CONTENTS
Page One:
Djibril N'Doye Makes History
Adriano Colangelo Exhibits at Chakras
Page Two:
Abby Levine: Analyzing Freud
Manu Pagola's "Magic Eye" Pyrography
Sue Walters: "Pyrography Workbook"
Chuck Cordero's Peruvian Gourd
Salvatore Polistena's Studio Exhibit
Page Three:
Peni Powell Discovers a "Gibson Girl" Design
on Velvet
Maricha Oxley Exhibits in Sydney
Haroldo Ayres Announces New On-Line Group
Update on Cate McCauley
Kathy Jones: Uncommon Wedding Ceremonies
1862 Ball Hughes Wood Panel of Gen.
McClellan Auctioned
|
Gibson Girl |
American collectors of Flemish Art Peni and Lee Powell recently
traveled on vacation from their home in Seattle,
Washington as far east as Springfield, Illinois. As
usual, they stopped whenever they could along the way
at antique shops to look for early 20th Century
pieces, antique pyro tools, and such.
Like me, Peni and Lee were very aware of a number of
Thayer and Chandler advertisements for "Gibson
Girl" velvet cushion covers for doing pyrography
that are often for sale in the antique market--(one
such advertisement is pictured below; another similar
but distinct one is in the E-Museum Antique
Hall)--however, we'd never actually seen one of their
velvet cushions or a "Gibson Girl" work in
pyrography on velvet.
|
Gibson Girl |
Peni tells her story of what happened one day on their
vacation this year. You will smile as you feel her
excitement--the excitement of collectors
everywhere!--on finding the unexpected and then
bargaining and triumphantly taking home the treasure:
"As I was browsing in a shop on my quest, up very
high on the wall I spotted a Gibson girl in a frame.
As I looked at it,
it was all I could do to contain myself, while I asked
the owner if I could have a closer look. I couldn't
believe my eyes, for I never thought that I would ever
find pyrography that had been done on the Naan Plush,
but there it was!"
|
Gibson Girl,
close-up view |
"The work had been framed instead of being used as a pillow cover and was in excellent condition. I think the condition was still so good because it didn't have a lot of light on it and was preserved under glass. The shop owner had it listed as burned velvet."
|
Gibson Girl partial
view |
"...I held my composure while asking the price, and I didn't share too much information with him. I asked how long he had it hanging, and he said over 30 years, and that it had been hanging in a previous shop where he had bought some inventory. This piece happened to be one of the antiques in that inventory. So, to make a long story short, I talked him down from what he had it priced at, and out the door I went with a smile as big as the width of my face, I'm sure."
|
Gibson Girl, detail of
the
mounting |
Peni finishes with a few particulars from her research: "You can tell from the back, the wood is very old, as well as the frame; it is signed but has no date, so I did my research through my old Munsey magazines and also our old catalogues on pyrography. I found in my 1905 Munsey women's magazines two ads, as well as in the catalogue from Thayer & Chandler, an ad where you could buy the stamped Gibson of your choice in either the 18 in. by 18 in. size for $.70 or the 22 in. by 22 in. size for $.90. This piece is the former size; however, it also could be that the crafter had bought just the Naan fabric, because they did sell it by the yard or bolt. [Above is] the ad in the book. It seems from reading the ads that the Naan plush pillow covers were also given as free gifts if you ordered a pyrography wood burning kit."
Peni Powell has her own website at
paletteofcolors.hispeed.com
See additional examples from her collection of early
20th Century poker art works on
display in the Salon
of Peni
Powell's Flemish Art Collection in the Antique
Hall of the E-Museum
of Pyrographic Art.
|
ArtRich
Invitation |
The talented multimedia artist Maricha Oxley has done
it again! Her month-long exhibit opened last June
25th at the Dragon's Lair Gallery of the St. George
Regional Museum in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia,
with a cocktail reception that featured a guest
speaker, Steven Burrows, from the Australian
Woodworker Magazine.
Following that event, on the 7th of July, the Fairfax
community newspaper St. George and Sutherland
Shire
Leader published an impressive story entitled
"Artist works at heart of wood" complete
with a color picture of Maricha posing with her art
work. The newspaper article recounted "Maricha's
exciting life story of a childhood in the Philippines
as the granddaughter of the Spanish consul and how she
saw Japanese soldiers burn down the family home during
World War II. Her family was the first to leave the
Philippines when the war ended, she remembered. They
left on a cargo ship and returned to Spain via the
United States. In 1961, she decided to settle in
Sydney Australia where upon her arrival she suffered
another important loss. Six of her seven suitcases
contained her artwork and they were all stolen on the
wharf."
Maricha was introduced in Pyrograffiti
11 in the March-April 2001 issue of WOM showing a
wonderfully pyroengraved sculpture about fire entitled
Corroboree.
|
Human Musculature,
lateral view |
Brazilian scientist and pyrographer Haroldo
Ayres from Manaus in the Amazon region of Brazil
discovered pyroengraving as a way of documenting for
didactic or other specialized purposes the insects,
exotic flowers, and other wildlife of that remote
jungle region, as well as human anatomical studies,
such as the musculature diagram above.
In his desire to communicate with other pyrographic
artists, and because he lives in such a remote
location, Haroldo has formed a new internet pyro group
and invites you to join him there at http://groups.msn.com/PYROGRAPHY-COM
to chat and share ideas about the pyrographic
technique and art form.
|
The Gambler |
American artist illustrator Cate McCauley was just introduced
here in Pyrograffiti
35. At that time, Cate was excitedly preparing
for the Scituate Art Festival in Rhode Island.
Despite the disappointment of awful weather for the
duration of the 3-day weekend--the worst they'd had in
38 years!--Cate was still elated that thousands came
to the show and her woodburned illustrations and
postcards sold well. She has already signed up for
next year's show.
Her piece The Gambler (above) is one of
the new pieces she prepared for this important show.
And now that the show is over, she is back preparing
for her upcoming wedding! She expressed how thankful
she was that her fiancé Leon was her "rock
through all of this."
Cate updated her website since the show: catemcc.com. Look
for her new Cate
McCauley Salon in the E-Museum.
|
The Wedding of Sophia
and Michael |
At the beginning of 2005, a one-page Pyrograffiti was
published entitled Sophia Albu Ionita: In Memoriam. In that
issue was displayed among others the piece above
entitled
Wedding of Sophia and Michael that
captured the imagination of Professor Emerita of
Women's Studies at San Diego State University and San
Diego wedding planner Kathleen (Kathy) Jones, Ph.D.
who was planning her own website. She wrote "The
integration of the two into one, who remain themselves
and join at the same time, perfectly represents my
ceremony philosophy and I would be honored to be able
to use [Sophia Ionita's pyrogravure] as a symbol for
my work."
That work is one of the few works the late Sophia Albu
Ionita did in pyroengraving alone. Like other double
portraits she had done, she added another concept to
her iconographic yet Picasso-esque compositions--how
two people complement and complete each other.
When Kathy wrote me asking how she might use that
image, I put her in touch with Sophia's family, who
granted her request.
Visit Kathy's website www.uncommonceremonies.com
where you will see how she used Sophia's pyrogravure
of Michael and Sophia's Wedding on both
her home page and contacts page. Clicking on the
image on the contacts page will take you to a
paragraph about the WOM article.
Visit also the Sophia
Albu Ionita Salons in the E-Museum of Pyrographic
Art.
|
Portrait of Maj. Gen.
George B. McClellan |
It was exciting to discover still another piece by
Ball Hughes that heretofore we were not aware of. I
received word from auctioneer Wayne Tuiskula that on
the tenth of November this year, the above panel of
Gen. McClellan was to be auctioned. The list of known
poker art works done by this famous 19th Century
artist keeps growing. Most of the poker art works
were done in the last years of Ball Hughes' life.
See more views and read more details about this
wonderful old piece in the Antique
Hall of the E-Museum.
Key to Manu Pagola's hidden image (from page 2): As you contemplate the Magic Garden pattern with your eyes relaxed, you should see a large rose on a stem appear with a leaf on either side of the flower.
Click
here to go back to page one
Click
here to go back to page two
 |
The AuthorKathleen M. Garvey Menéndez learned her pyrography techniques in Guatemala in 1975-1977. Her sister,Thanks to the internet, this is the end of the ninth year of articles on pyrography for the Woodcarver Online Magazine (WOM), started January 1997, and the eighth year of the E-Museum of Pyrographic Art, which opened its virtual doors January 1998. In March of that year, the International Association of Pyrographic Artists (IAPA) was formed and members began meeting on line. Linked from the E-Museum's Café Flambé, which hosts the IAPA meetings, is the Yahoo Groups uniting_pyrographers mailing list, member list, and chat forum set up for IAPA members by IAPA Cofounder Ken "Mixo" Sydenham of Warragul, Victoria, Australia. |
2005, Kathleen M. Garvey Menéndez, all rights reserved.
