup, a 1942 chapbook authored by Robert Lowry, issued by Little Man Press (Cincinnati), featuring cover and interior illustrations by Flora.

Quartet San Francisco

To sustain the classic Flora LP tradition of the 1940s and '50s, I've long advocated restoring his art to record album covers. Aside from one or two knockoffs of existing Flora designs, the first new release to adapt Flora non-LP art was Do This! by Seattle's Reptet, in 2006. The cover for the forthcoming Raymond Scott Quintet CD Ectoplasm (scheduled for February 2008 US release) was completed last May. Now comes the Quartet San Francisco's Whirled Chamber Music, whose cover designed is adapted from a mid-1960s uncirculated Flora painting entitled Barberinni.

Not coincidentally {ahem!}, the QSF album contains seven Raymond Scott compositions (including "Powerhouse"), seeded amid an eclectic mix of Ellington, AWB, Bernstein, Corea, Tower of Power, and one original. As quartet leader Jeremy Cohen asserts, "The tradition of chamber music has taught us to play from our hearts with the highest standards. So when the music says swing, we swing. When the music says groove, we groove." Hear them swing and groove here.

Over the next few months, the QSF will perform in Los Angeles, Columbus, Pasadena, Louisville, NJ, NYC, Berkeley, Natick, and elsewhere.

Update (September 27): "Scientists working diligently in a laboratory somewhere recently discovered a DNA strand and have identified it as the Cartoon Gene."

odd couple

Untitled pen & ink sketch, ca. 1940. I detect the influence of Daniel Johnston. Or maybe it's the other way around.

Never mind.

Flora exhibit in Seattle

Barbara and I will be curating the first Jim Flora art exhibit since—well, since the artist's memorial service in 1998. The exhibit, named after our second book, "The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora," takes place at the Fantagraphics Bookstore/Gallery. The exhibit will run from September 22 through October 24.

The Florafest will include original paintings, fine art prints, woodcut relief prints, record covers, music ephemera, and Little Man Press artifacts. There will also be stuff you can buy that has Flora mischief all over it.

Barbara and I will be on hand for an opening reception on September 22. More details forthcoming as arrangements are finalized.

laughing cow

Or perhaps she's just contented. Early pencil sketch, ca. 1940. There are a number of pencil and pen sketches in the archives which evolved through stages into paintings. This, so far as we know, isn't one.

The artist who "couldn't stand a static space"

untitled, undated pen and ink, ca. 1940

Advanced Pictionary

D.B. Dowd (Professor of Visual Communication, Washington University, St.Louis) opines:

The modernist drive to split representation from its subject (that is, to open up a space between them, at the very least) included the ransacking of pre-modern art historical conventions, often to excellent effect. Jim Flora’s 1945 Coda cover draws on spot color printing and the use of spatial registers, a la Egyptian art, to deliver a strong graphic narrative with clarity and visual independence from, but knowledge of, its subjects.