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.
