Tins Just Waiting for Upcycling

Shh!  Don't tell those commercial thrifts, they'll jack up the prices again and make these things too expensive to use for resale.  This is a closeup up of my stash, just waiting to be scratched up, cut up and upcycled into things quite unexpected.  I prefer to use reclaimed metal, which sets me free from the worry about waste and preciousness.

Now the next thing to consider is how not to do the expected, as in just cut out motifs.  I like to do as Jenny and Loran do, use the metal structurally, for my own imagery.

I don't think I can cut up the salve and toffee tins, though.  Those are too wonderful just the way they are!

Jenny Fillius Queen of Tin

I was lucky enough to meet Jenny after she saw my work on Etsy and messaged me to say we had to get together, because we are from the same tribe.  What flattery!  I consider Jenny to be foremost among the artists who are using tin.  Her wit and her sharp edges are always uplifting, especially on those days when I am taking myself way too seriously.

Feeling low, got those end-of-summer blahs?  Do yourself a little favor:  you can find deep healing at Jenny's place.   And if you get curious about the great inner depth that creates these wonderful things, more shall be revealed at Design Faith.  Get hip, get tin!

A World of Cookies: Babyboomer Nostalgia

This highly collectible item was discovered in Palouse, Washington, a very old small town, on a blue-sky, sunny afternoon, just poking about, following my nose. It belonged to someone who loved it, since still has its Fred Roberts Company label, reading "Made In Japan." That phrase alone gives strong indication of its age:

"In 1939, the United States imposed trade restrictions on Japan as a result of the Japanese aggressions in Asia. (You will find nothing imported between 1939 and 1945.) Trade resumed in 1945 with the same 'made in Japan' mark required but Japanese manufacturers found that 'made in occupied japan' was an easier mark to sell to the Americans. That label was widely (but not exclusively) used until 1952 when the occupation ended."  (Text from allexperts.com, linked above.)

So I would guess it is most likely post WWII to early "mid-Century Modern." It has raised cursive writing on it that reads "A World of Cookies." It stands 10-1/2 inches high with lid, and has an inside diameter of 7-1/4 inches. It's a real prize for the aficionado!

Because I often turn up neat things like this, things I can't resist and for which I have no room, I pass them along, so if you're interested, check my Etsy shop section, "Sundries."  You can find a link to the shop in the right column, below.

A Very Old Ghost

She's so far back on the family tree, she's hardly more than an elusive waft of fragrance, though she was once a Civil War era belle. She is the image of a very old tintype printed on muslin, adorned with shredded lace and old jewelry components, very gothic, Victorian, and creepy.  She is filled with a combination of polyfiber and my own Northwest Gothic sachet, and if you hang her on the door knob or another place where she may gently flutter just a tiny bit, the scent will please you. From the top of her head with its tattered lace fascinator to the tip of her train, she is 16 inches long.  Look closely and see the black lace mitts on her hands.

I bought the original tintype long ago; it is among the first of my collection.  She is tightly corseted, which may explain her expression, but her face and hands caught my attention, and the cruel set of her jaw; her eyes very unusual, perhaps pale, pale blue, true "white eyes," that appear to be blazing with hard determination.  A close look at her hands shows fine black lace mitts, but it also reveals hands that are coarsened, which is incongruent with her fine taffeta gown that must have been silk and taken as much as 20 yards to construct.  So, to own the dress, she must have had some wealth, but to have those hands, she had to work with them, too.  This set me to imagining a wife who had to contribute to the great labor required to keep to keep the plantation running.  I know that the set of her jaw may be due to poor dental care or a painful corset, but it does look cruel to me, and so I imagine her as a slave owner, too, much like those revealed in Edward Ball's Slaves in the Family.  Such ladies even found it fashionable to have small pearl handled whips, for dealing with their unhappy human possessions.  For that, she deserves to have to haunt us for an eternity, and I don't care if it was fashionable, or the "custom of the country," a term used to euphemize a brutal, dreadful failure of the human heart.  For a bit of fiction, well researched and set in old time New Orleans, a beloved city not without its shadows, read A Free Man of Color by Barbara Hambly, which is where I encountered that phrase, "a custom of the country."  You know, there really are ghosts, and they haunt us yet.  Slavery is one of the worst of them, but there are more. 

Tobacciana

“Tobacciana” is that class of antiques devoted to tobacco products and accessories, and all I can say is, given the cost of tobacco use to me and mine, I hope to see them pass into history peacefully, along with the rotary dial telephone and steel boned corsets. But the advertising graphics can be irresistibly cute, as they are here, in this bracelet cobbled from tobacciana: the base of the cuff is a flattened matchbox holder advertising Raj-era Taj Brand Cigarettes, topped by a tobacco tag (these were used to mark tobacco leaf purchases for the companies that would process them) for P. Lorillard Co., “3 Black Crows.” The nicely scratched and patinated assemblage is secured with bolts, eyelets and buttons to a giddy polka dot velvet and muslin band, and fastened with an antique copper chain and vintage copper plated bead. If you’ve quit, it’s a reminder of your great accomplishment, and if not, it can serve to defend your choice or help you make another choice. The choice is yours alone!

Summer White

I grew up in Atlanta just on the border of women’s liberation. There were certain codes about seasonal dressing that had acquired the weight of propriety. We hadn't heard yet that propriety is not important for women who make history. Hoggirl of welltrainedmind.com states the Rules well. One must not:

"(1)  Wear white on the bottom half of my person before Easter or after Labor Day; (2) Wear open-toed shoes before Easter or after Labor Day; (3) Wear linen or cotton voile before Easter or after Labor Day; or (4) Wear velvet before Thanksgiving or after Valentine's Day."

Somewhere in there is also a seasonal restriction on patent leather shoes. Of course, the exception to the rules was Resort Wear, if you were fortunate enough to be in Deauville for the season. To this day, I just can’t wear velvet in the summer. The very idea makes me perspire ... not just the heat and humidity, but the social embarrassment.

When Memorial Day had passed, Rich’s, The Store for Everything, stocked its jewelry counters with loads of cucumber-cool, chalky white jewelry: “ear bobs” of Haskell-esque wired-on white beads, necklaces of mixed chain and milk glass, white bangles to pile on the suntanned wrist. Just looking at them seemed to lower the temperature at least five degrees; they were cool to the touch and appropriate for the season.

Here’s a summer white treat for your neckline – a statement assemblage necklace of many elements gathered together to evoke those days when a lacy shirtwaist and the right accessories made you quite respectable, so long as you also had on clean, white shorty gloves.

The elements are an antique Dresden doll’s head of a boy in cap, a white enameled bow that was a lingerie pin in a former life, white beads from ear bobs, and a brass plaque from a fine furniture manufacturer, the well-known Maple & Co., which, with the antiqued, pale, syrupy Czech beads calls up the memory of maple ice cream. Oh, so cool and smooth!

Singing Bird Pistols

Christies recently auctioned this precious and lovely pair of automatons for $5.8 million.  It is one of two known such treasures, created by the Swiss watchmakers, Freres Rochat, in the early 19th Century.  Don't expect bullets, expect something wonderful and sweet, embellished with diamonds, pearls, gold and enameling.  Ditch the Game Boy and visit the Age of Enlightenment.  Feed your imagination and give your thumbs a rest!  These beauties call to mind the poem of W.B. Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium":

THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Many thanks to my Honorary Cousin, Bambi, for bringing this exquisite kernel of delight to my attention!