Thursday, September 12, 2013

Antique Store.....by default!




As a follow up to the previous posting I present another model I made around the same period (when I was 15 or so).  This one was made, by default, into an antique store.  By default meaning it was one way I could think to put a lot of unconnected pieces I had built or acquired into one model.

I recall that the box was an old milk crate (when they were still made from wood) that came from my grandparents' cellar in the country.  Other details I can recall are that I made the ship on the back wall using a toothpick for mast, that the famous Emanuel Leutze painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware, is a postage stamp (this was around the time of the Bicentennial) and that the parasol hanging from the ceiling came from a cocktail, probably a pina colada or something like that. The sword on the back wall is from a GI Joe doll set and the racing car on the back shelf  - can anybody recognize it - is a Monopoly piece!   There were also a few personal touches including a pillow made by my favorite aunt (with the Christmas tree) and there is a picture of my grandmother (the one who had the cellar with the crate) on the lower right part of the model (obscured) in the ornate oval frame.   As with the general store in the previous post, there is a certain charm in seeing this model in black and white.


Tuesday, September 10, 2013

General Store in Black and White.....Buy Something. If you can reach it!





Here are some photos of a project I did when I was around 15 years old.   I built the box from plywood and used a Christmas tree bulb for lighting.  Some of it's crude (like the shovels - one hanging from the ceiling and one on the right side of the model -  made from aluminum (or tin) and balsa wood) but there is a certain charm in that.  I like the the composition which seems to be well balanced.   Don't ask me how someone would make a phone call from the phone on the very top of the right wall, or why the monopoly board is placed at a similar height on the back wall (along side of the unreachable spices). The sad irony is that there is a ladder which could be used to reach these items, but it is also way up on the back wall, and one would need another ladder to reach it!  But still, I think it's a pretty good model.  I'm glad to have found these photographs which my brother and I printed in our home darkroom.