Continuing my interview with Robin Blum, founder of In My Book® — the bookmark and greeting cards in one… How do you go about getting the art for the bookmarks and cards? I am fortunate to work with illustrator (and Brooklyn neighbor) Meredith Hamilton. I found her on a wonderful listing of artists for hire [...]

Have you ever thought about the painted backgrounds in antique and vintage photographs? No? Well, you aren’t alone. Until I read The Painted Backdrop: Behind the Sitter in American Tintype Photography, by Jim Linderman (with an essay by Kate Bloomquist), I hadn’t either. In fact, the story of and between 19th century painters and American [...]

Watching Oddities, I fell in love with the “human ivory” artwork of Rachel Betty Case. “Human ivory” is what Case calls human fingernails, toenails, and pet nail clippings. I can appreciate her desire to want to prettify such mundane things, but when I hear “ivory” I think of carving and what Case does is extremely [...]

Paul Richmond (whose upcoming exhibit, Cheesecake, will be opening in June at the Center on Halsted in Chicago) explores the path of his own identity and sexuality in his paintings. Prints and original paintings available at Etsy — and there’s a book of his works, with text, titled Ins & Outs: A Collection. (Via A [...]

Over at The Emerging Times, Michael Ferrare has written The ‘Picture Painting’ Gene, an article on Thomas Harrison’s book, Instinct: In the book Instinct, Thomas Harrison describes many ways to leverage who you are (using your DNA) to promote success in business and in life. Of the many natural genes he mentions, one gene that [...]

In order to discuss the meaning of kitsch, you first need to know it’s definition. So I grabbed my copy of Kitsch, The World of Bad Taste, by Gillo Dorfles (with contributions by John McHale, Karl Pawek, Ludwig Giesz, Lotte H. Eisner, Ugo Volli, Vittorio Gregotti, and Aleksa Celebonovic; and essays by Hermann Broch and [...]