22 January 1954 “Spanx? No Thanks! Beautifully Housed Media? Yes Please! What’s old and cherished might be new again.

Many of we modern women know what spanx are. And quiet literally they are simply girdles. But, why are they so flat and ugly? Why are they not as pretty as these undergarments? Though many a lady kept her Lingerie catalogue tucked away from curious little eyes, today these images are quite tame compared to what little Johnny might see on TV, Computer, or really walking down the street or through the mall. Enjoy them today, however, without any need to tuck them away on the china cabinet top shelf behind Grandmother’s silver. They can be found at My Vintage Vogue.

It is also of interest that in the past while ones undergarments were also prettily decorated, so too was the entertainment gadgets. While today we may see endless ‘upgrades’ to the actual viewing, then technology added maybe then promise of better sound or clearer picture. Of equal importance was how this was to be housed. The way in which it was to be used in the decor of you home. This also blatantly points out that one was investing in a TV, Radio, HiFi for the long haul. The price was high (very little credit about) and one expected to keep it for their lifetime. The history of items had told consumers then that one could buy a thing and keep it for future generations. But, now the increase in technology and ever advancing need to sell more was brushing up against these old ideals. That is why the 1950’s is such an example of the crest of that wave of old ideals of longevity and quality with the impending movement towards ever changing and throw away.

I don’t need to go into a long tirade on the throw away consumer culture in which we all dwell. WE all now well and good how we live in a society that buys buys buys and then tosses away. Thus,  I suppose it makes sense that one’s firming undergarments snag easily and are tossed, Why bother making them pretty? Its not as if they will be lovingly washed, bows ironed and then placed in a sweet smelling lingerie drawer lined with scented papers.Found decades later in antique shops and thrift shops by new generations of girls who think, “Wow these are great’. Nor are we to expect to keep whatever TV or Computer we buy for longer than 6 months to a year. So lets just incase it all in ugly plastic and toss it on the pile when we are done. What will fill our Thrift shops and Antique stores in 100 years? I honestly don’t know.

There is a definite loss of general beauty to today. Some may find the idea of a large cabinet with your TV and HiFi in too much like Grandma. but I say, we would care more for things, spend less and have more money in the bank (though we get no interest today on our savings like they did in the 1950s) if we were a bit more like Granny. Of course today many readers may have a Granny who was simply a child in the 1950’s. I won’t disparage the baby boomers, but I must admit when I look about today and see the ‘new’ old people are the Baby Boomers, I long for the sensibility, control of purse strings, strength of character of the ‘old people’ when I was younger. A time when one could look at Granny and think, “Wow, she made it through the Depression” Or “She valiantly stood the hardships of war while her hubby/brother/son/father was off to war (when we spoke about the wars we were involved in.)

It’s odd that I often feel older than the ‘older generations’ today. The sensibilities that came to me over my project make me not only sometimes seem the oddball to my own generation but the Baby Boomers with their ‘cool James Dean’ ways and ME attitude can be a bit scary. But, I digress, and I should not lump an entire generation into one view.

Back to the beauty of the past. I like the looks of these old TV/Media cabinets. They were designed to go with your old furniture which you got from your Granny and lovingly rubbed lemon oil and beeswax into.

If you love the look of these wonderful cabinets and the beauty of old TV then check out the TV History Page for more wonderful views.

There is a lovely movement however to house computers in wonderfully wooden Victorian style cabinetry. This is a modern computer in all this lovely wood with the typewriter as keyboard. You can view more of these lovely wooden dream computers HERE.

Or a more modern use keyboard made with wood and typewriter keys such as these: Or if one cares to have a more 1950’s look simply the screen as paper in your vintage typewriter: This can be bought Here.

I try to hold onto things as long as possible but sometimes with things like computers they simply won’t work any longer. Though the computer I am using for this post is over 6 years old.

There has to be a way for we modern people to add more lasting beauty to the fleeting reality of our modern lives? Have you any suggestions?

January 19-22 “Lucy has a baby and Dwight D. Eisenhower wins”

I have missed the blog. It is a new year and a new start. I aim to post daily of the past. They will sometimes be simple posts of a few things of interest. There may also be posts in-depth as in the old days. But, this year is about looking at the past and Vintage living in a new light. A way to allow the past to touch our daily lives in a light spirited and happy way.

On 19 January 1953 71% of all Televisions were tuned in to see Lucy give birth. It gives one pause to think how long the TV has been apart of our lives. There are now generations that are passing to which the TV was part of their life, albeit later in their life. But, today, we look around and see most people even those we call ‘old’ having grown up with this media. Here is a great clip from that episode. Classic scripted comedies seem to be sadly a thing of the past.

Dwight D. Eisenhower wins today! He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. Many feel the Eisenhower years were a time when the powers that be and the common man were closer than ever. The middle class will grow this decade and the disparagement between the salary of the head of a corp. and the man on the line was closer than ever. Today, we find this division closer to the Edwardian Age of the late 1890’s-1900s.

Here we can enjoy Eisenhower’s inaugural address in full. I think it is important to hear it if one is an American.

 

And lets end this little post with a top song from 1953 with the lovely Teresa Brewer. Happy Vintage Living.

17 October 1945 “Cake Baking, Eddy Dukkers, LIttle Audrey, In The Studio and CrabCakes”

I recently did a few images for an art customer playing on such terms as Lobster Pot and Crab Cake” So, I thought I’d share the Crab Cake version. It was made for a greeting/event card and subsequently will be a shirt and bag. The inspiration, per my yearly project, was the past, 1950’s of course.

But first, as we are talking “Cake”, well sort of, I thought I’d share this video from 1945. It was put out by Betty Crocker and was to espouse their new one bowl easier method to cake baking. I have to admit that I was spurred onto simply making one of my favorite cake recipes in one bowl and found the result just as nice. And certainly the clean up was far easier. The film is entitled, “How to Bake a Cake:400 years in 4 minutes”. Their idealized version of the Past’s Cake baking is cute and very early Post War Quaint, I would call it. Though the modern version of the cake making is quite good and helpful.

Now, I won’t bother going into any sort of silly long apologies or excuses for my absence again. It is simply that with the added responsibility of my new Art plan for the coming year, I must find better ways to divide my time. When I was a full time homemaker, I had to learn to break up all the hats one must wear in that position and I believe I did it. Though it did take me some time and effort, but the result will always be dependent upon the hard work and diligence put into it. Just as I had to learn how to work Laundry and Marketing and Cleaning and Cooking/Baking and the list goes on, into a 7 day week while still having time for tea and magazines in the afternoon and sherry with the hubby after dinner for a wind down of my day, I too must now get a grip, as it were, on the wheel of this new vehicle I am trying to drive: Artist and Homemaker.

I am finding my training in scheduling and list making a great boon into reaching my art goals. To want to do something or to hope to create is only a small portion of the thing. The actual act of creation takes planning, organization and of course Doing. I am finding that many ‘creative’ types often feel that disarray and disorganization is meant to be part of the process. I, however, am finding that it is better to be a Homemaker in the Studio as well as in the house. There is no room for slovenly or lazy ways in either place. Now, that not is to say I don’t make a mess in the studio when I am in the actual ACT of creating, but it does mean that I have to write down and organize my thoughts and plans for the day. When I have an assignment rather for a customer or for myself (for hopefully future customers) I need to clearly put down the final goal and then flush out the steps I need to get there. And then I break that down into the days needed and here is the trick, ADD A DAY. That extra, its going to be done but this day is a ‘play day’ to make any changes or to improve on it. Then if you have it done before that day u can improve upon it. Or if you need, as I do and I think we all do sometimes, a moment of lazy or contemplative procrastination, better to do it then because at the end of the day you will know that you still have at least done the thing.

Today’s lil art project was for a customer who wanted me to make a vintage inspired image for a card bag and possibly shirt. I had done some other tongue in cheek images of things such as a Lobster Pot which was a lobster at a tea party holding a teapot…get it? Yes, obvious I know but people seemed to like it.

This image was to be Crab Cakes. I was inspired by the illustrations of a wonderful Dutch illustrator Eddy Dukkas. It is almost impossible to find any translated works that he has illustrated, but for my crab cakes I used a literal impression of this work of his here:

I love the almost tribal look of early 50’s children’s illustrations. The face has the interpretive quality of Picassos own take on Tribal African Masks.

And I love the color palette, which is as much dictated by the limited ability of printing at the time. It is similar to the early 40’s cartoons I grew up with such as old Tom and Jerry and Little Audrey.  In fact I used to walk about and sing the little Audrey song to myself all the time!

Even as I child I always loved the colors in those more than the modern cartoons of my day like Speed Racer etc. The colors always seemed so garish and loud. The muted almost brown color palettes of those early cartoons was simply due to what could be possible in the technology they had, but to me I much prefer those hues.

Here is a wonderful look at more of Dukkers work. Here are some pages of a book Karel and Mienet. A story of a boy and his cat and the adventures they have. I don’t speak Dutch but I do love the illustrations. These are from the early 1950’s.

So my version is this:

I took liberties and used the color palette. I wanted that sharp almost tribal flatness mixed with a cookbook illustration of a cake. This is the preliminary work. It will get separated and turned into screens to print onto paper and fabric. I think it will made an adorable card and will look really spiffing on a bag.

I hope all are having a lovely day and Happy Homemaking and Happy Arting.

24 September 1959 “Kraft Music Hall with Milton Berle in Color, Clam Dip and Today’s Art”

My first installation here on this year’s Vintage art project comes from this great graphic from a 1958 cookbook. I found this image, as I found many graphic arts of the time, intriguing in its simple line and use of color. It expresses so much with a line drawing and some splotches of color. I deduced to do my first piece using the woman and playing on her location a bit. I’ll reveal that at the end of the post.
Now, Kraft Music Hall was a show that began on radio and ran quite a long time. It started on Radio on NBC in 1933 and continued onto Television until 1971. Always featuring music. Many well known singers and celebrities were seen on this program which was, of course, brought to you by Kraft. So the commercials were often recipe ideas using, of course, Kraft brand products.
Here is the show in its radio days from 1942 with Bing Crosby. Enjoy the entire show if you like.

And by today, 1959, we see one of the first color recordings of the show, now hosted by Milton Berle.

Now, the original image was for Lobster dip and I think lobster is not as easy come by for many of you> I have the benefit of living on Cape Cod where they are not only easy to come by, but are caught quite close to my home. But, I think we all could follow this simple Clam Dip recipe. And what better snack to serve at your next cocktail party or bridge with the gals?

Here is how mine turned out, though I have to admit to using fresh clams, again easily got down the road at our local fishmonger.

Now,, for my art inspired by the original piece. I had fun with this idea of taking off on an image. It wont always contain a portion of the original image either, sometimes it might just be a feeling or a pattern. But, as a first go I like the result. I think this would also make wonderful wallpaper or fabric.

I hope all have a lovely day and Happy Homemaking and Happy Arting.

Coming Tomorrow

Had to finish something in studio today, so first official post/art/vintage project to be done and posted tomorrow afternoon. Apologies, but once I get going I shall be consistent.

I hope all are having a lovely day.

50sgal.

16 September “Plans Revealed”

Well, my show was a success. I sold a few things, made wonderful connections and had a chance to dress up and eat finger sandwiches with friends old and new and other artists. My life is opening in a new direction and I feel my time travel is my strength I carry into this new endeavor.

Well, having spent days literally absorbed in creating and the process of my art, I couldn’t help but formulate a new way to tie my ‘past’ (pun INTENDED) with a hopeful new future. Part of my work requires me to spend hours sorting through and dreaming upon old photos and images. Obviously the past plays a large role in my life and thus my art can only reflect that. And it is a joy, I might add, to day dream an afternoon away looking back at our sisters of the past peering happily from picnics, seashores, boats, porches, and drawing rooms. Sometimes skirts sweeping the floor other times smiling like Jean Harlow posed in a glamorous suit hamming it up to the person behind the lens. Wishing, often, to be able to hope through the image like Mary Poppins through a chalk drawing to reach those long gone faces doesn’t make me forlorn but rather reverent of their past. The wish to document their days in my own stylistic way is a pleasure and an honor.

Thus, while steeped in this lovely part of my work ( the longing and joy of old images and magazines and posters of the past strewn about me like so much detritus from a crash landing in my Time Travel ship) I hit upon the Plan the “Project” for the coming year:

I will take three days a week Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday to post my experiment (more days will hopefully come by Jan 1, but I gal wants to set a realistic goal to get her steam up!). My Project will entail me taking a page from one of my cookbooks, homemaking manuals, magazines, old ephemera that I have used in the past posts or some that I have never touched upon and apply it to my day and subsequently document it in a piece of art.

This really hit home to me as a great way to continue my homemaking skills and study and also interpreting it into a tangible piece of artwork. Say, a recipe from a magazine with lovely advertising catches my fancy, then I try out that recipe, discuss why and wherefore such advertising is used, the stylistic art and the general joy of finding such gems to the Homemaker of the past and in the end I also have a created piece of artwork in my style of printmaking.

I think this will be such fun. And if any of you really get involved you can even suggest or send me a page (digital or old fashioned) to interpret or try out. I am so looking forward to it and also to getting back into specific days chores gleaned from the pages of our past and brought to life in my home and in my artwork.

So, today I am my studio. I will share some photos of my work and the show this week. This week will be the preparation of my project and I will try to change the face of the site a bit to reflect it, as I love to do.

Then starting next week, 23 Sept, Monday, look for my first day of this new endeavor. And my hope will be stick with my three day a week schedule with the aim that come 1 Jan 2014 I will be prepared to go back to a five day a week schedule of homemaking/art interpretation. It is never to early to plan those New Years resolutions guys and gals.

And I have missed all of you so much and look forward to starting to build up some new friends and followers as well. I thing we may even find some gals who would never consider Homemaking of interest until they are drawn in by the artistic lure of it all. And we may find some new people out there in the blogosphere that suddenly find their artistic prowess has been hidden inside and can now be expressed through a wonderful new skill of baking/cooking or even the joy of fresh pressed linen sheets of a morning, the smell of coffee and crisp white linen being more Zen than hours of Yoga or Zoloft could ever give them!

Have a lovely day all and Happy Homemaking and Happy Arting.

Painting the Past

Well, I am one week before my show. I am working like crazy this week to get enough paintings/prints images ready for it. I have worked out a new schedule at my studio/gallery for my working days which will be Mon Fri and Sat. So, my blog schedule, Which will be off next week as I preapare for my show, will Now be Tues, Thurs, and Sunday.

I realized today that the real focus of my project and this year of my life is painting the past. I have lived in the past so long that its environment has become like a friend to me. It is walking in the past that feels most like coming home. 

This coming year will combine my continual obsession and research in to all things past and then my subsequent need to manifest it into something. This has been my writing and well, my living, up to now. But as the opportunity is here to be in a studio it seems the right timing.

Honestly I sort of feel as if I am back here again, like i was 1 January 1955, calling out my small little voice to no one. But, you know, eventually they all came and we had a wonderful community. My problem was I was not willing to 'brand myself' and make it into more of a business so it could sustain all the work I put into it .Now, I feel, I can write about and enjoy a part of something that I can sell small things here and there and that will give me the monetary impetus to move forward. 

So, to anyone out there I am still here. And to any new friends who stumble along, I hope you come along for the ride.

​

​Solar Etching with Color Wash “The Twins”

The Summer Ends

Labor Day has come and gone. Summer has spent its vivid bright moments of bike rides to the shore, lazing in sun dappled lawns and sandy footed screen door slams.

I am working away on my art work. And though this weekend past was anything but conducive for picnic, I couldn't help but think of the wonderful movie Picnic from 1955. I shared it once, but the entire movie is no longer available to view for free online, but this snippet has such a feel of summer and the sizzle of big Hollywood films of the mid 1950s. William Holden and Kim Novak sizzle and the colors and film quality makes me think of cotton candy and wrinkled cotton prints, dotted swiss and cold potato salad.

 

Oddle enough there is a filmed staged version from the mid 1980's that star some up and coming actors many of you may recognize. It is not bad and would be good for a night you want to stay in but instead make a fun dinner theatre spread, have your friends dress 1950's and watch this version, maybe will sipping old fashioned soda pop out of glass bottles with paper straws.

 

My shared work for today is called "the Secret". When I stumbled upon the old photo of young gals at the beach with a cigarette I was drawn in. And with the current style of slightly abstracted screen-printed image over mono prints, I thought it was successful, as it both appears as a shared cigarette or as a surprise one gal is showing the other.

Back to work for me. I hope all have a lovely day and Happy Homemaking and Happy Artmaking.

A chair is a chair is a chair…My New Project Year.

Over the past year I have taken what I thought was a sabbatical from my living experiments; my "performance art" if you will. Having delved so deeply into the past so as to be as close to a time traveler as is possible, I needed a break, I thought, from such intense 'art pieces' as living the life of a 1950's homemaker.

Thus, this past year was born. I quietly slipped from the computer screen with my writing and out of the kitchen. I let slide my petticoats and girdle, the pearls came off and the cookbooks began to gather a bit of dust. I took a small part time job at a cafe to be out in the world. Eat was easy to slip back into the modern world, but not so easy to let go of the past, my 'created past' and the action of living in a very determined way. 

I even purchased, for very little money, an older model 'smart phone'. Though I did not use it as my actual cell phone (far too frugal from the '50's to fall for that) it was a pocket computer if you will. It had wireless capability and the cafe where I worked had free wireless, so each break time I would sit and read all the news. The daily modern news. This was another way in which I began letting the modern world wash over me. 

I began to make friends as well and to really connect with the general public. It was an odd sensation at first, so many people coming at me with their digital devices, the fast paced world of modernity. I found, too, as I returned home, it was easier, on work days to cook more simply. To let the homemade set aside for my 'day off' days to retain what I had learned from the past.

It became easier to wear a modern knit dress or slacks. The curlers sat unused and unloved. My regime at the dressing table a thing of the Past, if you will excuse my pun. Now, as time marched forward, the 21st century ever enveloping me, I began to consider two things:  

1. When one moves outside the home, even part time, to take a job, the job of Home, the joy of homemaking becomes a chore. I found this an odd sensation after three plus years of really seeing my home and my time there as my job. 

2.And second I realized this year, into which I was well halfway, was not a return to 'reality' but in fact, simply another project year that I had not defined in writing or too the blogosphere. Yet, it was, it is, very much a project. The project of 'playing at' being a modern 21st century person.  

Dressing easier and with less regard. Eating easier and with less concern. Spending a bit less frugally and turning a blind eye. Using technology in more casual ways, with less intent and purpose and more as a passive use of time; a way to 'use it up' a concept my 1955 self would never have done. I often wondered how I got done what I did do with the time I had each day and wondered how I would have even been able to schedule an hour of 'passive computer entertainment time". 

All the while, the 1955 me, the 50's gal persona that had blurred in and out of my psyche over the past years, kept creeping into my field of vision. And then I began to see it wasn't a past character I had tried to play. Or even an old sense of guilt nudging at my conscious mind, but it was, in fact, a mirror. It was the reflection of who I had become and trapped, this reflection of me, often returned to me to wonder at what I was about and when, hopefully, would I return to my senses. 

Part of this past year has resulted in much 'soul searching'. In wondering how can that 1955 me I become rectify themselves to the modern world without being 'of' the modern world, but successfully living 'in' it? Through fate or chance or luck or what have you, I gained some wonderful friendships over the past year. And one such friend lead me to my current plan for the coming year: The year of Art.

I often found myself comparing the 'artist me' with the 1950's me because to keep a home, really Make and Create it, is the act of an artist. And I came to realize all those years and centuries of our past sisterhood who did indeed, 'keep home' shouldn't receive our disdain or our 'holier than thou' stares of modernity thinking we have somehow got it all figured out and are so much more free and powerful then them. I remember constantly being surprised by myself in the day to day of my homemaking and thinking, "I thought this would feel more like a prison. Or I should feel more put upon or frustrated" but again and again I found, when one was allowed to BE a homemaker. To have the career (not job) of keeping and making a home, the artists world of delight and creation opened up before me. 

So, as this year ends, when I find myself lucky in my new friend who has made it possible for me to have a studio and art space again, I realized there is a 'thing' a 'something' I can be, or really that I am, that takes all the passion and knowledge of my past self and aligns it in a way to dwell IN the modern world but not be OF it: That, of course is ART. 

So, this year (Sept to Sept) I am going to dwell in art. It is going to receive the passion and attention my Homemaking life did. And yet, it will not be truly separate, as it will be highly colored by it. I have left the cafe. I am focused on the creation of things. And, having rented our house out for the Summer, are but only two days away from returning to our little home which will be glad to have a part of the 1955 me back.  

This returning, both physically to my house after three months, and a return, in part, to what I love of the past, can find its justification in the present with the results of my little attempts at physical creation. Part of this year off lead me to take classes in Printmaking and Screen-printing and these have become the tools I use now to take my concepts and my ideas of the past, nay my very obsession with Women, The Home, and our connection to a physical realm. 

I found, without any specific intent, my art in my classes was often figural almost exclusively women and often in conjunction with the home rather it was a chair, another obsession of mine, or simply dwelling in an almost illusory space outside or around a home.

So, this year is going to see a return to the things I loved of Homemaking, cooking, decorating, keeping my home and the frugality of it, as well as adjusting my past and present self to the world through creating physical art. I am lucky to have found an outlet for it in a physical building (in fact my friend and I are having an opening in two weeks of our work!) it feels more real. And so I want that part of my past self, the blog/internet world, to also be a part of it.  

Now, the nuts and bolts of this coming year:

1. I am going to blog on a set schedule of Mon Wed Fri each week. 

2. My goals are to create art each week that both celebrates and evaluates our role as women in the past. Our story of the Home and the domestic history that is truly our own. 

3.To make sure my past skills of cooking, cleaning, sewing, thrift and frugality, and general love and passion for the past will play a part in my posts and thus my artwork. I am not sure exactly how this will pan out each week, but then again, I didn't know what to expect back when I dove head first into 1955. But I know I am a changed and better person for it and so I shall take that gusto and verve along for this ride. 

4. I am going to be true to that part of the artist that is often treated as not important, the business side. I currently am lucky to have a small space to work and to hang/sell things. But, my intention shall be to build a body of work and items to be sold on this site and possibly Esty as well. To take the passion and determination of Homemaking and apply it to what should be a realistic look at the business side of one's art is going to be important to me this year. Rather or not I sell a thing the goal to make it possible to do so is one of the main tenets of this year.

If any of my old followers are interested in this new endeavor of mine, I do hope they come along for the ride. And perhaps we may pick up some new people along the way. Perhaps artists that never thought anything of the homemaker other than a slave to the home or a small town homemaker who thought of artists as bohemian n'er do wells, will meet up and see the similarity in us all. We are bound by a history of the home and domesticity, good or bad it is OUR story and I think it continues to need to be told and evaluated and cherished and rekindled into the modern world.

 

I hope all have a lovely day and Happy Homemaking and Happy Artmaking.

My New Main Site which is currently still a little rough is www.donnadavisart.com

I will update as we go along. This site may remain as it is with the link to the other not sure how to rectify those two together just as of yet.

I hope some of my followers are still around. I am planning on starting a new project this fall late Summer. I realized my site has been down for a few weeks and I have been inattentive to it. That will hopefully change.

I hope all have had a lovely Summer thus far.

50's Gal