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With Best Wishes

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Apologies if I seem to be rushing the season a bit but this fellow has been haunting the top of my desk and I guess I just thought he deserved his day. Such a precise little tabby – I said he but really if I had to guess looking at it, I would say this is actually a girl cat – something about the precision of her. She is sporting some bells, and we will assume that they are in the jingle bells sense, although they could also be worn in service of warning birds of her less than benign intent. For better or worse I am not sure she is catching any mice with it on.

The mousing question is a big one, especially in the context of bird catching and outdoor cat behavior in general. We silly humans would like our cats to draw a line between killing rodents and birds. All this led to mom making her cats indoor ones decades ago – although there were other factors like increase in car traffic, dogs and more. Betty loved birds though and I can only think of one or two occasions when her beloved cats brought her up short with this issue.

Our enormous orange tabby, Pumpkin, was guilty of it once – however the same cat caught water rats as well which seemed like a good thing. There was an almost endless stream of mole, vole and mouse bodies left strewn around as gifts. (My sister Loren had a cat, a tuxie named Milkbone, who left her just the heads and lined them up on the stairs. Their house had a serious mouse issue.)

I think we tried bells briefly, but our cats were Houdini’s in training and always slipped out of them virtually immediately. Subsequently the issue of the collars getting caught on things became a concern and the collar and bell was a brief venture indeed. (And as someone pointed out online recently, kitty doesn’t want bells ringing in their face constantly either.)

Peaches perched on the stairs the other morning.

It is my belief that it is the girl cats who carry on the grand feline tradition of hunting, although boys certainly will – Pumpkin as an example. However as I have said before in a now oft told tale, when my friend Winsome discovered a murdered mouse in the house in New Jersey (silly, silly mouse to visit a house with five cats) without having any way to know, I put my money on Peaches, the feral female as the cat in question. (For a recent post about Peaches great escape into the outdoors and fetching her home go here.) If something unwanted showed up in the apartment I admit it would be Cookie not Blackie that I would fetch to the rescue. (Recent readers know that I encountered a mouse in my building’s gym the other day, mentioned in a post here. Evidently my chatter about it that morning gave my trainer mousie dreams that evening. I am guilty of sort of tossing a cat in the direction of an undesirable visitor such as a water bug and hoping for rescue.)

Photo postcards of Lindburgh by Underwood.

However, even for me I have digressed greatly. Today on this holiday postcard we have this chipper and fine-looking feline with a nice white bib and bright white feet tucked together. Her striped tail is wrapped around here, and the aforementioned jingle bells are in a string around her neck. She is focused on something off camera and perched on a patterned tablecloth of sorts. There is something subdued about the card – an enthusiastic holiday greeting it is not quite. The focus is sharp on her face and chest but then blurs a bit, bringing that part of her forward. It is an unusually good photograph of kitty.

This card was never mailed however, oddly, on the back someone has written, With love from Marjorie to Mary. This is my little pet cat. However, this is a professional card distributed by the E. A. Underwood, Gold St. Studio, Saffron Walden. Portrait & Landscape Photographer. So our writer is just kidding when she says it is her pet cat – an undemanding one at the very least.

Underwood had several postcards of Yankee Stadium.

Meanwhile, Underwood is a somewhat underwhelming postcard company of the early 20th century devoted primarily to people and places – many seem to be painted pictures of pretty girls (some with men), Yankee Stadium, Charles Lindburgh. The company was, as above, located in Saffron Walden in Essex, England. This card seems a bit different for them as those examples that are not illustrations as above are colored photos of locations.

So Pictorama kicks off the greater holiday cat season today with a soft jingle jangle. Let the cat celebrations begin.

A Basket Full of Baby

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This little fellow wandered into the house via one of the postcard shows. It seems properly autumnal for today, which for future readers I will note is November 1 and Marathon Day here in New York City. (It looks like a prime day for it at 41 degrees, sunny and less windy than it has been.) It is also the day after Halloween and the day the clocks roll back so a sort of busy weekend here in Manhattan. The yellow fall light is putting us in the harvest moon and speaking of that we have enjoyed a few enormous moons, one which was also a glorious red.

I can’t be absolutely sure, but I believe this little fellow is Rags, aka The Famous Rotography Cat. (An earlier post on him can be read here and another recent post with him here.) Here he looks young and somewhat kittenish, adolescent maybe, and like perhaps he had a long day of posing and is about to put his nose down and do some serious sleeping. So much for hard work that day.

In addition to Rags, I always think that the Rotograph photo studios must have had a constant, roiling pack of kittens churning through the studio for photos, although Rags was a constant star and ruled the roost into adulthood. (I just found that there is a children’s book dedicated to him and using Rotograph photos as illustrations.) I do hope all the little ones found good homes if they were no longer tiny and less useful to the photographers.

The basket here is one that could hold any kind of fruit but this time of year my mind turns to apples. Although our modern world makes apples available to us year-round (in reality they have always stored well in a cool place), there is nothing like the apples of fall here in the New York area.

I worked with someone at Jazz, Wynton’s former assistant Edith, who was a sort of apple expert and connoisseur. Evidently, she had deep knowledge of all the different kinds; we only discussed it once or twice. Although I am somewhat flexible, I have a deep affection and preference for Macintosh apples which sadly have fallen out of favor. For me their level of tartness and texture is just right, however I gather that being slightly softer they are harder to ship and therefore less desirable. Also, being open to certain fungus they are also unlikely to be organic.

I have toyed with planting a Macintosh apple tree in the yard in New Jersey. The winters are a bit hard for them I gather and I have not mastered the burlap wrap for the winter which I would need to. Meanwhile, I would plant in the late spring, hopefully in a sunny spot. Three to five years for first real crop. Worth thinking about.

A particular favorite leaf from Kim this week.

Having said that (and digressed considerably), this basket could just as easily have contained peaches or pears or other things. There is a bit of wire (I would worry about that with the kitty) sticking up which actually gives the card a little more visual interest. The Rotograph copyright is just on the lower left of the basket and in script, A basket full. With the black table on a black background, it is all velvety dark and the surface of the card is mat, contributing further to this effect.

Unfortunately, this attractive effect also makes the written note at the bottom near to impossible to make out. It appears to say, From, baby Sleep (?) To Baby Bartes. It was mailed from Schenectady, New York on April 26, 1907 at 9 AM. It was sent to Carrie Bartes, West Berne, alt bo (?) NY. At the bottom it also says, c/o Mrs. Bartes. It was received in West Berne on April 27 with no time stamp. I don’t know what the alt bo referred to and instead of Miss it reads Mip – which a bit of research shows was either the way a double “s” could be written in script or, perhaps as a result, a title occasionally recognized as Mip replacing Miss on early marriage certificates etc. (This is really my fact for the day – I had no idea.)

In my postcard posts I feel like people often select an image of a cat and assign it to a pet they were visiting. Occasionally it is an actual picture of said real cat (obviously usually sent by the owner), but sometimes like this it is just a reference and you wonder if Baby actually looked like this or is it just generically cat. Also, the practice of sending postcards to children is very sweet and was a thing. I always imagine how much they must have enjoyed getting them and perhaps that is why they were preserved, tucked away over time. (Although there are clues that perhaps our Miss Carrie Bartes is still too tiny a tot to appreciate this when recieved.) Meanwhile, yes, postcards were sort of the cat videos of their day, being shared with friends and family.

The beginning of November marks the race to the end of the year – always a busy time for fundraisers. However, I have some excellent bits to share over the coming weeks so let the season begin.

Felix in a Crowd…Again

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I misplaced the card I wanted for today and I am doing a rare reexamination of this card from an earlier post back in 2022 (so new to some of you) which resurfaced in the search today. (The original post can be found here.) In the first post I looked at this card as documenting a performance but today have had another look at it and am now seriously reconsidering it as a Halloween party. I believe I purchased it online, maybe on eBay or maybe on Instagram, I do not remember. It is a photo postcard that was never sent but shows evidence of having been glued into a photo album, black paper sticking to its back. There is no writing on the back and so no indication of when it was taken.

More crossdressing, nuns, arabs and a better look at these small kids. The more I look, I feel like there are adults mixed in here.

The sheer size and variety of costumes makes me consider that this is indeed a Halloween party of sorts. It is from the period of ambitious homemade costumes. We have a row of clowns and crossed legged young men wearing ghutrah (the headdress of Arab countries – had to look that up), many more clowns are sprinkled throughout the crowd, some boys in drag, a nun, some gypsies. A careful look reveals a woman in the upper right corner holding something with a sword sticking out of it – a corpse perhaps? (What was I thinking the theme of a show with this variety of entries could be?)

Detail of Felix and friends. The costume looks more homemade when we see it closer up.

Clearly the stand-out for me is the small person (child?) in the center wearing a splendid Felix the Cat costume. He or she might be the only one in a full mask in this large group, identity completely hidden. Surrounded by Arabs at his feet, a man in a dress holding some unidentifiable bottles nefarious accessories on one side, a crossdressing nun behind him, a man in a tuxedo (very little imagination showing here) and a woman who appears to be dressed like an American flag (I want to say these sorts of stars and stripes costumes were a thing). Tucked almost entirely out of sight is a small woman with her face almost entirely hidden by a hajib with a star on it. Another sand out for me is the woman in the black and white checked ballooning trousers wearing the big witch hat – she has a sort of gypsy-pirate looking girl next to her.

This woman with weapons and some sort of dead creature attached to her clearly had an ambitious vision. Detail, top right.
Woman in checked trousers is a real stand out. I love the collar too!
Above the woman in the checked trousers to the right of the card, interesting men in these costumes which also seem to have a reference to the Arab world.

While this group seems to mostly represent older teenagers and maybe adults, kids are lined up at the bottom so it was a very mixed group. They have gathered somewhere in front of this sizeable stage and we can assume that the folks at the top are on the stage and maybe even risers to get so many people nicely in the photo. On either side are these enormous mirrors which give us a glimpse of the room – coffered ceiling and large decorative columns on one side. (One of those columns is in front of the mirror on the right as well.) The other side gives a tiny glimpse of balcony seating or catwalk of some kind. Curtains are pulled back on the stage and a single bare bulb hangs as well as perhaps some old scenery. The floor is a shiny parquet in front of the group.

A santa (!) and one of many inevitably caught with their eyes closed.

Without knowing for certain I would say Felix helps us place this photo as taken in the mid-to-late 1920’s. A rather grand gathering, although notably without any specifically Halloween decorations so perhaps the original take remains valid. Either way, I think we can assume a good time was had by all and a happy Halloween to those celebrating or participating today.

Spring Street, Los Angeles

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This was an unusual purchase at the most recent card show. I generally only buy location cards for places I know and am especially fond of. (For some local New Jersey ones you can find posts here and here.)

Although I have visited LA on many occasions, and I have a very close friend there who I love to visit, I have never become fond of the city. It is so enormous that even despite having covered a lot of territory over time, I still don’t really carry even rudimentary map of it in my head, although I guess I have pieced together some areas. Between the Met and Jazz at Lincoln Center I found myself out there on a more or less semi-annual basis, maybe more like every three years, up until Covid. I traveled less for Jazz after Covid and not back to Los Angles before leaving at the end of ’23. I don’t drive and even if I did, I still wouldn’t drive there, which to my mind always seems like just a lick and a prayer from getting killed let alone lost.

For all of that this hand painted night scene of an old Los Angeles with these green street cars (the one nearest us is labeled Hollywood) and glowing lights, just had to come home with me. It is far from a Los Angeles time any of us could know and it is amazing to consider one with such old buildings, small streets – public transportation! The huge moon hangs in the sky and streetlights and windows glow.

I can’t help but get drawn in and can imagine that this is a Los Angeles with some allure, what it might have been like to be there on a warm and sultry evening. Horses (some blurry with movement) remain a feature with several carts and a few carriages are being drawn by them. People throng the streets and sidewalks. Hard to see but the few women are in long dresses. I assume the photo was actually taken during daylight and (very effectively) painted into a night scene later.

Other than the partial sign for Parlors on the left, the others are largely lost in the printing and perhaps painting process. On the right the awning is for an undisclosed Studio (photo perhaps?) and to the back on the left there is a sign on the side of a building which appears to be for LA Clothiers. Unfortunately, even with a loupe the others are indecipherable.

The colors, which I sort of assume were striving for some accuracy, are great with the reddish building, the blueish one and then the green street cars – all illuminated by yellow and orange toned lights. The moon (a complete fiction?) is huge and shines down on this street with an illusion to a few clouds, no stars were attempted. The street blurs into the horizon, lined with streetlights, and appears to go on infinitely into the distance.

Wikipedia view.

A quick internet search actually reveals that some of these more massive buildings are extant today. If and when I make it back out there I might like to see Spring Street. This card was never used and was produced by the Newman Post Card Co. Los Angeles and San Francisco.

My favorite son and export of Los Angeles is of course Kim who fondly remembers coming into consciousness there. He fondly describes his first memories of the world taking place in a bungalow in a residential area. (That too seems to exist as his father sent him Google photos of it not that many years ago.) Kim may have seen this card first – I don’t remember – but we agree it was a worthy if unusual purchase.

Falling: A New Leaf

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I am taking some liberty today in sharing this New Year’s card. However, autumn has always been my mental New Year in many ways. I am one of those people who never left the back-to-school mentality and as the leaves change and the chill comes, I start to think of starting anew rather than of a year dying.

Fall this year has been spent at many work related events and I share a portrait of Cookie and Blackie below from an event we held this week. The artist, Andrea Cáceres (@andrecaceresg or hello@andreacaceres.com), was employed for a full evening of pet portraits which she mostly did from photos, although the live pooches in the room were many too.

Pet portrait by Andrea Cáceres.

And across the room was a pet psychic, Phoebe Hoffman (info@phoevehoffman.com or PhoebeHoffman.com). I spent about 10 minutes with her talking about NJ cat resident, Stormy. I have always wondered about her past – she is a gentle but extremely fearful stray who was still very young when Mom found her. She seemed to know what a house and people were all about however.

Phoebe said that Stormy had indeed had a home, but she was largely neglected, was either left or lost. Stormy is a sweet little thing, gray tabby, but even over several years will not quite let you touch her.

She also told me that Stormy is living a very happy life (no surprise there), but while she appreciates her cat family, they annoy her sometimes – the other four of the Jersey Five, three are bro’s. (I am afraid they do pick on her a bit.) Stormy seeks alone time and finds corners of the house to be left in peace. Evidently, she “needs to be herself and has some sass in her” and will likely come around to being petted in her own time, but she likes that we don’t push her. She was fond of my mother, who was not mobile at the end of her life (we would joke that Stormy liked that she could never go after her) and Stormy would come and visit Mom in the middle of the night sometimes.

Our Miss Stormy. She does love to eat but she is scaredy cat.

Meanwhile, I’m not entirely sure that I rise entirely to the celebration (albeit gentle) of this card, however I am considering how best to renew myself for the coming year and live my best life. Of course, it is the black cat that does it for me on this card. He looks like he might just start drinking the champagne if these two are heading out of the room – which perhaps they are. It is his interest and annoyed cat urgency (pay attention to me) that makes the card fun.

It is a photo-collage, with the couple dropped into a drawing of a room and New Year’s celebration. (I wonder if the drawing is also somehow from a photo but I can’t quite figure that out.) There are interesting patterns on the tablecloth – streamers fallen from above for this private midnight celebration? Looking up that seems to be the case. The pattern on the woman’s dress picks up the green of the streamers, the pattern on the champagne bucket, some pears and a few paintings on the wall. Our lady is looking out at the viewer while the gentleman’s attention is entirely on her. A private party launch into the new year – home alone with kitty and champagne.

The card was never used and so I have no precise information about a date. It says, Bonne Annee at the bottom so we know it is French. The maker appears to be REX and there is a serial number. All I can find is that they were, not surprisingly, makers of this type of card in the early 20th century and presumably French.

Pictorama readers may remember that October is our anniversary which rings in later this week at 26 years. I love that our anniversary is this time of the year. While the actual day was unseasonably warm, the crisp fall brings it to mind. Kim and I have never been much on celebrating our anniversary, however I wouldn’t be surprised if my gift for him shows up in a future post. It is small but interesting. Not saying any more about it for now. But I will let this card be our celebration placeholder for now.

One of my dahlias last week when I was in NJ – no reason, just because I can share!

In the real world Kim is escorting me to the postcard show in Greenwich Village today and that and lunch out will likely count for our annual observance of the anniversary. More to come in future posts.

However, a shot across the bow and know that change is coming to the denizens of Deitch Studio and Pictorama. I am not exactly sure of our precise course, but we seem to be headed on the path. I generally find change abhorrent (I am indeed cat-like in this way, love my routine), but deep down I know that all will be even better when the dust settles. Stay tuned.

A Charming Trio

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: It struck me this morning, looking at and reading this card, that the vast majority of the time people used these postcards for quick communication and never acknowledged the card. There are exceptions of course. On the other hand, someone liked the card enough to have kept it, right? It is an interesting sort of thing really.

I do not know the date this card was sent on, only 8:45 survives on the stamp cancellation. The note is to a Milly R. Jones, 64 Angus Street, Roath Park, Cardiff. The message is crammed and a bit urgent, Blaenavon, Monday, Received card shall expect you tomorrow by 8:30 train. Have lost this evenings post so if you do not get this in time come Wednesday same train. Love to all, Mildred. Then crammed at the top, Will send Ada to train. And around the side, tomorrow? Wednesday?

Well, on one hand we know that Mildred or someone in her household had the good taste to acquire this card which would ultimately contain this timely travel note, but of course no thought to it while writing this and getting it off to the post. A thank you to Milly (and her descendants?) for saving it though.

Back of card.

Of course it these three cats that made me buy it, the fluffy white Persian, the handsome all black kit and this little sort of tabby tuxie in the middle. It is a bit hard to tell but I feel like the middle cat is younger than the other two. Someone is off camera doing something which has caught there attention and they stare more or less in unison. They are perched on what appears to be a bit of carpet covering the table. The background is completely indistinct. Virtually invisible unless the light hits it right, at the top it declares, A Charming Trio. (I only saw it after I photographed it!) There is an equally indistinct Rotograph detail at the bottom.

At first I wondered if this was a photo of Mildred’s cats, but now that I see the title and details, clearly not. Meanwhile, I always wonder about the store of postcards people must have kept at the time, reaching randomly into a drawer and pulling one out when needed. Stocking up at the local newsagent with some Louis Wains or getting some photo postcards made for an occasion or just of the pets or farm animals.

The all black cat reminds me of Beauregard and the cat in the middle looks like my Peaches. I have posted about this little girl before – you can find that post here. She’s a pretty little thing and seems utterly content in her abode with four other cats. However, having had a very hard start at the beginning of her life (found in a basement alone where she had been howling for days before someone called Animal Control), she does not trust people at all and you cannot touch her or pick her up. Having said that, she will come to be fed and I find her coming in with the family when we are there and stretching and rolling in the middle of the room – content. But she will hiss at you if you get too close and run off in a huff. She is a cats only cat.

Peaches’s favorite spot is the front window in the living room and one of my neighbors commented on always seeing her there when she walks by. It is her command post and she can see outside and most of the house from there. Deep down, I always knew that the fact that we cannot catch her would be a problem and that arose this week.

Peaches took advantage of a few moments of the open screen door unobserved and hopped out into the yard. Luckily the yard is fenced and, although if she had gotten spooked enough, she could easily have climbed it, it kept her corralled there. It was however a stand-off between humans and cats. Other cats were secured in bedrooms and the door left open hoping she would stroll back in. However, skittish already and disoriented we couldn’t make it happen. We tried luring her with food, which she ate, but couldn’t get her inside.

Peaches this summer. This was the photo I posted.

I joined the local Facebook page and posted her photo in case she wandered out of the yard. I must say there were so many nice responses and some sound advice. It was very nice to see. She became a Fair Haven Facebook celebrity with many likes and reactions.

Day turned to evening and when we didn’t grab her at dinner time it was clear she was likely spending the night outside. I, who was in Manhattan for meetings at work I could not miss, prepared to head down to Fair Haven in the morning. Just as I was leaving the house I got the news that she was inside. A local man had come with a trap but before he could set it up she scampered inside – the desire for breakfast won out.

As this storm batters both New York City and the Jersey shore, I am so relieved she is inside! I guess my feelings about potentially losing her were complicated by the fact that she is a cat my mother left in my care. Although I try to do right by those kitties, juggling two houses and seven cats can be a big responsibility. Hopefully no one else there will test me further in the near future.

Posing Together Today

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I spent yesterday starting a big end of summer clean up of the apartment which sorely needs it. Kim pitched in and we had a reasonable day one cleaning, more to come today. I’d say I cleared about a third of what I need to off my desk, and in the process coughed up these two photos which are an interesting segue from yesterday’s post (it can be found here for those who missed it) and these make me wonder about my attraction to a similar composition of sorts. I know I purchased them online, however I do not remember who I bought them from so apologies to one of my sellers out there.

Unlike yesterday’s tintype, these are mounted cabinet cards and while yesterday’s ladies were seated in front of a faux landscape, today’s women are obviously really outside in front of this lovely house with a deep porch and that great striped awning. And of course, they are very much together in these photos unlike our ladies who turned away from each other yesterday.

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

The house is really the star here for me. The shadows from the trees make it clear that it is a shady, cool spot and the enormous overgrown boxes of ivy are so welcoming. The textures and patterns are amazing in this photo. There’s the horizontal siding on the house, the stripes in the awning, that jolly lattice work under the porch and an especially interesting design on the railing, all helping to make this more interesting. Taking that thought a bit further if you look at the top of the house the siding switches to a decorative wavy design (my neighbors in New Jersey have some mermaid style bits at the top of their house I love) and the closed shutters create something more interest for the eye too. Finally a careful look also reveals that the top of each of the porch columns has a decorative design.

The front door is an old fashioned (to us) double door – two glass paneled doors which I guess you could slip into half or open fully. Light is hitting the door and the window to the (our) left of it and shining brightly. The lawn around the women is grassy but littered with some leaves and those are what our eye really sees. There is a blurb of light and chemicals perhaps at the bottom of the phot which in no way takes away from it. (It is also where the photo starts to go out of focus as the lens of the day may have.) The photo is slightly underdeveloped in the printing and there is something else about the chemicals which has left tiny dots on the surface in places.

Finally, the two women are seated facing each other, one in a wooden rocking chair and the other in what appears to be a straight back chair – I assume these were likely taken from where they resided the porch; a careful look shows these chairs have twisty wicker backs. The woman on (our) right is somewhat younger and they wear their hair gathered in the same top knot. Their dark skirts and white blouses are also virtually identical. The older woman has a small purse in her lap.

Pam’s Pictorama.com Collection.

Moving to the other photo, we’re on the steps of the house. We’re closer to the front of the house and are on the stairs. The woman in the middle is the same older woman from the other picture but now she has these two different women in white on either side of her and, although it took a bit for me to see him, a man seated in a chair behind them – sort of there and not there at the same time.

The plants that I took for ivy at a distance actually appear to be enormous geraniums – or maybe geraniums and ivy or another trailing vine in these planters. (I too have geraniums – much smaller – on either side of my door in New Jersey.) The steps are old and sort of just this side of in need of repair. The striped awning in both photos is a bit askew upwards. The second photo is evidence that it rolled up unevenly rather than maybe blowing in a breeze.

The people in this photo are very centered although the railings to the house are a bit off the middle. The woman on the right seems to be a bit older. She holds a metal bucket with a top. I don’t know why but I think of it as the sort of thing you would have gathered berries in. The other woman, younger than both of the others by at least a little, is holding something I cannot identify – it is long and perhaps is metal. She holds it in one hand and something else in the other. If I make a wild guess I would say it is chimes of some sort?

The woman in the middle is the woman from the first photo. A very careful look reveals that she now has a man’s flat cap rakishly placed on her head. Her feet which we now see are in the leather boot-shoes of the day. Behind them is the man I mentioned, older, beard and mustache, seated. He wears a deep hat which sits to the side on his head. Close inspection shows this to be a sort of fun set up although no one is cracking a smile here.

These photos are faded and I imagine they spent time up or out somewhere over a long period of time. The gray cardboard they are glued onto has faded as well. There are no notes on the back about who this family is or when they were taken. When that happens I always imagine that the people were so central to the lives of those who had the photos that they couldn’t imagine not knowing who they are.

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Happy holiday weekend to you all! Next week, on Thursday, Kim and I depart for four days in Bethesda. He has a bunch of book signings and the SPX con, but also he will give a talk at the Library of Congress on Friday afternoon. (Let me know if you are in the area and would like information!) I hope to still log in for some sort of blog post but we’ll see what I can manage!

Tinned

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A relatively small portion of my collection is devoted to tintypes, and out of those most are ancient pictures from fairs or seaside resorts of people posing with Felix the Cat or occasionally an off-model Mickey Mouse. I don’t seem to be compelled very often to acquire one like this, that just had an odd appeal and I snatched it up.

This picture comes via Instagram and my friend Mike Zohn over at @obscuraantiques. He has taken to doing a show-and-tell of recent buys for sale online. This has resulted in several purchases for me, most recently this advertising piece shown below which I purchased for Kim’s birthday. The post for it can be found here. (I actually spied the same piece in the antique annex in Red Bank a few weeks ago although in worse shape.)

Deitch Studio Collection.

I have written before about a rather beloved junk and antiques store Mike had on the lower eastside where I bought many photos, a display cabinet and many other treats. (A few of those posts can be found here and here.) Mike has been selling at a flea market in the city here over the summer but sadly we were in Jersey and missed him. I hope to eventually catch up with him here.

He was selling several tintypes and had divided them into a group with men and a group with women. This one caught my eye immediately. Hard to tell here but it is small, what would have been called a sixth-plate or about 2.5″x3.5″ image.

These two women are seated in front of a painted set of a landscape and as if they are seated outside in a fancy garden or on a veranda of sorts. I feel like we see the edges of the set, definitely at the bottom and perhaps at the top, which confirms that this is just a fictional background, perhaps even an indoor one.

Of course, it is the way they are decidedly turned away from each other, seeming to refuse to look at each other. As Kim said, you could easily write a story about it. Both are in summer dresses of the day and period. One is in white with a dark belt, with a dark parasol (a prop or hers?) leaning against her leg. She is looking downward. Her dark hat is hard to see clearly, and she leans on her arm with her other hand folded in her lap while she looks directly at the camera.

The other woman is in a wonderful summer-plaid dress with a white bib, also a dark belt and a very perky straw hat which sports something I thought was a feather but now I think is more of a flower or leaf. She is leaning on something which I thought might be the end of the bench they are sitting on, but I have decided it is something more in her lap. Both are wearing pretty bracelets which are hard to see without magnification. It isn’t a given but they could be sisters.

It is the space between them, the dark plant and the faux balustrade it is perched on that define the dark space divide created between them. Trees and clouds are in the painted distance which gives the image a sense of depth. At first I thought they were pointedly alienated from each other but spending time looking at it I think they are perhaps bored and not happy with being there and have placed themselves thus and are just sort of staring off rather than smiling for the camera. Nonetheless, the effect is as if they are somehow two halves of a whole, split down the middle.

Blasberg’s Grove, Hawthorne, NJ 1930

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I’m up and at it a bit late this morning – very welcome vacation days! Evidently I slept through a heavy and long rainstorm. I am writing this before I venture out to check for any damage to the more delicate flowers and plants in the garden – although in general they are grateful for all the water.

One of my New Jersey passions, developed in recent years, is collecting yard long and banquet style photos. I have mostly purchased New Jersey related ones (see posts from past summers here and here) and ones from seaside amusement piers (these in California here), although if I am being honest, I have another one to frame up of postal workers so there is some drift.

Currently for sale on eBay.

Today’s is a very real New Jersey theme, and full disclosure that my friend Larry Watson (www.larzfoto.com) did the initial research online. I sent the images to him as I know he shares my interest in these old photos and indeed he has some of his own that are family related.

From the damaged end.

Sadly, this photo is quite damaged and as I write it is pressed under some books upstairs to flatten it out. It isn’t so much the folds but the odd damage on the end, darkening part of it that is most troublesome. I bought it for $16 so I need to decide if I am investing (a not insignificant amount) in framing it or if I will tuck it safely in the flat files here for now. Still, I couldn’t not buy it and save it from the threat of demise. At least here it will at least be stored for future appreciation.

For all of that there are parts of this image I just love – the movement of some of the subjects, the sun shining. These men and boys are dressed up for this day in the country, likely imports from nearby New York City. As you will see, there is a lot of history attached to this photo. You all can weigh in on the frame or not to frame debate below.

My best attempt to show all of it.

Located in Hawthorne, New Jersey, I gather Blasberg’s Grove (or Blasberg’s Farm) was a popular locale for all sorts of outings – family reunions, weddings and community events. They entertained groups of hundreds of people at a time. Founded in 1910 it functioned this way for decades (not clear if it was also or previously an operating farm of some kind) until ultimately it was sold and subdivided into housing which bears the (somewhat ignominious) name of Blasbergs Farm Subdivision. Further poking does seem to point to fruit farming associated with the area in subsequent decades but not a lot of information there.

Clearly this is a sizable gathering. It is noted that it is the annual gathering of the Frank Vezzatti Assn. Light research shows that it was likely one of many political organizations – mysteriously called pleasure clubs in some of the research, which makes me think of something else frankly. There aren’t a lot of tracks about Frank Vezzatti except to say it was likely an Italian American political group of some kind in New York or urban New Jersey. Evidently loyalty of voters (notably men here although women had the vote – some younger boys got to go too) was perhaps ensured with food laden days in the country like this.

Worth noting that attire here is largely suits, ties and of course hats. Not really what we think of as clothes for a day in the country admittedly. Nonetheless, it is a documenting a glorious day! The sun shines through the trees and the light reflects and dapples on the ground.

The men, largely wearing (straw) hats, almost all in collared shirts and ties, frequently sporting jackets, all look at their leisure, many smoking cigarettes or cigars. One of the fellows front and center is blurred – that spot usually reserved for an honoree or important person so sort of odd that he is blurred, almost giving the photo a strange sense of movement.

Apologies for the late posting time today. Vacation intervened and an opportunity to take Kim to Asbury for the afternoon appeared and I left this unfinished. More about our adventures in Asbury next week!

Musical Togs

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This just showed up in the mail recently, in the last batch I picked up from New York I think. It comes to me via Heather Hagans on Instagram (@marsh.and.meadow.home). Over time I have purchased many bits and pieces from her. (Some other posts of items from her accounts can be found here and here. Although these are both jewelry posts.) Arguably it is an unusual photo for my collection, but it caught my eye.

You can probably tell from the shape that this is an actual photo and not a photo postcard. There is nothing written on the back and no real sense of the year.

This young girl is in a great costume although for what we know not. Somehow it feels more theatrical than Halloween. She’s wears shiny silk black heeled shoes, one white stockinged leg up and the other with a bit of some sort of petticoat or pantaloon showing on one side – a very careful look shows a bit of musical notation there too. However, it is the trim of her white skirt with lines of music along the bottom that really sets the tone for this outfit.

Her black top has cut out shoulders and exposed arms, making it a bit racy really. She sports a patterned scarf around her neck and, best of all, a crown with a large G clef in the center. She holds a white fan and she’s pretty hotsy totsy. I don’t know why but I imagine she went and performed after this – she has the right attitude to be a performer I think, but what instrument did she play I wonder?

The room she is in doesn’t appear to have anything to do with performing – fireplace mantel with a vase or urn, another side cabinet with a vase behind here. There are what appear to be sheer curtains on the windows and a very faded carpet on the floor. There is also what we’d think of as an old-fashioned radiator on her other side.

So just a snippet of a post today. I have a few other Jersey treats in the works – we brought several paintings to live down here and I will be sharing those too I think.

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Dahlias, cosmos and zinnias. They are enjoying the rainy weather even if I am not so much.
Hard to see with the green on green but we have a great many peppers on this one to enjoy!

It is a rainy day here in New Jersey, but I have snapped a few pictures of the flowers – which have enjoyed all this rain – and my bumper crop of jalapeno peppers. Hot peppers seem to be my best crop this year so far.