Monthly Archives: February 2024

“Casablanca Airport Scence: Take Two” by Carson Grubaugh

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“Casablanca Airport Scence: Take Two”
by Carson Grubaugh (1981- )
6.75 x 11.5 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

At the Patreon site organized by Sean Michael Robinson and Carson Grubaugh, which accompanies their collaboration on “Living the Line,” they offered a premium, based on Carson’s Google Grab-Bag schtick, that ran through the end of 2022.

He offered an original straight-to-ink sketch. Here is how that works. You are asked to provide a word or phrase (and obviously you can game this a bit). Carson then searches this word or phrase using Google Images. The first photographic image listed by Google Images will be the source material for the straight-to-ink sketch (when your suggestion was the top vote-getter).

Carson has got a great eye. In fact, it freaks me out. He can use a brush (or pen) on paper with NO underlying outline, lay down lines or brushstrokes all over the page, and in about 20-30 minutes he produces a sketch. And all without the training wheels! He records it live. There are videos of this on YouTube (and at the Patreon site).

The Patreon Site:
https://www.patreon.com/livingtheline/posts

The Home Site:
https://www.livingthelinebooks.com

“Casablanca Airport Scene: Take One” by Carson Grubaugh

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“Casablanca Airport Scene: Take One”
by Carson Grubaugh (1981- )
6.75 x 11.5 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

At the Patreon site organized by Sean Michael Robinson and Carson Grubaugh, which accompanies their collaboration on “Living the Line,” they offered a premium, based on Carson’s Google Grab-Bag schtick, that ran through the end of 2022.

He offered an original straight-to-ink sketch. Here is how that works. You are asked to provide a word or phrase (and obviously you can game this a bit). Carson then searches this word or phrase using Google Images. The first photographic image listed by Google Images will be the source material for the straight-to-ink sketch (when your suggestion was the top vote-getter).

Carson has got a great eye. In fact, it freaks me out. He can use a brush (or pen) on paper with NO underlying outline, lay down lines or brushstrokes all over the page, and in about 20-30 minutes he produces a sketch. And all without the training wheels! He records it live. There are videos of this on YouTube (and at the Patreon site).

The Patreon Site:
https://www.patreon.com/livingtheline/posts

The Home Site:
https://www.livingthelinebooks.com

“Research is a Nuisance” (Non Sequitur, March 12, 2023)

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“Research is a Nuisance” (Non Sequitur, March 12, 2023)
by Wiley Miller (1951-)
16.66 x 6.33 in., ink on heavy paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiley_Miller

In 1991, Wiley launched his popular Non Sequitur strip, eventually syndicated to 700 newspapers as well as published on Go Comics and distributed via email. The strip oscillates between one-panel commentary and stories with recurring characters. In either event, the strips have a history of politically leaning and sharp commentary. I really wanted Danae’s commentary in the last panel, not only because it was so representative of the anti-intellectualistic, post-truth world (“Research is a stupid nuisance that takes the fun out of stuff you think is probably right.”)

I asked Wiley to inscribe the strip with one of my all-time favorite quotes about science. From 1834, the letters from Liebig to Berzelius, that I stumbled upon by accident and understood just enough German to recognize as interesting:

Die schönsten Theorien werden durch die verdammten Versuche über den Haufen geworfen, es ist gar keine Freude mehr Chemiker zu sein.

… which, roughly, translates as “The most beautiful theories are thrown onto the heap by these damned experiments, it is no fun at all to be a chemist any more.”

“DIY News” (Non Sequitur, February 13, 2023)

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“DIY News” (Non Sequitur, February 13, 2023)
by Wiley Miller (1951-)
8.5 x 14 in., ink on heavy paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiley_Miller

In 1991, Wiley launched his popular Non Sequitur strip, eventually syndicated to 700 newspapers as well as published on Go Comics and distributed via email. The strip oscillates between one-panel commentary and stories with recurring characters. In either event, the strips have a history of politically leaning and sharp commentary. I was strongly taken by the comment here and I am pleased to have this art to display. Completely democratizing the world through self-publication on the Internet flattened the world (sic, Thomas Friedman), much like the step of the elephant flattens the mouse.

The note from Wiley: “All the News that’s Fit to Print”

A reminder – Wiley composes these to be able to be cropped as a horizontal or vertical format (see additional images).

Carla – ill fated girlfriend of Benito Mussolini (2023)

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Carla – ill fated girlfriend of Benito Mussolini (2023)
by Richard Britell (1944 – )
7.5 x 5.75 in., oil on linen
Coppola Collection

Richard Britell, a career painter, studied at Pratt Institute with Philip Pearlstein and Walter Erlebacher. I have a few of his pieces, which are all great. He is represented by Lauren Clark (Great Barrington, MA, nestled in the Berkshires).

Clara “Claretta” Petacci had a long-standing relationship with Mussolini while he was married to Rachele Mussolini.  Petacci was 28 years younger than Mussolini.

On 27 April 1945, Mussolini and Petacci were captured by partisans while traveling with a Luftwaffe convoy retreating to Germany. The German column included a number of Italian Social Republic members.

On 28 April, she and Mussolini were taken to Mezzegra and executed. One source alleges Petacci’s execution was not planned and that she died throwing herself on Mussolini in a vain attempt to protect him from the bullets. On the following day, the bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Piazzale Loreto in Milan and hung upside down in front of an Esso petrol station. The bodies were photographed as a crowd vented their rage upon them.

The Abolition of Man by Carson Grubaugh (2023)

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The Abolition of Man by Carson Grubaugh (2023)
by Carson Grubaugh (1981- )
11 x 14 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

When he needed art for the bookplate that went into the deluxe hardcover edition of “The Abolition of Man” (with its AI-generated images), Carson ended up taking an old school solution – ink on paper. It’s a super-clean and compelling piece.

1957.02.05 “Why Johnny Can’t Read…” (February 5, 1957)

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1957.02.05 “Why Johnny Can’t Read…” (February 5, 1957)
by John (Jack) Gill Knox, Jr. (1910-1985)
11 x 15 in, grease pen on textured paper
Coppola Collection

After completing a cartoon correspondence course in the early 1930s, Knox joined the staff of the Nashville Evening Tennessean in 1933. In 1934 he succeeded J.P. Alley as cartoonist at the Memphis Commercial Appeal, where he worked for the next 11 years. Because of an alcohol problem, Knox worked as a cowboy in Texas in 1945-1946, and he became active in Alcoholics Anonymous. He became editorial cartoonist for the Nashville Banner on April 1, 1946 and worked there until his retirement in 1975.

Knox was a conservative, and it shows here.

“Why Johnny Can’t Read—And What You Can Do About It” was a 1955 book-length exposé on American reading education by Rudolf Flesch. It was an immediate bestseller, stayed on the charts for almost a year, and became an educational cause célèbre. In fact, the “reading wars” (by word recognition versus phonics) never ended, and it is still one of those false dichotomies that educationalists love to bicker about.

The Knox commentary is not about reading, it is a wholesale attack on education (Johnny cannot read, do math, understand science, etc.), and the cause is progressivism (stop me if any of this sounds familiar, will you?).

New Patterns of Thinking are a cause.
New “Objectives” (quote/unquote) are the cause.
And “equalization” is a cause.

Let me tell you about equalization.

As school segregation was written into the Constitution of many states, and as the movement towards integration was growing, there had been decades of toothless rhetoric about the “separate but equal” doctrine. Starting after WW2 and going into the 1970s, many southern states pursued “Equalization Programs” as a last-ditch effort to maintain school segregation. Schools (facilities and programs), teacher pay, and so on, would be equalized across the state. Many proponents of integration supported the idea, figuring that the cost of these improvements would be so prohibitory that integration would be seen as a logical option.

No comment.

The world I was born into – February 5, 1957.