Don Mangus' "It Only Hurts When I Smirk.": September 2018

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Organic Simplicty

Frank Lloyd Wright

Robert Doisneau

"Organic simplicity might be seen producing significant character in the harmonious order we call Nature -- all around, beauty in growing things. None insignificant." -- Frank Lloyd Wright, 1931

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

View-Master Master Artist: Florence Thomas

Florence Thomas

By BK Munn

Most fans of the tiny fantasy worlds glimpsed through the lens of a View-Master viewer are probably unaware of the name Florence Thomas. Thomas was the Portland, Oregon sculptor employed by the makers of the 3-D viewer to create miniature dioramas of fairy tales and pop culture scenes which she then photographed for reproduction into the iconic circular white reels that have delighted children and adult collectors for decades.

Thomas produced her first reels for View-Master in 1946 -- a series of Fairy Tales and Mother Goose rhymes that are still in circulation.

According to one source, Thomas "developed special methods of close-up stereo photography and modeling which is now in common use by major motion picture studios" (John Waldsmith, Stereo Views, 1991).

She created scenes of such detail and attractiveness that you feel you could step inside and look around a corner at a complete world.

Besides the Fairy Tales, these worlds included versions of the Frankenstein and Dracula stories, scenes from the comic strip Peanuts, and 3-D versions of animated cartoons like The Flintstones.

Amazingly, all of the puppet-like figures were sculpted from clay and the scenes were shot using a single-lens camera (not a stereo camera) that was moved on a track to get the stereo shot.

Sometimes the models were moved slightly between shots to enhance the 3-D effect.

During her heyday, Thomas appeared on television and radio to satisfy the curiosity of the children who consumed View-Masters by the millions in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, she is largely forgotten except by a few collectors.

Florence Thomas

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Charles Loloma: Pendant

Charles Loloma

Friday, September 14, 2018

Memes as Visual Self-Affirmations

Don Mangus

At first I was just fooling around having fun on Facebook, but then it struck me -- making your own ego-boosting memes might have some therapeutic value for some folks. Sort of like a visual self-affirmation statement. Try it out. It's like a publicity campaign for your self-esteem. Narcissists need not bother, though. Speaking of which -- don't worry, I made these memes over the span of many months. I just collected them together here, before I delete them from my tablet. Onward!

From yee Wiki:

Self-affirmation theory is a psychological theory that focuses on how individuals adapt to information or experiences that are threatening to their self-concept. Claude Steele originally popularized self-affirmation theory in the late 1980s, and it remains a well-studied theory in social psychological research.

Self-affirmation theory contends that if individuals reflect on values that are personally relevant to them, they are less likely to experience distress and react defensively when confronted with information that contradicts or threatens their sense of self.

Experimental investigations of self-affirmation theory suggest that self-affirmation can help individuals cope with threat or stress and that it might be beneficial for improving academic performance, health, and reducing defensiveness.

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Bless the Weavers

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Fountainhead: The Architectural Renderings

Harold Michelson

Chesley Bonestell

Harold Michelson

Chesley Bonestell

Harold Michelson

Chesley Bonestell

Harold Michelson

Chesley Bonestell

Harold Michelson

Chesley Bonestell

Chesley Bonestell studied architecture at Columbia University in New York City. Dropping out in his third year, he worked as a renderer and designer for several of the leading architectural firms of the time. While with William van Alen, he and Warren Straton designed the Art Deco façade of the Chrysler Building as well as its distinctive eagles. During this same period, he designed the Plymouth Rock Memorial, the U.S. Supreme Court Building, the New York Central Building, Manhattan office and apartment buildings and several state capitols.

Returning to the West Coast, he prepared illustrations of the chief engineer's plans for the Golden Gate Bridge for the benefit of funders. When the Great Depression dried up architectural work in the United States, Bonestell went to England, where he rendered architectural subjects for the Illustrated London News. In the late 1930s he moved to Hollywood, where he worked (without screen credit) as a special effects artist, creating matte paintings for films, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).

All the views of turn-of-the-century New York and of Charles Foster Kane's mansion, Xanadu, are Bonestell's artwork. In The Fountainhead, Bonestell in a sense was Howard Roark -- all of the buildings created by Ayn Rand's superheroic architect are by Bonestell. He eventually became Hollywood's highest-paid matte artist.

Chesley Bonestell