a giveaway

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know that I am doing a giveaway on my other blog Ponyboy Press. You have until tonight to enter. See this entry here.

the girls

I got some great new ephemera this weekend. Including a lot of beautiful Victorian Die-Cut Scraps that I just love. Look for those coming to the shop soon. It is going to take some time to photograph and list them.

These two new photos are great together. It almost feels like these kids could be the teens years earlier or maybe their kids, but the timing does not match. Still, I love the life and action in these photos.

a young doctor's portrait

As much as I love the old things, I am so damned pleased with many of the modern things, and the internet is near the top of that list. I was looking through photos to see what I wanted to share and noticed the full name on this portrait. Ten years ago when I bought it I would have had to do quite a bit of work to find any information on him. But, tonight, I just put the name and town in google and I immediately know his life history.

This is Murdoch Bannister. This photograph was taken in 1889 according to the back of the photo and 1890 according to the front. He was in the middle of his college years at the time.

The photo was taken in Ottumwa, Iowa and that is where he lived for his life. He graduated with a B.S. from Iowa State University in1891. He then went on to become a doctor. He married Keota William in 1904. Keota was a practicing lawyer, which seems remarkable to me for the time. She quit law to get married and they had two sons.

Murdoch Bannister became quite a prominent doctor and there are many antique books and papers online that he wrote.

I wonder how his college portrait made it's way to the west coast. I did find one listing from the 70's for his son that indicated he lived in Santa Clara, California. Maybe that is how I got it. I must have picked it up when I was in the Bay Area.

Happy 150th Birthday, Oregon

Valentines Day also happens to be the birthday of the state of Oregon. Oregon the state is 150 years old today. You can find more sesquicentennial news here.

Although there are a few things I miss about California. I have never regretted moving to Portland. I love it here and the Pacific Northwest is ridiculously beautiful.

I bought this postcard over 10 years ago when I was living in Mountain View, California. I wanted to be up here. I would stare at it a lot. I love the way tinted photographs look. Something about it looks almost more real to me than color photos.


The postcard is postmarked August 1912 and is addressed to a Mrs JW Sackett, Anaheim, Cal.

It reads:

Dear Aunt,

Mother is still improving. Will let you know if any change. Have a dandy nurse.

Eltha

Valentines Day

Kitty Valentine from eggstudio on Flickr

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day. Although it might be a bit of a dark commentary on love and all that, it seemed like a good time to share this half of a photo that I found years ago.

a love story

This image is a scan of a vintage slide. This is my grandfather and the golden eagle that lived with him for 16 years. They had a very strong bond.

I love this photo because this is part of what you saw as you looked out of the big window in my grandparents small house.

Here is another slide from the living room. They lived near Santa Barbara, looking over the Santa Ynez valley.





















I loved that room. This is where the men would talk (usually just my Dad and Grandad) while my mother, aunt and grandmother worked in the kitchen or sat in the other room chatting. I loved being in this room with the men. They would talk slow and take their time to really flesh out their point. They would discuss animals and nature, real estate and the news. I would color in my coloring book and enjoy the sound of their voices.

As for the eagle, her name was Lady and she and my Grandfather had a long term relationship. She considered him her mate and laid eggs that he replaced with fertile eggs - except eaglet eggs are hard to come by, so she raised geese and owls, too (her natural prey).

I am slowly scanning many slides from my father and grandfather's collection. I did many of my grandfather and Lady that you can see them on my flickr account. If you are interested more in the story of Lady and Ed, you can find more information here.

Love's Echoes

Time is running out for Valentine season, so I want to post at least one more sweet vintage Valentine.

I like the poem on this Valentine. It looks like the receiver of this token took the stamp from the envelope and put it on the card. The poem says:

Love's Echoes
Tell me, precious little maiden
Tell me now, and tell me true
Will you love me Dear, forever
Just as much as I love you?

Vintage Valentine Museum

If you like vintage valentines you should check out the Vintage Valentine Museum. Jolene has set it all up just for fun and has no problem with people borrowing images for websites and personal use, but only asks that you use your own bandwidth and give credit back to the site. She does also have a shop here.

The museum has a nice collection of cutesy ones and some oddball ones I have never seen before. I like the Native American ones.























And this one is one of the strangest old Valentines I have ever seen. Circa 1930.

he loved the women folk

This is a favorite photo in my collection. Somebody took this image of the guy gazing down from a different photo and cut it in behind these women. Of course the effect is that he is looking down the woman's dress. Was this the intent? Unfortunately there are no markings at all on the back of the photo. Did the person do it for their own amusement or was this a gift to someone?

I like their style.

Postcard Collection at the Met

Wow, how neat is this. A postcard collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art! Opens tomorrow.

Curator Jeff L. Rosenheim of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Department of Photographs arranges a display of postcards collected by Walker Evans that are part of the exhibition 'Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard,' in New York, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009. Long before he picked up the camera and became a pioneer of American documentary photography, Evans began collecting the colorized photo postcards that were a staple of early 1900s five-and-dime stores. The exhibition of his collection opens to the public Tuesday, Feb. 3

From the Museum Website:

Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard
February 3, 2009–May 25, 2009
The Howard Gilman Gallery
This exhibition will focus on a collection of 9,000 picture postcards amassed and classified by the American photographer Walker Evans (1903–1975), now part of the Metropolitan’s Walker Evans Archive. The picture postcard represented a powerful strain of indigenous American realism that directly influenced Evans’s artistic development. The dynamic installation of hundreds of American postcards drawn from Evans’s collection will reveal the symbiotic relationship between Evans’s own art and his interest in the style of the postcard. This will also be demonstrated with a selection of about a dozen of his own photographs printed in 1936 on postcard format photographic paper.

Win a Square America book

Have you visited the website Square America? It is a large website filled with found photos. All categorized by theme. I love this image above from the windows collection.

A quick google search tells me that a Chiropodist is the British term for Podiatrist or foot doctor. So, I guess there is a good chance this was not taken in America. I love all the things that are going on in this picture.

Something else that is really neat on the Square America site is the animated photo booth pictures. Some of them almost bring the person to life.


Well, the person behind Square America has put out a book and there is a drawing for a free copy on a website called Retro Thing. Go by and put your name in the hat. Deadline is Feb. 7