Pattern and design

Reading 'All Things Considered'yesterday yielded a video interview with artist Mark Hearld. His work has been seen in a lot of places in the last few years and it is fascinating to hear him talk about his inspirations and influences. Do follow the link to see what I mean. He talks about the work of John Piper, Eric Ravilious, Edward Bawden and Enid Marx, liking them when they were not as 'fashionable' as they are again today. As his work is shown there is reference to 'Black Eyes and Lemonade' the British popular culture exhibition organised by Barbara Jones for the Festival of Britain in 1951.The above illustration is the cover to 'A Snapper of Unconsidered Trifles', a book by Ruth Artmonsky about her. I bought this last year and devoured it virtually in one sitting. She was an intriguing character who could turn her hand to many things and she was a magpie, collecting all sorts of folk art and ephemera. As the book says: 'She championed the 'unsophisticated arts', the simple art and artefacts of seaside memorabilia, canal boats, tattoo parlours, public houses and the like'. She wrote a number of books on her enthusiasms for the eccentric, all of them out of print and costing a small fortune if you can find them these days. I speak with authority after paying that small fortune for this lovely King Penguin that she produced on the Isle of Wight. I found it in Hay on Wye recently and had to add it to my King Penguin collection which I've mentioned before. Most of the others have been picked up for peanuts but not this one. I love the soft ice cream colours of the dust jacket and her illustrations and travels around the island in the late 1940's, early 1950's are very much of its time.

At the same time that Penguin were publishing this series of books in the early 1950's they were also producing music scores in a small landscape format. I had never seen these until a chance find in an antique shop in Devon recently, but whilst I fell in love with the patterns on the cover I couldn't justify the price, especially as (and this is sacrilege) I saw them as patterns to use for collage. A few days later though I found these in an Oxfam shop for 99p each and just had to have them.

The back cover shows the full pattern with the music detailed on the front. I think some of the covers were designed by well known designers of the time like Enid Marx but I cannot find out too much about them yet. I am on the trail though and of course, now that I have them, there is no way I will use them for collage. I really cannot bring myself to do that. I just want to find more. Ebay have a few listed but they are very expensive, showing that I had a lucky buy in Oxfam. Just something to add to my list of collections now I suppose.

I don't think my 5 Penguin Music Scores can compete with the volume of things that Barbara Jones collected but then I also have other collections (as we well know) so I am halfway to being a magpie I guess. If anyone sees any of these on their travels please let me know. I adore these patterns and would happily like to increase my collection to 6,7,8,9.......