Happy Home Stretch !

                                            We’ll be Zooming you in 2021

copyright 2020 R.L.Rippee

Larry’s Cartoon Vault: Merry Virtual Christmas

 

    Christmas cheer provided by the great cartoonist Frank King circa WW1

A Friendly Holiday Reminder from Nancy

 

                A moment from Ernie Bushmiller’s classic comic strip, Nancy

                  Another glimpse of days gone by in the Nancy universe

I borrowed these clips from Tom Heintjes of Hogan’s Alley

https://twitter.com/Hoganmag    

Happy Turkey Day

“In Place” Group Art Show

“Toast” by Judith Selby  Lang

For most of my almost twenty year run with the San Geronimo Valley Community Center I have functioned as the Visual Art coordinator, organizing monthly shows in the two gallery spaces of the Center and availing myself of the remarkably large and deep pool of local Valley artists.

Of course, that all changed with the pandemic and we slowly shifted to the virtual realm with online exhibits and Zoom panel talks and presentations.

 

Through October and November, we hosted an online group art show titled ‘In Place’, guest curated by Anne Faught.  The show’s focus was to emphasize the creative possibilities that could emerge from the isolation and necessary acts of resilience during this pandemic.

 

I'm not going to try to recreate that show on this blog but I will provide a peek at what we were up to. So here are just a few of the highlights. (You can probably still find the show on the Center’s website:  https://www.sgvcc.org/in-place/  or Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/sangeronimovalleycommunitycenter/  or Instagram https://www.sgvcc.org/in-place/

 

                                                        And more “Toast”

“Our Melting Capital” by James Finnegan

                                                 “Future Past” by James Finnegan

                                        “Hopeful Patience” by Anne Pennypacker

                                         “Our Burning Swamp” by Anne Pennypacker

                        “A Balanced Heart” by Richard Lang

                      “Cake in the Time of Corona” by Susan Doyle

                                       “Sun Burst” by Elan Kamesar

                            “Spring Cloud” by Wendy Goldberg

“Blue Bulletin” by Tom Tabakin

                                 “Floating Trio” by Kay Carlson

                          “Walking the Back Nine” by Janice Baldwin

                                  “Corona Chaos” by Barbara McLain

“Selfie with Mask 1” by Barbara Morris

                                            “Selfie with Mask 2” by Barbara Morris

 

“Arthur with Flourishes by Zoltron”by Judy North

“Bruno” by John Torrey

                                                  “Al Hidd, Bahrain” by John Torrey

By the way, donations can be made to the San Geronimo Valley Community Center to support all the good deeds the Center does (and not just art) here:  https://sgvcc.z2systems.com/np/clients/sgvcc/donation.jsp

All art copyright respective artists

Trina Robbins is Looking for Her Stolen Artwork

 

Ron Cobb: September 21,1937--September 21, 2020

During the recent succession of distractions from fire threats, power outages, sheltering (from both virus and fire pollution) and general political, social economic and environmental chaos much potential posting has passed us by.

 

One passing I would like to acknowledge is the death of one of the great cartoonists, illustrators and designers, Ron Cobb.

 

Many obituaries and commentaries focused on his Hollywood film design work (and for good reason).

Stars Wars concept art

                                                                 (from RBCC#148)

 

Alien (1978)

Dark Star (1974)

Concept art for The Rocketeer

Cobb also worked on Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Back to the Future (1985), Aliens (1986), Total Recall (1990), True Lies (1990), The 6th Day (2000) and the TV series Firefly among many other projects.

 

But my favorite work is the political cartoons that he drew in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s for the L.A. Free press and distributed to numerous underground newspapers of the day.

 

Take note: These cartoons were drawn decades ago.  Yet they seem to be responses to current events --which may not say so much for our progress as a society but a lot for Cobb’s prescience.

Ron Cobb also offered this Ecology logo to the public domain in 1969.

You can discover more on the remarkable Ron Cobb by digging up his old cartoon collections (good luck) :

and checking out the official Ron Cobb website: http://roncobb.net/index.html

Works copyright of Ron Cobb or respective holders

Another Covidtoon: The Outbursts of Everett True

"For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise" the Bible says...but not if you’re Everett True, the cartoon creation of the great (but often neglected) A. D. Condo. 

Condo drew the Outbursts of Everett True in the early half of the last century (1905-1927). In each cartoon True would blast someone who annoyed him (and lots of things annoyed True). In this example, during the pandemic of 1918, True takes on an anti-Masker.

The remarkable Condo also created a cartoon panel, Mr. Skygack from Mars, about a Martian visitor who came to Earth to observe and record human behavior. That was a feature that he created in 1907 (!) and still worth checking out.

Larry and Molly’s 2020 Box

The annual Box Show is the major fundraiser for Gallery Route One in Pt. Reyes Station in west Marin county. 

 

The way it works is: Each artist is given an unadorned pine box (dimensions vary each year). You can pretty much do anything to it as long as elements of the original the box remains in the piece.

 

This year, of course, the show is largely virtual but the show goes on.

 

Here’s what we did.

It’s titled “After Covid”  (Inspired by Pieter Bruegel’s “The Wedding Dance”)

We transferred the drawing to balsa wood and cut it out.

Here’s the reverse side

We created another layer: Trees as background to the dancers.

Then we glued all the components together on to the painted box (we used the ‘back’ side the box).

Molly on delivery day at Gallery Route One. 

The show runs from July 31st to September 12th. 

Check it out:

https://galleryrouteone.org/2020/03/box-show-2020/