Fortunato Lacamera

During my visit to Buenos Aires a couple of months ago, I was lucky enough to stumble into an opening reception at the The Benito Quinquela Martín Museum in La Boca. The wine and lovely foccacia pizza being served really hit the spot. I had been exploring the city on foot for the previous three or four hours and was in serious need of refreshment. But the real treat was that I got to to discover the work of Argentine painter Fortunato Lacamera.

Lacamera (1887-1951) was one of the 'Painters of La Boca', an early-20th century group of artists who painted all aspects of life and commerce associated with the teeming industrial port. The best know of this group was Quinquela Martín who painted monumental works of ships, laborers, and life on the docks. He used intense color, high contrast, expressive brushwork, and dramatic vantage points. A collection of his works, his studio, and living quarters are housed in what is now the museum, which also exhibits the work of other Argentine artists.

Lacamera, though very attached to La Boca—he was born there, he died there, and it is said that he rarely left the barrio—produced work of a more contemplative and introspective nature. In addition to plein air and studio paintings of the port, he painted many interiors and still lifes, always with a restrained palette and subtle tonality. Whatever the genre, the sense of place is always communicated--one can always detect the haze-filtered sunlight of an industrial port.

Please excuse the angled photos, I had to use a flash and it was the only way shoot without a reflection.

Berlei Type Indicator

In 1926, Berlei Ltd. of Australia embarked on the ambitious project of measuring 6000 women. 23 individual measurements were recorded for each subject. The purpose of this historic anthropometric study? None other than to achieve proper fit for the corsets they manufactured. It seems that in the years between lace-up corsets and advances in stretch textiles, foundation garments contained only small strips of elastic for give. With little room for error, construction for proper fit was a tricky business. The study resulted in a classification system of five basic body types and a patented nomogram—a calculating device, with which to identify the body type of any woman’s figure.


The Powerhouse Museum archive explains: “The chart featured a moveable disc for indicating bust measurement and a moveable pointer for indicating waist measurement. Hip measurement sizes were printed on the border surrounding the moveable disc. An instruction sheet with illustrations was pasted onto the back of the chart…”

The exact body types and the colors of the device varied slightly over the years, but the Berlei fitting system set a standard for the industry and remained in use for some 30 years.

Vans of a Thousand Faces

It’s an age old question: How many fonts fit on the side of contractor’s vehicle?






p.s. For vehicular typography at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, you must visit Jonathan Turner’s Autografik set on flickr, which is “dedicated to graphic design applied to motor vehicles. With a focus on modernist corporate identities of the 60's and 70's.”

Man Bites Shark

I was grabbed by the ominous starkness of Chris Schedel’s photo, White Homes: Near Elgin, Illinois, when I saw it on the New York Times’ homepage yesterday. It accompanies a terrific piece by Roger Lowenstein in this weekend’s magazine about homeowners who default on their mortgages by choice.

I was heartened to learn that for once the intelligence of the American public has been underestimated. When lenders chummed the real estate waters with subprime mortgages, the desired feeding frenzy ensued. After taking the bait, however, homebuyers are not taking as kindly to the switch. Instead of repaying their loans out of some sense of moral obligation (as the players banked on--literally), they are doing what the Big Boys do. When an investment is unprofitable, cut your losses, learn your lessons, and move on. That's one for the free market, right?

Check out Chris Schedel's website for more images of Midwestern suburban housing subdivisions.

Delighting in the Details

The first six of these embroidery details are from 18th and early 19th century “pockets” that were gathered from museums throughout the UK and comprise the online archive called ‘Pockets of History.’
The ‘Pockets at the V&A’ site explains that “women's pockets weren't sewn on the outside or into the seams of their clothes as they are today. Until the middle of the 19th century, pockets for women were a separate item and they were worn tied around with waist with a tie or string.”

It’s a fascinating bit of fashion/textile history that you can learn more about at the two sites above. Most compelling to me, however, were the close-up images of the sumptuous stitching. Truly glorious color and variety.

Patti Smith: Dream of Life

I shot these from the TV during the Steven Sebring documentary about Patti Smith. It aired last week on PBS and I was mesmerized throughout. She is a force of nature.

Argentine Bus Tickets

Though the contents were a collagist/ephemera-lover’s dream, it was only with the utmost restraint, that I resisted the old bus ticket dispenser at the flea market in Buenos Aires this past fall. Rolls of newsprint-thin paper printed with a glorious variety of fonts and colors. The catch? I couldn’t just buy a few tickets; I would have to buy the whole thing. And no matter how low the price went, I kept picturing myself six months from then, still not having found a spot for the hunk of metal in my tiny NYC apartment, yet being incapable of throwing it out.

While writing a post about the buses themselves, I found an entire site dedicated to Argentina's buses, for background. That's where I spotted LA HISTORIA DEL BOLETO, and found way more tickets than I could have possibly brought home ...

2010

Can't wait to see how the year will unfold ...