Somebody got busy with some scissors...

This is the third in a series of collages I own that were created by a Victorian girl. I'm still no closer to figuring out the decade they were made but it's been fun studying the various parts of it to see what time periods they came from.

The young girl who made this series of assemblages got more experimental in this one because this time she used something other than paper...lace. Real lace. I hope her mom never found out where she got it or what she cut it out from. Cutting up her dad's atlas is one thing but cutting up some of mom's clothes? That's a part of the story I don't want to find out.

I was wondering why the woman character wasn't glued firmly onto the paper. 

When I tipped her skirt up a bit (sorry, Ma'am), I found an additional chair (er, bench) under her.

I've been trying to google "Jas. King Mfg. of Rustic Work, New Haven, Conn.," or anything related to rustic benches in the New Haven area but I've come up with nothing. And since rustic furniture was popular during the Victorian era, it doesn't help to have a time period that spans about 60 years to try and date these things.

I've been curious about where those black and white cut paper prints come from. Like I've said before, they could have come from a Sears Roebuck catalog but would they be selling live plants? This particular piece has a print of a grapevine in the pot on the right, a hyacinth in the pot on the left and some sort of flowering tree behind the woman. I'm thinking newspaper or lady's magazine. 

There were several women's magazines available in the 1800s (The Godey's Lady's Book, Peterson's Magazine, etc.) and included in them was some advertising. Or perhaps these cut out images are from a newspaper. I don't know. And it would really help if I could actually find one of these magazines to examine. Maybe the drawings of the women were also copied from these magazines. I wish I knew because the placement of those two roses on the woman's bodice are um, a little weird. I'd be curious to see how closely this drawing was modeled after the fashion illustration in the magazine.

Perhaps it is time to consult a real historian.

When I was growing up in Michigan, my friend Janet and I got to see the first half of the Russian "War and Peace" movie that was playing at the Detroit Institute of Arts around 1970. At intermission (the film is 7-8 hours long, they were showing only the first half that night), the two of us snuck off into the museum galleries before the second part started. We weren't supposed to be there....everything was dark and vast...except for one removed room that had a few spotlights. It was the puppet room and inside there was a Remo Bufano "puppet" that looked down on us. Its head hit the ceiling, its feet touched the floor. It certainly made a memorable presence because museum ceilings aren't short! That room was so cool, unexpected and scary with all those different sized puppets staring back at us, only a few of them lit in the darkness. I love museums. Love the serious mood of an altered reality they hold within them. 

I once called the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art here in KC about a textile I had collected because I could not figure out where it was from. They don't do estimates but I was able to make an appt. and come in with my peculiar metal embroidered stumpworked peacock and have it looked at. I had a couple experts jump in and contribute their thoughts about the when and why and where of the textile. I'm wondering if it's time for another appointment with these Victorian pieces because it sure would help to have a Victorian expert explain it all to me.

And I do love a museum visit, especially when it's in a restricted area.    :-)

Every one of these little pieces was pasted onto a page from a book with maps in it from 1853. This is the map that this one was pasted on. In the lower left there is a guide to emblems used in the map (unfortunately cropped off by our little Victorian girl) that indicate the level of barbarism vs. civlilized state of each area on the map.

The Coontina/Catina

This is the newest patron of the Coontina, or should I say Catina. A lot of fur missing from one ear, some scabs on the face, an eye that will probably be better in a couple days, and a pretty blue collar (he used to belong to someone...maybe he still does?). This is the new cat figuring out the hierarchal cat seating arrangements at the Coontina/Catina. And don't you love that smile on his face? Good times ahead for all of us.

And here's Eli literally moving down one more step on the food serving hierarchy and knowing it.

Last year at this time I was trying to trap a white 4 month old feral kitten who had an injured tail. When I set up the live trap, Eli was caught over and over and over. He never caught on to the concept that if you approach the smell of tuna in a wire contraption, a gate will fall down and lock you in. Such is the cat known as Eli. 

I was really surprised to finally capture Spawna one night (full name being Spawna Satan) and then being able to take her to the vet the next morning to have her fully checked out. Her tail had to be amputated because it could not be saved but after getting herself spayed, deflea-ed, de-wormed, given a full set of shots, a one week hospital stay to get her fever down,  she was then able to be released. Oh, that was expensive. And I only saw her once after she bolted from the house, and I mean bolt. I would have kept her as a house cat but after a month or two of recovery in my house, she remained one nasty wild animal. It was like something from Monty Python. A little white fluffy kitten who would probably kill all of us in our sleep. Nope. They have to meet you halfway. And she was definitely not going to compromise.

But you just want them to be safe or have a chance to get themselves on track again to continue with what they need to do to keep on going.

This morning I got a call from Brian, my lawn guy, who asked for a loan... and I gave it to him. If I never get the money back, I'm cool with that, but I don't think that's going to happen. He's too honest.

He was over this past week to repair a door leading to the basement that blew off in a storm a couple weeks ago (high winds, tornados, not unknown for the area where Dorothy Gale grew up). That guy sure can tell some stories. While he drilled and hammered, he told me one about getting hijacked to Cuba in 1969. He and his buddy were high on acid (Gawd) and were laughing about the possibility of getting hijacked and then decided to pick out the person who would be the hijacker on their flight. Well.........they were right. That just threw them into hysterics. The pilot had to announce that there was a gentleman who convinced him that the plane needed to be flown to Havana and that he thought they should oblige him. This was back in the time when it was a political act to hijack a plane, not a terrorist act, so nobody was harmed. Once they landed, the 747 couldn't return with all the passengers because Havana did not have a runway long enough to accommodate a plane with that much weight. So some of the passengers went back on the 747 and the rest were bused to another part of the island to a resort on a gorgeous beach (which had been built up and developed by the Russian mob) to wait for a smaller plane to be flown in that would be able to fly them out. He said those two days were absolutely fabulous and Cuba was absolutely gorgeous, especially seeing cars from the 30s being driven on the roads. 

Car-geek. :-) What man isn't?  When I lived in Minneapolis in the 70s, I had a neighbor who lived on the bottom floor who was a gay activist who would host all sorts of group meetings in his apartment. I remember one time being there for some reason when he had a group of transvestites in his apartment. What was their topic of conversation? Cars. I'm not kidding. CARS.

Seriously, what did men talk about with each other before they invented cars?

Anyway, another time Brian and some friends were digging up an old stream bed to see what sort of treasures might be buried. They dug and dug and found a big metal plate. They were excited because they thought they had found a safe. Nope. An intact Model A car, just missing the engine.

I really enjoy his stories and he's such a kind person. He took the initiative of storing his mowing equipment in my garage a while back (I never use my garage and if he hadn't told me, who knows if I would have even known). Sometimes when I'm in the backyard and he doesn't know I'm there, I will hear him behind the fence walking up the driveway on his way to the garage and if he sees a bird, he tells it "Hello, bird." I don't want to get into the circumstances of what's going on with his life, just that it's dire, and I think that's how it's always been. I don't know how long he'll be around the neighborhood or in KC but he's a good guy and I just want him to get things together and on track again. 

Obstacle race

That's what "Hindernisrennen" translates to in English. I'm not sure what's going on here but I don't think any of those little old courting dudes with their flowers will ever be able to catch those two young women (you might want to click on the image to see it bigger). 

This little postcard was done by Mela Koehler, who was part of The Wiener Werkstaette (The Vienna Workshop) which existed from 1903 to 1932 in Vienna, Austria. Other members of the workshop included Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. Expressive curvilinear designs with lots of detail held together with strong shapes? I've always been drawn to that, even as an early teenager.

When I was researching my Koehler postcard, I came upon an auction site that listed other postcards done by this group. I hadn't thought of adding insects to my list. What a surprise to find these little postcards of woodcuts done by L. H. Jungnickel. Oh my, they are major peculiar.

Two beautiful moth girls...

I have no clue as to what to even guess as to what is going on here. That one bug dude sitting down with the major abs? Not sure why he needs to take a rest on his walk with the bug dude who is using a cane(!).

Smoking bug. Why not? Absolutely everybody was smoking back then. My friend Bonnie learned to smoke when she was five years old...from her grandfather(!).

Oh these are so odd. Love them. 

The Coontina is open on New Year's Day!

I woke up around 4:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I went to get a glass of water in the kitchen. It's a habit to do a "coon check" every time I'm near the back door, so I looked out the back door window and this time....

I could not believe it. There was Freddie. All wound up in a tight ball of fur completely passed out on the glider at 4:40 in the morning. He had his tail covered up with fur, and his ears looked more cat than raccoon the way they were sitting up on his head but I knew it wasn't that gray cat who often does the same thing because 1.) that fur coat looked expensive for a cat and 2.) Freddie's gotten bigger.  It really was FREDDIE!!!!! And the only thing to do now was to wake him up and get him something to eat.

Here is a pained expression of a raccoon wanting to sleep in but enduring me anyway and since he's used to the flash on the camera, he now knows to look away from it. Doesn't make for compelling photos though.

Freddie unspiraled himself, let out a big yawn and then did a biggggggggggg stretch....

Maybe some scratching needed to be done too.

Then some thinking about what he wanted to do so early in the morning. But he decided to get his stiff little self off the glider to chomp on some cat food. He really wasn't that hungry. He didn't even finish what I gave him. He did like the water bowl though.When he was finished eating the dry cat food (which took two hands to eat, probably because he was so sleepy), he washed his hands in the water dish and then  ambled off.

Brian was telling me how he had seen a lot of critter catchers in the neighborhood and it saddened me to think that Freddie and his family might have been picked up and taken out of the neighborhood. So I was really surprised to see Freddie this morning. And Freddie looks great. Bigger. Chubbier. The possum that shows up usually around the same day as Freddie showed up last night too, also looking pretty big and chubby.

My new sister-in-law decided that each member of the family would draw names for Christmas this year and would then have to buy just one gift for that one person. She drew my name and although the earrings she sent were beautiful (and from Tiffany's!), I am the only woman on earth who does not have pierced ears. I'm treating Freddie's visit this morning as a late Christmas present, and the one I had hoped for! :-)

I have some feather pillows I have to throw out because they're old and have been replaced but I'm going to put them out for Freddie tonight. Brian told me a story about an old girlfriend who was bipolar and most of the time she'd be fine but then she'd have an episode and find it mandatory to do something like string bagels from trees at midnight. And now he lives across the hallway from a woman who has decided to go green by never using her electricity and when he comes home at night, he will sometimes see her moving around her apartment in the dark via flashlight. Good grief. Plumping up feather pillows for a visiting raccoon is on that same list of c r a z y, I know that. But really, this is just too much sweetness to ignore.