Bookshelving Marathon - Part 3 The Saga continues

 

I am continuing this exercise in bookshelfery in part because it is (for me)  an interesting examination of how my mind works and the type of associations that have created my metal map. This shelf contains mostly art books. The central portion is devoted three artists, Shaun Tan, an Australian artist who has produced a number of children's books. They deal with childhood, colonization, immigration and the environment and are well worth seeking out. 

https://www.shauntan.net

It also houses Nick Bantock's work. Bantock, a British artist, living in Canada, is best known for The Griffin and Sabine Saga. 

  

There are some current art books and some Tiki figures on the left. Helen and I are redoing part of our basement as a mid-mod game room/library so they might end up there in the future. I also have a Players cigarette tin I picked up at a yard sale because I remember my father smoking them briefly when I was a child. He wore a similar outfit when he was in the RCN. The big books on the right include illustrated copies of The Voyage of the Beagle and The Origin of the Species by Darwin. There are also two shelves in the basement about Darwin, his contemporaries and evolutionary theory in general. I started reading the Origin in high school, and it has stuck with me. The second real vacation we took was to the Galapagos. As previously mentioned, Helen is a wonderful woman. 

Lastly I have works devoted to the Canadian Artist Ivan Eyre. I saw his show Ivan Eyre: Personal mythologies/images of the milieu: figurative paintings, 1957-1988, while working at the U of C for the summer. I went  to the show every week it was there, I believe it as free on Tuesday. Later I worked in the Esso library which had his mammoth painting Floodwood hanging on the wall. I moved to Gulf Resources and had a print of his painting Red Hill, which appears on the cover of the Woodcock book, in my office. I have also been lucky enough to obtain some of his smaller works for my study. I will not include photos, artist hate that. And ditto on my previous remarks about Helen. So it seemed his work followed me, and his imagery has stuck with me since then. One repeated image he uses are figures, often horn blowers silhouetted along the edges of tall buildings. Helen and I are often reminded of these figures as we move about in the city. 

 

 

   http://www.artnet.com/artists/ivan-kenneth-eyre/floodwood-usq4x1azha9nu4sJk5B1Qw2

There is also a bison paperweight I picked up on a trip we took to Drumheller this week to have lunch with friend. Bison have a particular resonance with me. When I was in archaeology, I often worked with faunal remains from fur trade posts or buffalo jumps. I also assisted the faunal curator in dismembering seven bison for comparative collections. (All were accidental deaths within Elk Island Park.)

I had hoped to finish but stuff happens, the NHL Draft, some very circumspect social events, insomnia, the front retaining wall, (now finished,yeah) i.e. life. So the last shelf will have to wait. 

The new bookshelf or my life remembered in objects (Part Two)

Some time ago, the "Big Bricks," as Bud Webster used to refer to the large hardcover science fiction anthologies, found their way across the hall and into the bedroom, hence the need for the new shelf. (For Bud's columns) see the Handy Resources on this blog. They remain here on shelf three along with a few H.P.L. titles however the bulk of this material remains in my study. 

  

One item I did bring over was The Viking Portable Library Novels of Science, which contains Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time". I think this is one of Lovecraft's best stories and one that is clearly science fiction. It is perhaps indicative of a path Lovecraft might have fruitfully continued had various issues on conspired to derail his writing career. It is also one of his first appearances in hardcover. "In 1945 Wollheim edited the first hardcover anthology from a major publisher and the first omnibus, The Viking Portable Novels of Science." 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_A._Wollheim 

I am quite interested in Wollheim's relationship with the mythos and intend to pursue it further.

On the right side of we see three items that have some significance for me. My mother-in-law, a successful artist, painted the tile. The wren was carved by Art, an older gentleman who took painting lessons from her. Years later, he took up carving, and we often encounter him at summer craft shows. I am impressed with his birds and has happy to buy this example. The tower with the two balls carved inside so they can move without falling out came from the home of my Great Uncle Lorne. I believe his wife Nellie's family was in the lumber business, so it might have come through them. I never knew Nellie. When she died, Lorne boarded off the upper floor of the big brick farmhouse they lived in. When I knew him, there were two almost impassible and fascinating downstairs rooms full of knick-knacks and furniture, including an upright piano and an organ you pumped with your feet. Lorne lived in the kitchen, sleeping if I remember correctly, on a couch. When he died, and we went upstairs, it seemed he had simply gone downstairs one day, leaving anything he did not want in place. 

He was kind to me; when we went to visit, he had saved the toys that came in the cereal boxes on the window sill for me. I remember blue plastic Inuit or arctic explorers. I wish I had them today. It has been some 50 plus years, so my memory may not be that accurate, but that is the gist of it. 

I think I will cover the last two shelves tomorrow. I am enjoying the exercise and I am in no hurry. I just realized it is Oct and I have to dig out A Night in the Lonesome October by Zelazny, I am already behind.

Let's end with a Pika from a recent trip to the mountains.