Thursday, September 3, 2009

Quilts, Ford Times, and Thursday

We just finished digitizing all the Ford Times articles and images in which Charley was involved with. Keep an eye out here on the blog for digital reprints of those to peruse from time to time. Truly a treausury of great Americana. Articles about ramp eating, singing festival, birds, and much more.

The preview show of the lost Charley Harper Ford Times original pieces closed in August at Fabulous Frames & Art, in Montgomery, OH. Check out a slide show of all the work displayed here. Harpertrove on Squidoo has a really great write-up about the featured works and reactions by the family and studio. Give it a read and leave a comment!

The studio would like to thank Ms. Sharon Phelps for stopping by and showing us her original quilted rendition of "Twoowls". We've had a good number of people ask if quilt patterns of Charley's works are available. The answer to that is the Charley Harper estate does not have licensed quilt patterns available. We encourage you to make your own and share them with each other and us! Send us pictures of your Charley Harper creations! Ms. Phelps says that she would gladly share her own pattern with anyone that is interested. please contact the studio and we will put you in touch with her.

As we encourage you to create your own quilt patterns, Charley Harper cross stitch patterns are available from Pat Rogers' Counted Collection. Charley Harper needlepoint patterns are available from Treglown Designs. Please purchase from these retailers or create your own. There are bootleg versions out there. Even if they are of decent quality, none of the sales of such go to the support of the Charley Harper family and estate.

Now some quick trivia!! Did you know that it was the Ford Times' Art Director, Arthur Lougee, that got Charley to start painting birds?

In an effort to share some behind the scenes of the Charley Harper Art Studio, let's take a moment out of each blog to list a title from the vast reference library here. Today's title is Water, Prey, and Game Birds of North America. This is a National Geographic Society book by Alexander Wetmore loaded with many full color photos and drawings. If you saw the copy here, you would realize what a valuable resource this was and how much it used!

2 comments:

  1. What an absolutely amazing collection of work those lost pieces represent. It's funny, I had no idea how much collage work was actually done on these pieces... I thought it was all a magical ability with gouache (some of it clearly is). Thanks for sharing! I sincerely hope the exhibit travels to the pacific NW (Seattle, Portland or Vancouver B.C.), I wouldn't miss it.

    BTW, I recently did an homage to Charley painting for an art show. Not exactly as he would've done it, but trying to capture a similar feeling, perhaps. I'd be happy if you took a peek: http://pumml.blogspot.com/2009/08/quail-run.html. Hopefully it's not too presumptuous... it's merely my humble tribute to one of my all time favorite artists.

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  2. Thanks, Drake! We hope to see you in the Pacific NW, too!! Check us out on Twitter for more up to date happenings!

    http://twitter.com/CharleyHarper

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