after posting the above comment, i went out into the livingroom where my lisa had a page marked off in a book about mary engelbreit ('The Art and the Artist'), page 63.
To Imagine Is Everything
it begins with this quote:
'To know is nothing at all, to imagine is everything.' -Anatole France Thibault
einstein said as much himself.

lisa turned me on to mary engelbreit. i'd never heard of her before.
i envy her work and career and wish i'd done similar myself.

You don't find it, um ... cloyingly sentimental? A kind of posterized Kinkade? Bloom where you are planted? Life is a chair of bowlies?

i understand well why you might ask. at first blush it may seem just that. at first blush one may equally dismiss robert crumb's equally 'simple' and [thus] 'cloying' Mr. Natural character, and miss the actual subversiveness of it beneath that seemingly on the surface. one may as easily dismiss einstein's quote on imagination as her pointed use of anatole france thibault's. the subversive proposition of the challenge to our imaginations all these people make is not at all the same as the escapist appeal to our imaginations kinkade sells.

see, i have this huge book of hers at my disposal that i wish i could place in your lap and i can't. her life's work isn't well or easily summarized by me and in bringing her up, the onus to do so adequately is indeed upon me. for my inadequacy, i implore you accept there is as much more to her work as robert crumb's when people merely view his 'keep on truckin' panel. alas, he too is gone now from the stage and i may be using a useless analogy.

lisa just reminded me that kinkade has even a stable of artists producing 'his' 'output'. he is not his product.

so, i used the imagination quote as a shortcut to summary. an unimaginative one at that.

let me just say she puts herself out as a thinking person, a creatively thinking person, and as such does inspire anew, to go forth not only creatively but then yes, positively. a mindful positivism, not a mindless one at all.

I think I'm going to have to wait for your article on "The Subversive Engelbreit." But I'm certainly looking forward to it :)

the positive subversiveness of much of our culture is patently impotent to much of our society.
her book speaks well enough of her itself.
any creator who can get one to step back, as trevor bell urged his students, and take in the larger message, subverts.

what is her medium? that book? her cards? her coffee cups?
or her words and pictures themselves alone?

alex calder and peter max and many great others also can as well adorn a 747, and with less content. the closest analogy to her i find is crumb.

maybe one day even me. if i'm lucky. but don't hold your breath. seriously.

(all this on a PS?)

You've already succeeded. What could be more subversive than equating Robert Crumb and Mary Engelbreit? In trying to do it myself, I was momentarily liberated from all capacity for rational thought.

broader venues are desirable when old ones get sclerotic.

maybe now i might mention my hellokittymanifesto.html page...

or that the teletubbies conspiracy was real?

and don't even get me started on peewee herman's funhouse...

it's true, i learned everything i needed to know in kindergarten.

and promptly forgot it all when puberty hit.

and then remembered it all when the meatball hit.

that's progress.

how about walt whitman? leaves of grass? no?

bugs bunny?

bob denver?

captain beefheart? zappa? the 1910 fruit gum company? united fruit? fruit of the loom? the loom of the fruit? the cry of the full bull goose loon? the dissyncopated sounds of a Hobart doughmixing machine?

harold and maud?

m.a.s.h.?

reno 911?

green acres?

andalusian dog?

howl?

yoko ono?

ana voog?

t. s. eliot?

rimbaud?

brautigan?

Visionary, subversive, poetry from genius
A Listmania! list by IVAN JIMENEZ CORREAL (MADRID Spain)

omnis caro faenum

__________________________________________
See the new Agonist Topic Section on Tibet

(for those who haven't been to a shopping mall for the last 15 years of so)

(fair use; no challenge to copyright intended; please don't sue me Mary)

http://zuma.vip.warped.com/crumb/bigfoot_2.jpg

seems i either blew out some folks' logical circuits or touched a nerve. or crossed some taboo.

take even trina robbins. counter culture icon. female! cartoonist! certified subverter.
http://www.secession.at/art/2002_robbins_e.html

The exhibition offers a glimpse into women's production of comics in the USA, and Trina Robbins stands for this emancipatory intention with her entire life story. She is one of the protagonists of the underground comix movement. She published her first comics in the early sixties in New York (East Village Other). In 1968 she moved to San Francisco, the birthplace of underground comix, where she continuously collaborated in creating networks and platforms for women's production of comics, for example as founder of the Wimmen's Comic Collective and as editor of the anthology It Aint Me Baby. Women's Liberation. These collectives provided the framework for the first comics series that dealt with feminist topics like abortion, coming out, and sexuality.

In order to prove that even comics that do not reduce their female characters to full-breasted sex wonders can be commercially successful, Trina Robbins drew and authored stories like Meet Misty, GoGirl and contributed stories to Barbie, which provided especially young girls with an alternative to the supermen and superheroes and their female appendages spawned by the male fantasies of power so favored by the industry. For instance, the mother and daughter team of the Go-Girl comics drawn by Ann Timmons not only battles against evil, but also with the problem that super powers and the ability to fly neither make them rich nor help them to win a relatively commonplace flame.

mary engelbreit and trina robbins both started about the same time, in the same culture, up against the same odds and challenges -each considerably different then from now. regardless, miss robbins was considerably more frank about it, miss engelbreit did indeed insinuate herself into the malls with noted penetration. miss robbins focused on comics and with fidelity. girly stuff all around, no matter [& despite even] the counter cultural graphical roots.

paperdollconvention2008

Jenny Taliadoros publishes two amazing publications: Paper Doll Studio and Paper Doll Review. I first heard about the magazines when Mary Engelbreit did a profile on the paper doll collection of her grandmother, Helen Johnson, and the family tradition of paper art and collecting that Judy Johnson and daughter Jenny continue. I still remember the impressive files that Helen kept her collections in!

paperdollconvention2008

I had the opportunity to interview Trina Robbins more than a year ago for a Paper Doll Review article. She's a prolific writer, artist and herstorian. If it wasn't for Trina, I wouldn't have a clue about Gladys Parker (Mopsy Modes and Flapper Fanny) or Jackie Ormes (Torchy Togs).

Here are some of the Trina books I have in my collection, most of which are available for purchase on her Web site, www.trinarobbins.com

Nell Brinkley and the New Woman in the 20th Century
Paper Dolls from the Comics
Tomorrow's Heirlooms (Fashions of the 60s and 70s)
A Century of Women Cartoonists
From Girls to Grrrlzz: A History of Women in the Comics
Go Girl!: The Time Team
California Girls

girly stuff! like not manly stuff! imagine!
stuff not even peewee herman or bob denver would touch.
certainly robert crumb wouldn't. (but loudly, to his credit.)
so who? who? whom will stand up lit and proud for the like not manly girly stuff from amongst the skinny white guy squad?
("Don Knotts in Three's Company!") no no no, hush.
("Woody Allen?") no, dammit, not even.
me.

"dance with your monsters, listen to what they've got to tell you! :-) xo" -tam laporte

this wasn't done for tam, obviously, but ana voog. many many years ago. there were 3 other dress pieces as well. none girly enough. (are we still talking about art? there's one hell of a segue'. web cams. camgrrrls. jessica simpson. reality shows and competition.) i would certainly do a paper doll radically differently now, post-engelbreit.

sorry trina, it wasn't you who really ultimately subverted me.

the malls... where i once had girly peter max stuff everywhere, it's now all mary engelbreit? i guess i should go see for myself. it's been that long.

maybe it's not that it's 'girly stuff' that's objectionable. maybe it's that it lacks conflict or sex. the fluffy clouds thing. i've been criticized online for years for lacking aggression. not lately though. bad sign. time to hit the mall. in my badass mary engelbreit leather jacket.

i agree, and would like to see such not limited to only poetry.

my little rhymes would qualify too? :)

why ask me?

are they certifiably anything?

and just how little are they? (will i need new reading glasses?)

Never mind, Zuma. I might throw in a rhyme, one day, somewhere, when the opportunity arises. :)

has it come to the time
for me to begin to think
of something that will rhyme
with a flying kitchen sink?

on December 6, St. Nicholas day, to include a rhyme with some gifts. In my younger days in Holland, a week prior to Dec 6, the whole country was literally thrown into a frenzy of rhyming.

that's interesting! even if just to know more about ya.
the tradition is a nice one, nice to hear about.