GLOWING EMBERS IN A DUSTY BOX

Before Instagram, illustrators clipped pictures from magazines, newspapers or any other source they could find.

At the end of a long career, a working artist might  have several file cabinets overflowing with tattered pictures. The pictures usually reeked of decades in an art studio-- rubber cement and ancient cigarette smoke and turpentine mingled with the unmistakable aroma of disintegrating pulp paper.

Sometimes an illustrator would save a picture for its details about a military uniform or the anatomy of a horse.  But often they'd save a picture for higher reasons-- because they admired a creative solution, or a striking use of color, or it sparked an idea for their next project.

 

These were working pictures, frequently folded or torn, or stained with paint or ink from other jobs.  If you go through a stack you realize how pictures were integrated into the daily life of the illustrator.  It's not unusual to find handwritten notes in the margin about a deadline for a job or a tip about a horse race.  I once encountered a thumbnail sketch on the back of a bar tab.

Some unknown artist tried to work out shadows and folds in the upper left hand corner of this clipping

And you invariably find the kind of nude photos that were traded in the quaint era before internet porn:

 

More than once I've come across faded polaroids of an artist's own blushing sweetie, taken on some romantic weekend together.

There are files of costumes and files of facial expressions and files of poses.  There is a lot of mediocre and even bad art which was nevertheless clipped because the illustrator saw a redeeming use for some element.

The market value of these files is less than zero-- not enough to pay for hauling the battered scraps to the recycle bin.  Yet, measured by a different standard they have great value.

Artists at the end of their lives seemed reluctant to throw away all those years of choices.  They are like curators who've assembled their own lifelong art collections based on their personal taste and practical needs.   You couldn't ask for a better map of an artist's genome.  And they seem to want to preserve that part of their DNA by passing the torch to some younger person who might still recognize traces of value amongst the inert clutter.

For this reason I've felt honored when old timers-- some of whom  I've lauded on this blog-- bequeathed their clipping files to me before they died.   I have boxes of clippings stacked in my basement.

 Late at night I sometimes dip into those boxes, shake the dust off some of the files and sit down in a comfortable chair to go through them.  I'm guaranteed to end up with a lap full of paper chips.  But here's the interesting thing: when you engage with these pictures and you start to understand why one was clipped, it's like blowing on embers.  They start to glow again and they warm you, no matter how long the embers have been dormant-- in some cases 75 or 100 years.  They can rekindle and communicate something about the taste and judgment of the curator.

For this reason, I am going to post some of these clippings and tearsheets in the days ahead.  Even if they aren't always great art, I hope you will be as charmed by them as I am.