Found In Books - Spring Edition

Once again it's time to show off some of the things we've found in books that have crossed our desks here at Pistil Books. 

Our treasures this time include pressed flowers and leaves, lottery ticket, "Lighter of the Month Club" stickers from Bic, bookmarks (of course), a sheet on the "Seven Factors of Awakening", a Christmas gift card from France, a sheet on drying flowers, a French publisher's advertisement for books on "Esoterisme", an entry form for a drawing, a boarding pass, something written with a fountain pen and a flourish and a penny stamp, a Book-of-the-Month Club invoice, lyrics to a song: "It's time to get us a clue / It's time to take off the mask / It's time to turn it around / It's time to learn to relax....", a chart of emotions having to do with anger, disgust, sad, happy, surprise, and fear; someone's collection of clippings on Max Ernst, some artwork including a slightly racy drawing and one of rose paintings, a form for bindery instructions for a library, and some patterns for Captain Ludlow's jacket.

There's a tiny pointing arrow captioned, "Ass for Cash."

Visionary Surrealism at the Pike Place Market

Seattle artist Jon Strongbow has published a new book showcasing his fellow artists who sell their work at the Pike Place Market.  The artists he presents are part of  "an ongoing grass roots art movement that could be designated as Magic Realism, or Visionary Surrealism, or what is now called Low Brow Art or Pop Surrealism in some circles. It begins back in the 1970's when the Market started allowing artists and craftspeople to participate in the market, which had previously been dominated by farmers and flower growers."

Some of the artists included are Tim Winstrom, Paul Sloan, Dharmic Engineers, Rob Schouten, Ray Pelley, Milo Duke, Winston Haycock, Kim Drew, Melanie Reed, Mark Holter, Blake Klazmer, Craig Anderson, Aaron Murphy, Dave Ryan, Robert Williams, Jesse Link, Alex Achaval, Sally Simmons, Kevin Darras, David Gould, Graham Callen, Rob D'Arc, and Scott Alberts.

Visionary Surrealism at the Pike Place Market is available to purchase here.

We also carry books of Jon Strongbow's own work.  His detailed black and white line drawings of Seattle cityscapes juxtapose realistic architectural renderings with scenes embracing indigenous cultures from all over the planet, including extinct and endangered species. Though he didn't set out to record the city's changing landscape, these drawings also inadvertently document the disappearing places of Seattle.

A Spring Lunch

Last week we did not have Pistil Lunch because Sean and I were on a little trip to Portland,OR and then to the ocean on the Long Beach peninsula for one night.  Kam held down the fort and took care of the bookstore while we were gone.

Today's lunch was attended by Amy, Sean, Troy, Kam, and Sue Perry, a friend and painter.  When we operated our brick and mortar retail store we always had art shows in our book shop, and Sue was the first artist whose work we displayed when we opened in 1993.  Recently she has been working on a series of Seattle paintings that have shown the changes to our neighborhood.  The painting below shows the street at the end of our alley a couple of years ago -- a house had been knocked down to make room for some ugly box-like condos.  The church in the painting has since been knocked down for the same reason.

Man Carrying Thing (oil on canvas, 32" x 48") Sue Perry

 For lunch today we had Salad Nicoise, baguette and goat cheese, and cider.  The Salade Nicoise was deconstructed  with the different ingredients served in separate dishes so we could each put what we liked onto our plates.

Kam's plate.

What we're reading.... to be continued in the next entry.

A Coupon for You

Here is a coupon code good for $5 off any order of $30 or more placed on our website:  brillig9679

We have recently added a good number of art exhibition catalogs to our inventory, as well as a number of vintage children's books.

My favorite recent children's book added to our shop is The Snail Who Ran  written and illustrated with beautiful black and white illustrations by Dorothy P. Lathrop. The story of a snail, a mouse, and an eft who are granted wishes by a fairy in the night.

Color frontispiece of this wonderful 1934 children's book.

More Book Plates

Happy Holidays!  It started snowing here in Seattle on Christmas Eve and it continues to fall this morning.  We are planning a Christmas Day urban hike and expect to see some snow people on our walk.

I hope everyone found at least one book under the tree, if you participate in this part of the season.   Will you put your name in your new book(s)? 

We come across book plates in our inventory, though they are usually of the mass produced kind that you can buy in a bookstore or stationery store in a box, with a blank space for your name. Often these commercially made book plates are prints of famous pieces of art.  Sometimes they are reading and/or book themed.  I remember receiving a gift such a box of book plates in sixth grade:  the classic image of the cat on top of a stack of books.

Here are some book plates discovered in our current inventory:

 I particularly like the book plate of the open door.  What exciting world will you enter through the pages of your book?

Coming up: Group Collage at Magmafest

When: Sunday, March 1, 2015 - 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM 

 

Where: Hollow Earth Radio,  2018 East Union Street,  Seattle, WA 98122
 

Cost: Free

 
Get your creative juices flowing like lava and join Pistil Books for the making of a wall-sized community collage during the Magmafest Warm Up event at Hollow Earth. The collage will be on the wall at throughout the month. Cut-up materials and supplies provided.

There will also be Magma soup, bread from http://grandcentralbakery.com/, & popcorn (donations for food gratefully accepted).

While you are creating & eating, enjoy Stand-up Showcase. Hosted by Forrest Baum, known in deep time as Hollow Earth’s OG DJ Prismatic. Toe-tapper, pun-cracker, yum-snacker, non-hacker, lunch-packer extraordinaire.

Urgent Crier

We recently came across this altered book in a box of books at a sale.  The cover of the book has a square carefully cut out, not going all the way through the boards, but a partial excision preserving the original interior pastedown endpapers when opened, thus creating a frame for the artist's assemblage. 

The small format book measures 5 1/2"w x 6", and the title is Urgent Crier by French poet Andre Benedetto, published by Robert Morel Publisher, 1966.

The text is in French and the theme of the six poems inside is the horrors perpetuated by humanity: racism, torture, war, and death.

The assemblage shows a tiny figure floating above a circuit board, bracketed by wooden half-circles, attached to the board with yellow yarn.

I often document ephemera found in books, and book owners often leave signs of themselves (signatures, inscriptions, notes, marginalia, coffee rings) but here is an example of a book deliberately physically transformed into art by a previous owner.

Found in Books, Yet Again

Not long ago, Sean and I were doing a book buy at a woman's house.  She was moving and was selling her pretty nice collection of books on eastern religion, psychology, body work, and the like. I flipped through a book to check for marking and two hundred dollar bills fell out.  A couple of other books also had money bookmarks, and they weren't mere dollar bills either.  Of course we returned the money to woman who was quite grateful and now our found-in-books karma has benefited.  Alas, no money of late, but check out these treasures:

One thing we found in a book titled "Reproduction in Farm Animals," was a love letter, which may be a little too personal to include in the photo, but here's an excerpt:  "Do you see that I am terribly in love with you and terribly obsessed with you?  Make sure you take responsibility for this state of my heart.  Let's see whose poison is more poisonous!"  There was also a photo of the young lovers as Disney characters.

The fortune teller card is one of my favorite pieces, and obviously applies to me:  "You have a brilliant mind and enjoy reading and the fine arts."

Drop another coin in slot and I will tell more.

Another favorite is the business card, how's this for a job title:

This little dragon is made from paper cut-outs and is really quite lovely.

Here's a bookmark from a store with 89 parking spaces - that's 88 more than Pistil has!

Found In Books

Usually I feature a number of items in my "Found In Books" posts, but this time my latest find warrants its own post.  This piece of ephemera is double-sided.  On the first side is a page from a grammar test, appropriately titled (from a bookseller's point of view), "Getting Words in the Right Order."  I know I sometimes have trouble with that.

Our intrepid test-taker seems to have answered all questions on this page correctly, as the green check mark attests, but his total score is only 70% (remember, we have only one page of the test).  Could you have answered this question:  "What is a nominative absolute, and does it have to be edited?"   Huh?

But it is on the reverse side of the test form that the true talents and skills of our student are revealed:

Sissies Rule!

Lucky 2013

Another year, another Pistil Books Collage Calendar!  This year's calendar is hot off the presses and features artwork by Amy, Sean, and Nathan, made from old books and ephemera.  The artwork reflects its sources, of course, and we had a lot of old art auction catalogs, as well as broken discarded library books and other books that have been damaged in some way.  Sean favors a 1950's male nudist book called Mountain Men that had pages removed by its previous owner, no doubt for pin-up purposes.  Nathan mentioned that he hopes there won't be too much nudity for his mom...

Our calendars also have literary birthdays, holidays, and moon phases, with plenty of room for penciling in important appointments.

Paper, Scissors

I like to cut up books. As a bookseller, I see thousands and thousands of "worthless" books that are discarded by their previous owners, schools, and libraries. Many of these books have lovely graphics and artwork that can easily be liberated from their imprisoning bindings with a sharp pair of scissors or exacto knife and re-used as components of a new piece of artwork. I'm particularly interested in old school books and educational materials which often depict a brightly colored world of the nuclear family and rosy future envisioned by technology and the American way of life (if you are white, heterosexual, and middle class, that is). This material easily lends itself to the collage medium which by playful juxtaposition throws into question the worldview and assumptions presented in these books.  Usually I start by sitting down with a pile of books - odd volumes of The Golden Book Encyclopedia from the sixties are particularly fruitful, and start snipping away at images I like.  It's after I have a pile of cut-outs that I move them around on a background and fit them into a composition.  Sometimes I have art brunches with a group of friends and we all sit around after fritatta and scones, cutting up books over cups of coffees.  Lots of surreal art, assemblages, calendars and even poems have arisen from this method.  More art from cut-up books can be seen here.

We are in the middle of a big book purchase - an estate of a woman who had a large and beautifully kept collection of books, with an emphasis on bird and garden books.  It's funny that this buy is happening after my last blog entry about bird and nature books.