Look Here: The big-hand collage art of Jeffrey Meyer

20 July 201310 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

On his new website, artist Jeffrey Meyer has sorted the collages in his online portfolio into a variety of different categories, including one called “Touching” that brings together a selection of works featuring one of his favourite motifs, the “big hand.” A few other big-hand compositions are included in other categories over there, but here, for your viewing enjoyment, are twelve additional variations that Jeffrey used to display on his old “goofbutton” site but hasn’t (yet) added to the mix on the new one:

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**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Big Hand Again* (2007), paper collage, 9 x 7 inches.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Sampling*, paper collage.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Pinballocalypse* (2010), paper collage, 6 x 7 in.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Lollipop Polish* (2010), paper collage, 6 x 7 inches.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Pick-Up Stix* (2009), paper collage, 8 x 10 inches.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Hipster Zoo* (2009), paper collage, 8 x 8 inches.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Hand Signals* (2009), paper collage, 8 x 8 inches.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Compass Lights* (2009), paper collage, 8 x 10 inches.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *Absorbent Paper* (2011), paper collage, 8 x 7 inches.

**ABOVE:** Jeffrey Meyer, *What the Sheep Want*, paper collage.

Jeffrey Meyer, *Specimen Jar* (2009), paper collage, 7 x 8 inches.

Look Here: One lovely cover with art by James Bama

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I don’t usually buy paperbacks that are in as rough a condition as this copy of Tomboy by Hal Ellson, but I was drawn in by the excellent cover art, which I was surprised to note is by the American illustrator/painter James Bama, who is perhaps best known for his hyper-masculine paintings of cowboys, mountain men, rodeo heroes, Native Americans, and others, including the bronze-haired, bronze-skinned, musclebound pulp-fiction hero Doc Savage! The severe wear and crisscross of cracks and creases on my copy of Tomboy reduce its value, if it has any at all, to that of a “reading copy,” but weirdly, they also seem to reinforce the theme of social disintegration and personal turmoil in the inner city that is central to both the painting and the book:

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An interesting “bonus feature” of the 1969 Bantam edition of Tomboy displayed above is that it includes an introduction by Fredric “Seduction of the Innocent” Wertham, M.D., who praises the novel “as a good test for people’s knowledge of literature and life.”

Connections · Look Here

Connections: Tim Hildebrandt and David Birkey

18 July 201310 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

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Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Illustration Art · Look Here · Lou Feck

Look Here: Another cover with art by Lou Feck

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On the one hand, the cropped Feck painting on the front of John Dickson Carr’s The Third Bullet violates two rules of pulp-fiction eroticism: 1) the woman is wearing no shoes instead of having one shoe on and one shoe off (one shoe on the ground doesn’t count), and 2) the shadow on her skin and on the ground is not in the shape of a man’s silhouette. On the other hand, who gives a rat’s ass?

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Collage Art · Fine Art · Heads Up! · Jeffrey Meyer · Look Here

Heads Up: “Art” by Jeffrey Meyer

12 July 201310 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Slightly less than a month ago, on 15 June 2013, artist Jeffrey Meyer sent out an email announcement to his friends, colleagues, and collectors to let them know that he has a new website featuring his collage work, “including about 300 new pieces, as well as some mixed-media/painting experiments.” All of the work on the site is for sale (except for the pieces that have been sold already, of course). If you are interested in purchasing a handmade original, simply contact Jeffrey for a price list or with whatever questions you have, and he will get back to you as soon as he is able.

My personal collection of original art includes four of Jeffrey’s collages, which I purchased last summer, and although I do plan to post images of my purchases in the near future, I thought it might be interesting right now to take a look back at some of Jeffrey’s older work.

In a 2011 interview with the Notpaper blog, Jeffrey was asked to describe his “favourite piece ever created,” and he reluctantly replied as follows:

Well, the next day I disdain them all… but I think a few are successful, even pleasing: “Broken Dome,” “Sugar Lights,” “Cave at the Edge of the Park,” “Blush,” “Easter,” “Borealis,” “Hair 4,” “Arcade Nebula.”

Notpaper posted eleven images with the interview. Not one of them, however, was an image that Jeffrey mentioned. But never fear, citizens, because here I am to save the day, a mere two years, one month, and twelve days after the fact:

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The title, date, and size of each of the collages pictured above is in the file name, as usual, which means that the information will pop up if you hold your mouse pointer steady over an image for a moment or two.

But don’t just sit there gawking: BUY SOME ART!

BONUS IMAGES (THREE FROM 2013):

Look Here: One lovely cover with art by John Berkey

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Here’s another old paperback that I picked up on our recent trip to Calgary; excellent work here from John Berkey, who is perhaps best known for his lively renderings of impossibly massive spacecraft “screaming” past cities, moons, planets, stars, galaxies, although in his long, productive, successful career in illustration, he actually tackled a wide range of subjects, historical and contemporary, as well as futuristic:

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**ABOVE:** Frederik Pohl, *Drunkard’s Walk* (NY: Ballantine, 1973), with cover art by John Berkey.

Fourth thing I noticed about Dunkard’s Walk, right after the author’s name, the title, and Berkey’s artwork, was the quotation at the top of the cover: “‘Easily Pohl’s most satisfactory effort.’ — N.Y. Herald Tribune.” Ouch! Was that really the best notice that Drunkard’s Walk had received between its original publication in 1960 and the 1973 reprint you see above? And did that lukewarm “cover quote” ever entice anyone to buy the book?

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Book/Magazine Covers (Jones) · Illustration Art · Jeffrey "Jeff" Catherine Jones · Look Here

Look Here: One lovely cover with art by Jeffrey Jones

9 July 201310 August 2016 RC1 Comment

Although I don’t travel very often or very far, and I have never gone on any kind of “book buying trip,” I am definitely a happier traveller when I am able to steal time from the “real” purpose of any trip I might take to visit a few stores that sell used books. Last Friday, for instance, my wife, our son, and I drove from Regina to Calgary, via Saskatoon, to attend a wedding, and over the next few days, return trip included, I managed to spend a couple of hurried hours browsing through a thrift shop and four different bookstores… although, unfortunately for me, only three of the four sold used books that I could afford. The fourth — which is actually the store in Calgary that I visited first, and only because it was located near a comics and Magic card shop that our son wanted to visit — was clearly designed to appeal to upper-middle-class bibliophiles with discerning taste and deep pockets, i.e., not me. I was fairly happy with both the selection of books and the prices at the two “Fair’s Fair” used bookstores we visited in Calgary, however, and very happy with the selection and prices at the store that we stopped at, briefly, in Saskatoon on the return trip.

And so now, here I am, typing this post while sitting about a metre from two-dozen vintage paperbacks, all newly accessioned to my collection, including this one, with cover art by Jeffrey Jones, which has been on my “want list” for a few years now:

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More later, of course!

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Don Maitz · Illustration Art · Look Here

Look Here: Three popular covers with art by Don Maitz

4 July 201310 August 2016 RCLeave a comment

Here’s the third batch of cover scans from the collection of eight with art by Maitz that I mentioned in previous post; turns out, these paperbacks are collector’s items of a sort:

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“Cyteen won the Hugo for Best Novel. There was a paperbound publication that split the novel into three parts, but this has ended: the current and, by my wishes, all future publications, will have Cyteen as one unified book.”
— C. J. Cherryh

Look Here: Three pocket books with cover art by Don Maitz

4 July 201310 August 2016 RC1 Comment

This is the second of three posts here at RCN that I plan to devote to the cover art of Don Maitz, whose excellence as an illustrator has often been acknowledged by his peers but is generally not of the kind that excites me very much:

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