Thursday, March 9, 2017

Arthur Szyk

As a kid, I always saw these Polish circus posters
in doctors' offices.
I would stare at the text, not understanding
that Polish word with certainty.
I thought the word for "circus" was the 
name of the poster artist, not realizing there
were various artists.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Arthur_Szyk_%281894-1951%29._Andersen%27s_Fairy_Tales%2C_inside_cover_illustration_%281944%29%2C_New_York.jpg
By Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) - The Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA 94070 www.szyk.org
CC BY-SA 4.0,

The grandeur of this print was emphasized with gilded accents!

When I was nine, I discovered the work of Arthur Szyk via an edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales. I pored over these images and tried to understand how someone could accomplish such feats. How could I focus love to come out of MY hands and onto paper?
I couldn't remember Arthur Szyk's last name because it was not a word or arrangement of letters that I was used to understanding.
Tonight, after years of intermittent attempts to rediscover him (and accidentally searching for variations on the words "Cyrk" or "Czyk") I succeeded after searching for illustrated Andersen editions on abebooks! And I learned that Szyk was an activist!



Do Not Forgive Them, O Lord, For They Do Know What They Do (1949)

He made A LOT of anti- Nazi images, but I can't bring myself to post anything with a swastika on this blog (but here are some klan monsters?!) I'm so thankful to find these images, and so disheartened to find how timely they are. 


Thursday, March 2, 2017


More pom pom earrings: handmade pom poms using yarns 
from Peru, Japan, and the US; lampworked glass, lasercut 
merino wool, and steel. These have gone to live in Barcelona.