The Book Women.

A group of “book women” on horseback in Hindman, Kentucky, 1940. Kentucky Library and Archives.

They were known as the “book women.” They would saddle up, usually at dawn, to pick their way along snowy hillsides and through muddy creeks with a simple goal: to deliver reading material to Kentucky’s isolated mountain communities.

The Pack Horse Library initiative was part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), created to help lift America out of the Great Depression, during which, by 1933, unemployment had risen to 40 percent in Appalachia. Roving horseback libraries weren’t entirely new to Kentucky, but this initiative was an opportunity to boost both employment and literacy at the same time.

“Sometimes the short way across is the hard way for the horse and rider but schedules have to be maintained if readers are not to be disappointed. Then, too, after highways are left, there is little choice of roads,” c. 1940. Kentucky Libraries and Archives.

Another fascinating article at Atlas Obscura, with absolutely splendid photos! Click on over and see.

Revitalizing Detroit.

Charles McGee, Unity. Photo by Sal Rodriguez. All images courtesy of Library Street Collective.

In 2014, when the City of Detroit threatened to sell many of the Detroit Institute of Art’s prized artworks to help the Motor City exit bankruptcy, the question of art’s role in the city’s future came front and center. Ultimately, the museum raised nearly a billion dollars to preserve the city’s cultural heritage—and its Picassos. Two years before, in what has become known as a “grand bargain,” local residents, husband and wife duo Anthony and JJ Curis, decided to open the Library Street Collective on a once-barren stretch of land. The Collective is a gallery with a traditional artist roster and a mission to revitalize the city by commissioning artists from the city and around the world to make public art in the streets of Detroit.

“Me or JJ don’t have an art background,” says Anthony Curis to Creators. “At the time, I was redeveloping a building in downtown Detroit that was meant to be a restaurant.” Back then, downtown Detroit’s state of near-total abandonment led him to open a gallery instead, at the suggestion of his wife. “The model wasn’t focused as much on the brick and mortar as it was on what kind of change we can make in the city.” He explains, “When we opened the gallery, we were really focused on public art and how could we change the landscape, making the community a little bit more vibrant and interesting. We are very interested in and keen on our mission to engage the public and reach people. That’s where the gallery was born.”

You can read much more, and see more about this project at The Creators Project.

Dear Fashion Magazine Editors…

“I guess Melania is used to wearing heels around a disaster area.”

Like everyone else the other day, I rolled my eyes over Ms. Trump heading into Texas on 4 inch spikes. The sheer inappropriateness of these vulgarians is always and never surprising. What would be truly fabulous, though, is if one (or all ) the powerhouse fashion mags published serious articles on how to be stylish and practical when touring disaster areas – avoid those embarrassing fashion faux pas with our guide! If only the editors had the spine to do so, that would be one happy and grand statement.

 

Hieronymus Bosch Piñatas.

You do not want to miss the work of Roberto Benavidez, not one single bit of it! This artist is well worth a healthy little detour in your day. All of his work is stunning, imaginative, and very beautiful. There’s a distinct sense of humour suffused throughout, a noticing of the irony in small details. Hyperallergic has an excellent article, lots of images, and Benavidez’s website is full of delights.

Hieronymus Bosch piñata by Roberto Benavidez.

…How appropriate, then, that Los Angeles-based artist Roberto Benavidez has made wild, larger-than-life representations from the Hieronymus Bosch painting, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” in piñata form.

“Sin is inherent in both the Bosch painting and the piñata, so to me it was a perfect pairing,” said Benavidez, in an email interview with Hyperallergic. “I like that my work is a blend of both Mexican and European art forms, which in a way represents who I am. Plus, I have always admired and gravitated towards old painting techniques. The oddness of the creatures and people, the odd perspective — they were captivating. As a sculptor, the challenge of taking these odd 2D forms and recreating [them] into 3D is the most fulfilling challenge for me right now.”

Benavidez has an interdisciplinary practice that includes sculpture, photography, and print work, but has experimented extensively with piñatas as a medium, including a collection of “Sugar Skull Piñatas” and a set of “Painting Piñatas,” in which he renders landscapes out of his own handcrafted version of the cheap paper fringe found on piñatas.

 

One of Roberto Benavidez’s “Painting Pinatas”.

“The painting piñatas are predominately vessels as well,” said Benavidez. “These were inspired by the layering of the crêpe paper when fringing the 3-D forms and realizing how similar it was to blending and layering colors with paint, although a bit more limiting … I love the absurdity of taking the cheapest and most unimaginative form of the piñata and putting hours of such meticulous fringe work into it.”

Have a bit of a wander this day, and delight in the work of Roberto Benavidez. The full article is at Hyperallergic.

The Mass Produced Civil War Monuments…

The soldier page of Monumental Bronze Co.’s 1882 catalog, completed with drawings and testimonials. Internet Archive/Public Domain.

Most people are aware that most of the civil war monuments which went up were a blatant product of later propaganda, and a convenient way to oppress and terrorize those not white enough. Atlas Obscura has a look at the company that had a lock on so many of these “bronze monuments”, the Monumental Bronze Co., who had discovered white bronze, which is actually zinc, and started mass producing monuments of all kinds. Described as the Wal-Mart of monuments.

White bronze isn’t white. It’s more of a chromy gray that, over time, gets progressively blue. It isn’t bronze, either: it’s zinc, cast into shape in a mold, and blasted with sand to add a rough, stony texture. But “bluish-gray sand-blasted zinc” doesn’t sound that appealing, and the company trafficking in this material, Monumental Bronze Co., of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was focused hard on selling it. From 1879 until 1914, Monumental Bronze Co. offered statues, grave markers and monuments that were, in their words, “beautiful in appearance and unequaled for durability.”

…They also had a whole muster of Civil War statues in various designs, the parts of which could also be easily interchanged, Mr. Potato Head-style. “Statue of American Soldier” was a man with a mustache and a billed cap, holding his gun in both hands. “Colorbearer” had a flag draped over his shoulder. “Confederate Soldier,” introduced in 1889, wore a broad-brimmed hat and carried a bedroll. You could also get your soldiers custom-made: the Confederate Monument in Portsmouth, Virginia has four Monumental Bronze Co. statues on it, each fashioned after a local man.

Another of their selling points was price: thanks to their choice of material (as well as their distribution model, which relied on independent “agents” and eliminated the need for storerooms) they could easily undersell stone-based companies.

The cover of this 1885 issue of Scientific American was dedicated entirely to “The White Bronze Monument Industry”—aka Monumental Bronze Co. Internet Archive/Public Domain.

A fascinating glimpse into the not so distant past. You can read and see much more at Atlas Obscura, and browse a Monumental Bronze Co. catalogue here.