RMW Ramblings

  Wisteria Gate A Found Frame Painting This little frame is an example of the Aesthetic Movement decorative arts in the late 19th century.  It was a thrift store find that I put away with my other interesting found frames awaiting a painting that I felt fitted the frame.  In the early months of the Covid isolation I did this painting, Wisteria Gate .  The view is the gateway into our small courtyard, wrapped by our house, garage and two stone walls.  I built the rustic brick pillars and pergola decades back. The frame presumably was intended for a photograph.  It has a gold-tone arched mat with burgundy  velvet-textured trim.  The gold geometric patterned decoration on the black painted wood is typical of the Aesthetic Movement.  My little painting is acrylic on art-board.

  Another Philadelphia View Water Works This little postcard-sized painting, Waterworks (acrylic on canvasboard), shows the old Fairmount Water Works along the Schuykill River in Philadelphia.  It was built in 1812-15 and operated until 1909. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairmount_Water_Works)  On the hill, Fair Mount, stands the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1928), referencing the classical revival architecture of the Water Works. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Museum_of_Art)

  Frenzy Frenzy , looking up Broad St in Philadelphia, utilizes several of my stylistic favorites.   A black ground, near-white rendering, and a dome.   I started with a view up Broad Street in Philadelphia with two iconic buildings, City Hall at the center, and the domed Girard Trust Building which is now the lobby of a hotel. It was designed by Frank Furness, one of my favorite architects. He designed the (Joseph R. Biden, Jr.) Wilmington Amtrak Station, the now demolished Wilmington B&O station, Recitation Hall at the University of Delaware - wrecked by major renovation - and several other local buildings.   Once underway with the painting I realized I needed something to move it beyond a boring static image.   I introduced the foreground soaring, scavenging gulls to embody the frenzy of a big city at evening rush hour.   The date and initialed signature is in a dot matrix format, symbolizing the frenzy of a countdown display, as when James Bond di...

  A Movie and a Coke Another View of the Warner Theater While this watercolor painting was done to feature the Kozy Korner Restaurant c1956, then located at Delaware Ave. and Washington St., but you can see the Warner Theater in the background.  In this painting the Warner is showing High Society with Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra, one of my old favorites.   The painting was one of three larger watercolors that I did as a commission for Nick Vouras the owner of the Kozy Korner, then on Union St.  He wanted three paintings of my pick of local scenes.  The Kozy Korner and Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox  were obvious choices for two of them.  In a personal touch, I snuck my 1948 Studebaker into the Atlantic service station, now the site of the Brandywine Building, and much earlier, the site of the James Garfield statue now on Concord Ave.

  In the Cool and the Dark Wilmington's Old Warner Theater     The Warner Theater on W 10th St. in Wilmington is long gone, but I remembered it in this painting in acrylic on hardboard, set in circa 1955‑6 .  The building had an odd L-shaped layout, wrapping around the adjacent buildings on the west side of the theater entrance.

  Bugs and Such A Birthday Book   Today is our great-grandaughter Alaina's fifth birthday.  For her first birthday I wrote, illustrated, and printed a little book for her, Bugs and Such.   The book comprises little verses about little creeping, crawling, and flying critters.  I printed one copy for Alaina on Tyvek, which resists tearing, and one copy on paper for myself, a very limited edition.   Here's a sample of the contents...   You can see the whole book as a pdf at https://docdro.id/aG7nDwH where it will be temporarily available.  If you view it in Adobe Acrobat reader use Scrolling Two Page View with Show Cover Page in Two Page View to get the appropriate facing pages. For Alaina's second birthday I did another book, but that's a different story.  

  The Big Bands at Sunnybrook Ballroom I ran across this poster at an antique mall and it brought back memories. The 1950s were the waning years of the big band era, but Sunnybrook Ballroom in Pottstown, PA gave me and some of my friends the opportunity to hear, and dance to, the live music of Stan Kenton, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Les Elgart, and others, including a new name at that time, Maynard Furgeson.  There were many trips up US 202 and PA 100 on Saturday evenings in my 1948 Studebaker Land Cruiser sedan, and sleepy drives back.  Sunnybrook was alcohol free and welcomed teens. I welcomed at least one New Year in at Sunnybrook. A few times I had a chance to chat briefly with some of these major bandleaders, including Louis Armstrong. In 2007 Arcadia Publishing published a picture history of Sunnybrook by Thomas Sephakis, The Sunnybrook Ballroom. The Kenton poster above does not have a year, but October 3 fell on a Saturday in 1959.  I think I was there.