(The third in a series: read the first and second parts)

It had been a while since I’d had a note from professor Harrower with Ganskopf numbers to illustrate, and there had been some changes at the Foundation since my last visit. Stanley was still at the front door in his epauletted shirt and ill-fitting trousers with the gold side-stripes, but now there was a sternly uniformed security guard at the Special Collections entrance.  He had no name tag and a sidearm.  Also, the old-school turnstyle had been replaced by a state of the art metal-detector.

Another difference was the librarian’s custodianship — after making sure I was settled, Miss Laguna left me alone with the day’s owls, which she’d never done before.  This may have been because for the first time since I’d been coming to the Foundation Library, there was another patron there, also viewing an item from the Collection.  When I asked, Miss Laguna emphatically whispered “That’s Dr. Danneru” and glided solicitously back across the room to his table.  I couldn’t see what he was accessing — the piece was sunk deeply into its black velvet cushion.  So while pretending to fuss with my lamp, I spent a moment studying the man instead, but couldn’t tell much.  An academic, probably (who else would be here?), although he emitted a mildly exotic sleekness (“Europeaness” Becca would call it snarkily, making it a point to pronounce it anatomically) that didn’t coincide with my experience of university professors.  Maybe this explained why Miss Laguna was overlooking the steaming cup of contraband on the table next to him — or maybe had even supplied it: while I was confined to dry media and a dry throat, “Dr. Danneru” had hot tea.

Still, I wasn’t truly jealous of Miss Laguna’s attention: it was easier to draw without anyone attending me, and I could focus on the current crop of “fetishes”. It was a mixed group of owls: two of stone, and one of a brass-like metal. Here is the finished rendering, along with my hasty notes.

From left to right:

• GKC/orn111a (3.23cm ht): carved red-veined marble cobble in the shape of an “earless” owl.  The Library catalog describes it as “alabaster”.  Feet hooflike.  Note to Professor Harrower: I don’t know what the backs of these pieces look like; without Miss Laguna’s once-again purple-gloved fingers nearby, I was not able to touch the artefacts to turn them over.

• GKC/orn98a (3.88cm ht): carved semi-transluscent green stone — jade, jadeite, nephrite?  also an “earless” owl, its ventral vermiculation or maculation indicated by a sort of checkerboard.  Chip in head above left eye.  Tail? toes? at bottom of piece indicated by five points.  Must be tail; why would there be five toes?  Didn’t GKC/orn335f also have 5 toes?
  

• GKC/orn399d (3.10cm ht): also “earless” although it gives the impression of having ears put back in irritation like a cat. This is the only metal owl I’ve seen so far; cast? brass? bronze?  The Library catalog uses the abbreviation “br” which is not helpful.  In brackets next to that are three characters in a stroke-character alphabet I don’t recognize except they are not Greek or Cyrillic.  When no one was looking, I tipped this one up just a little with the eraser end of my mechanical pencil, and could see a small loop on the back, as if it were meant to be hung on a cord or sewn to a garment.
  

My stay was shorter than usual: I worked rapidly to complete the pencil sketches and packed up in a hurry, burning my fingers on the lampshade. After indicating to Miss Laguna she could return the owls to their secret nests in the secure stacks, I rushed back to my hotel room and laptop — there was something I was eager to look up.

(The second in a series: read the first here)

The next session at the Ganskopf Foundation Library was much like the last (the first I omitted because no drawing actually occurred, just filling out lengthy forms, and being issued a visitor’s ID).  This second appointment had also been arranged by Professor Harrower.  Once again he’d sent the list of three accession numbers to request for illustration by regular postal mail — I still haven’t met him in person.

After I’d signed in and passed through the security turnstyle, the same librarian, Miss Laguna, came out of the glass office to meet me.  Like last time, I was the only patron there.  I handed her the note with the acquisition numbers of the target owls.  She seemed to hesitate slightly when she saw it and read the numbers, but she disappeared into the secure stacks and left me at the same table as before to set up my graphite pencils, kneaded eraser, and pad.  This time I had brought my own desk lamp, and plugged it in where she had indicated.  The stronger directional light made a big difference: fluorescent ceiling lighting flattens everything out and distorts color.

When she returned, Miss Laguna had three “fetishes” on the black pillow, and as she walked two of them clunked together a little at each step.  Her casualness about this, after last time with the rubber gloves and special measures, was surprising.  These owls were larger than the previous selections, each being several inches long, and made of what looked to me like pine bark.

Here are brief descriptive notes from that session:

• GKC/orn247 a-b (shown above, green background): these two squat, eccentric owls are very similar to item GKC/orn872b which I drew last time: “eared” owls made of bark, probably pine.  They differ from the earlier one in that more deliberate geometric and linear carving has been made on their surface, instead of merely allowing the fissures in the bark to show owlishness.  My unscientific response is that these carvings are humorous, and they make me laugh.  I’ve drawn them together since they seem, at least by accession number, to be associated, although to my eye they don’t have much else in common, other than being small pinebark owls.
• The third figure, GKC/orn644f (right), seems too large to call a “fetish” — it’s 10.3 cm in height, and what I would characterize as anthropomorphic: it looks like an “Owl-man” because its legs are long and end in paw-like feet rather than talons.  As with the other two, the back is flat and un-altered, except for a vertical groove indicating the legs, which corresponds poorly to the one in the front.  I find this one a bit creepy: with no arms (or wings) and an uneven, stretched silhouette, it seems like a hostile doll, up to no good when no one’s looking.

But creepy or humorous, these pieces looked to me like indigeno pine bark carvings sold in tourist shops in Chihuahua — admirable folk art, but not “mystery relics” as they’re being called in the press, and not particularly ancient.  However, I’m not an expert.

I mentioned that to Miss Laguna, and asked if she knew why the Herr Doktor Ganskopf had collected them, but her answer was incomplete, something like, “They’re cute, but the other one is more…”  I asked if she meant Creepy Owl-man, but she said no, the simpler pine-bark owl from my previous visit. When I asked if it would it be possible to see that one again, she told me it was on loan that week, and lifted the pillow with the fetishes and took them back to the secure stacks.  I unplugged my lamp so the bulb had time to cool.

The only other thing that happened was that when I got out to the parking lot, it was raining and the car had a flat tire.  Glen, the parking attendant, offered to put the doughnut on for me, but I told him it was a rental, and they would fix it.  It took the rental company guy forever to find the place, but he finally arrived and took care of it.

The past three days I’ve been immersed in clay.  Sounds muddy, but what I mean is, of course, NCECA: demos, tools, galleries, other clay artists, techniques, long-time friends from St. Louis, Metro Light Rail, even a little shopping, and downtown Phoenix: all those things compressed into a fairly short amount of time, in three long but stimulating days.

The Potters as Sculptors, Sculptors as Potters show was fabulous, and folks who made the trip out to Mesa Community College saw a broad yet focused themed show that added a lot to the exhibition experience at NCECA.  The room was light and spacious, and packed full of pairs of pieces showing the range in various artists’ work, and how they deal with the duality of making both vessels and sculpture.  (Here’s a shot looking into the gallery.  My pieces, Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy and Venomosity are the two objects nearest to the camera.)  Saint Louis clay artist James Ibur finessed an adroit and thoughtful piece of curation in organizing this show, as well as doing a lot of hard work.

The bulk of the event was deep in the bowels of the Phoenix Convention Center, and almost all of it was nearly simultaneous.  To make the most of NCECA you have to be good at time management and willing to switch gears mid-stream.  I watched a Korean Onggi potter make really big pots in the traditional style.  He made the coil of beige clay at his foot by stretching 25 pounds of clay all at once on the floor like a giant taffy loop.  He would then rest the coil on his shoulder while feeding it onto the top of the pot.  He said at home each potter made 30 of these in a day!  That’s a lot of kim-che storage — and a lot of clay.

There were also on-site installations constructed during the course of the meeting, like this one of a California gray whale made of clay packed onto slat-armature.  The mini-whale in red clay on the boxes is the artist’s maquette, and you can just see a few slats still un-clayed at the far left edge of the photo.

The NCECA exhibitors’ hall is also a great place to shop for the latest tool, equipment, or silly clay tee-shirt (“Throwing my life away” “Tee-shirt for my clay body”, etc).  But the best tool ideas I picked up were being used by the demonstrators, like this one used by the Korean potter above: it’s a wooden hand-held anvil used on the inside of the pot while the outside is beaten with a wooden paddle.  This thins the clay and compresses it, making the walls of the pot stronger and reinforcing the joins between the coils.  Wood tends to stick to wet clay, so the face of the tool has been textured so it releases more easily.  It also leaves a great texture behind.  But, it wasn’t available for sale in the exhibition hall, so if you want one, you’ll have to make it yourself (I’ve always used a river-cobble as an anvil).

I mentioned shopping, and that’s because much of the art on display was for sale.  Probably the most notorious selling frenzy at the conference is the Cup Benefit sale, where artists donate cups for a sale, the proceeds of which go to art scholarships.  The cups are displayed for two days, then, on the third day, they throw open the doors and let people in a few at a time to shop. The cups are donated by lots of artists, from plain folk to rock-star potters — the most famous names in the business — so the line to get in is long, and people arrive early.  By early I mean 4.30am!  Although I had my eye on a specacular piece with burrowing owls stencilled on it, it was long gone by the time I got in.  So I contented myself with two appealling cups by potters unknown to me — oddly, both named Reilly/Riley.

There’s a property of owls I call “Half-Dome Head.”  It’s a shape that’s noticeable in the profile of all owls, particularly the larger ones.  The Barred Owl to the right is exhibiting major Half-Dome Head.  If Half-Dome Head can be achieved when making owls in clay, the resulting effigies will be Especially Owly.

The name derives from the famous granitic dome formation, Half Dome, in Yosemite Valley, California, which bears an obvious resemblance to an owl’s head in profile.  The geologic Half Dome is forming largely by weathering: eons of sheet-exfoliation on the fragmented face of an exposed granodioritic batholith gave it the shape we see today.  (Appropriately, one of the most Half-Dome-Headed owls ever, the regal Great Gray Owl, is an uncommon resident of Yosemite Valley, see photo below: the color and texture even match).

In owls, the “Half-Dome Head” effect arises from the front of the Owl’s head (in other words its face, to use the technical term) being shaped like a radar dish, to be efficient at gathering sensory input — in other words, light and sound.  But take away the feathers and an owl’s cranium is shaped pretty much like a hawk’s, or even a chicken’s skull (check out these images).  An owl is after all a bird, albeit a fairly specialized one, so it’s built like a bird.  The forward-oriented flat face that we humans find so fascinating (probably for anthropocentric reasons) is due more to posture and feather-arrangement than underlying skeletal structure: the owl generally holds its bill slightly downward rather than forward like other birds.  This gives prominence to the distinctive “facial disc” — the specialized array of radar-dish-like plumage around an owl’s eyes and ears — and positions it so it functions optimally.

The owl’s Facial Disc is a precise specialization for nocturnal hunters who require every available bit of light and sound directed into their sensory apparatus to ensure the highest possible success rate while hunting.  Several features of the facial disc are noticeable: short flat-lying feathers sweep away from the eyes and “cheeks” so as not to impede forward vision; stiff vertically-arranged feathers edging the facial disc help funnel sound into the ear openings, which are asymetrically arranged on either side of the face behind the eye to create aural parallax (and are nowhere near the cranial tufts we commonly call “ears”); and rictal bristles (“whiskers”), which are specialized sensitive filamental feathers on either side of the gape (the flexible corners of the mouth which allow the beak to open and close), that enable the owl to perform preening and feeding activities — including the feeding of owlets — by feel, since their large eyes are immovable in the skull and so can’t focus efficiently at very close ranges.

But that’s just the flat front of the “Half-Dome”: the round back, the helmet-shaped fullness of feathers on the back of an owl’s head also transmits owliness to our perception.  This is also due to the owl’s skeletal configuration: the bird’s upright posture is possible because its skull is joined to a nearly vertical spine.  Most birds’ backs go off at a more or less right angle to their necks (think of a dove), somewhat shortening the curve at the back of the head.  But the feathers on the back of an owl’s head arc smoothly down to the back, which continues downward steeply.  The photo above shows Half-Dome head creating Owliness in an MLO (Moderately Large Owl) I’m currently working on for a client.

Photos: from top to bottom: IBO barred owl, A.Shock; Half Dome Yosemite, Carroll Ann Hodges, USGS; Great Gray owl, Canada (Sorry; don’t know who to credit this photo to); Three Star Owl “eared” owl effigy in progress, A.Shock.  And finally, a Gratuitous Cranky Owlet chillin’ with the Big Boys…

As I mentioned previously, there are two pieces of mine in the NCECA “Potters as Sculptors; Sculptors as Potters” show currently up at Mesa Community College (see the Three Star Owl Events page for details).  One of them is the long-evolving “Toadstack” (the other is Venomosity which can currently be viewed on the Home page.) As promised, here is the entire Toadstack story in pictures, culminating in the final state of the piece.  They go from L to R and Top to Bottom; don’t forget you can click on an image to enlarge it:

and the finished piece, Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy (Toadlier than Teapotly):

This show is associated with the annual NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) Convention, which opens in town tomorrow (Wed 8 April).  From now until Saturday, Phoenix will be popping with potters, sculptors, and ceramic arts educators.  The downtown Phoenix Convention Center is the main venue, where the discussions, demos, lectures, and exhibitors will be located.  There’s a fee to attend that part of the conference, but there are many many galleries, museums and other display venues which have shows up featuring the work of both nationally known and local clay artists, and these shows are FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

So if you like looking at the broad range of contemporary ceramic artwork and what’s being made in America today in clay, check out the NCECA website for lists of and maps to the concurrent shows and outlying venues which are all over the metro area.  Principal show clusters are located in Tempe, in and around the ASU Campus; Mesa, at both the Community College and the Arts Center; downtown Phoenix in the hotels around the Convention Center; and Scottsdale, in the Old Town Arts District, a fun and stimulating place to visit anyway.  It’s a great time in Phoenix to Get Out and See Art.

And?  Then Sunday evening, a warm, calm, acacia-fragrant evening while it was still light, I looked down on the Nid from the upstairs window, and saw Fascinating Behavior.  The first was a definite look at a dark, fuzzy head with a now orange-yellow bill restlessly moving in and out of sight from the depths of the Nid.  This was very exciting.  Then nothing for several minutes — the Hen was away for quite a while on this outing.  It gave me a chance to study the inner edge of the far side of the Nid, and think how clean it was: no poop.  I realized I’d never seen a hummer carrying a white fecal sac away from a nest, like many songbirds do to keep their nests clean: food in, fecal sacs out.  I wondered if a nestling hummer produced a fecal sac that was just so small I’d never noticed.  Just then a gray fuzzy lumpish shape appeared over the rim: a second nestling!… but, no — it has no face?  What…? Then: SPLORTCH!  Like a jet of ‘baccy juice from the lips of a cartoon hillbilly, a tiny projectile squirt came shooting over the rim of the nest and arced towards the ground.  So that’s how it’s done!  No fecal sacs here for mom to cart away, just a butt-skywards and a quick squeeze, and business has been taken care of.

The second event was the Hen returning.  And, to my relief and fulfilled expectation, she perched on the edge of the nest and pointed her beak downward.  Just like in the nature films, two little heads rose up to meet her, and she poked her bill down one gullet and then the other, dispensing yummy liquid Gnat-in-Nectar stew to each Nidling in turn, the bigger one going first.

To the right is a close-up of an Anna’s hummingbird stamp on a Three Star Owl “Hummingbirds of Arizona” cylindrical vessel.  (Both photos: A.Shock)

No pictures of any of this excitement.  I’ll try, but I’ve decided to paper over the window until fledging.  It would be awful if our voyeurism, or the cats, who love to sit and “read the backyard newspaper” from this window, caused her to abandon the nest.  I’ll leave a flap to peek through, like an impromptu blind, and maybe before long I’ll manage to get a photo.  The best I can do is leave you with this link to someone else’s photo of exactly what I saw.

And they’re not just for birders.

Brightly colored, biologically faithful yet spirited portraits of native birds, reptiles, and mammals, Three Star Owl Magnets will stick firmly to your fridge or your uncle’s steel cranial plate.  Celebrate a life-bird, a yard-bird, or a favorite bird, insect, reptile, amphibian or mammal — if I don’t have it in stock, request your species of choice, there’s no extra charge for special orders.  They’re easy to pack or mail because they’re small and sturdy, so they’re great as gifts, stocking-stuffers, or thank-you gifts for people who let you stay with them, your favorite birding guide or trip leader, the birder who put you on to the the Lesser Nighthawk you thought was a branch, or yourself.  You get the picture.

Each magnet is a brightly glazed stoneware tile with a strong magnet on the back, with deckled edges and the species name on the back.  The tiles vary in shape and size, but are approximately 2″ x 3″ and have lively, irregular outlines. They’re the most affordable item in the Three Star Owl repertoire, yet each one is a unique, entirely handmade and signed tiny Work of Art.  $16 each, or 3 for $45 (Shipping and insurance additional.  No bulk orders or wholesale, please).  More details (or, lots of the same ones all over again) on the Shop page.

For those who require a bit more item for their needs, be sure to check out the Hanging Wall Tiles — bigger, more detailed, and ready to hang with hand-made beads on faux-leather or copper wire hangers.

Please be aware that the magnets shown here are samples only, not all are in stock.  Inquire for availability.

Important note for birders: Three Star Owl is not responsible for jinxing people who purchase items with species they haven’t seen yet.  Like, you don’t see my fridge rocking a Great Gray Owl…

(For you unstoppable ID-ers, the magnets above from left to right and top to bottom are: Lazuli bunting, Lawrence’s goldfinch, Barn owl, Western tanager, Vermilion flycatcher, Blue grosbeak, Coralsnake, Costa’s hummingbird.)

The final increments of the imperturbable Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy (or Toadstack for short) have been completed, and after months of being alternately obsessed on and ignored, left alone and detailed, the piece is finished and ready for its destination.  Here are its last two phases: a final coat of white terra sigillata (super-fine suspension of clay in water), and smoke-firing.

The Toadstack looks bleached because it’s had a second layer of terra sigillata brushed onto it, and lightly buffed back, so it remains mostly in the low points of the textures.  Terra sigillata is slip — clay and water and sometimes a mineral colorant — but the clay particles in it are finer than regular slip mixtures, so the surface can be buffed with a cloth or even the fingers to a satiny sheen.  The second photo is for later comparison: it’s a close-up of the skin of the red-spotted toad: if all goes as planned, what’s white will turn smokey brown-black, and what’s red will be a mix of red and black randomly.

Next the Toadstack is loaded into the galvanized trash can “kiln”.  Surrounded by shredded paper and sawdust of two chunkinesses, and some pine twigs and needles from the Hen’s tree, it will be completely covered before lighting.  Here in Phoenix you’ve got to remember to call Maricopa County Air Quality hotline before ignition to make sure there are no wood-burning bans in place, which this night, there weren’t.  The weather was perfect: cool, and with only a light breeze and no burn-bans, so I torched the can.  The dry combustibles burn fairly fast and sweet-smelling because I use both cedar chips and mesquite twigs from our trees, so within a couple of hours the smoke has dwindled to nearly nothing.  But even after the fire burns down, the heat is still fierce.  If the pieces were to be removed into the cool air they could crack, so I clamp the can’s lid on and let them cool overnight.  The next morning I opened the “kiln”, and unpacked the pieces.  The kiln fates were kind, and no cracks or other problems found, so the Toadstack was taken inside and cleaned up a bit for photographing.  Here is the comparison close-up of the Red-spotted toad’s skin — all is well, and the smoke has made its dramatic and unpredictable changes:

The Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy is destined to be shown at the “Potters as Sculptors, Sculptors as Potters” show organized by St. Louis artist James Ibur at NCECA this year, so it’s hardly fair to unveil it before the opening.  The exhibition will be at:

Mesa Community College, 1833 W. Southern Avenue, 480-461-7524.  Navajo Room, Kirk Student Center  Apr 6-11, 2009.  Mon-Fri 9:00a.m.- 5:00p.m., Sat 9:00a.m.- 2:00p.m.

Potters as Sculptors; Sculptors as Potters: artists included are Dan Anderson, Jeri Au, Dan Barnett, Chris Berti, Victor Bassman, Peter Beasecker, Gina Bobrowski, Susan Bostwick, Joe Bova, Andy Brayman, Wayne Branum, Bill Broulliard, Richard Burkett, Doug Casebeer, Joe Chesla, Linda Christiansen, Eddie Dominguez, Renee Deall, Josh DeWeese, Paul Dresang, Rick Dunn, Tim Eberhardt, Shanna Fliegel, Debra Fritts, Gloria Fuchs, Julia Galloway, Pete Halladay, Sam Harvey, Rick Hensley, Jason Hess, Eric Hoefer, James Ibur, Nick Joerling, Steve Lee, Jimmy Liu, Beth Lo, Allegheny Meadows, Ron Meyers, Boomer Moore, Eric Nichols, Brooke Noble, Lisa Orr, Donna Polseno, Liz Quackenbush, Ruth Reese, Dave Regan, Don Reitz, Allison Shock, Chris Staley, Richard Swanson, Kurt Weiser, Matt Wilt, Betty Woodman, Russell Wrankle, and Luo Xioping.  Utility is the core concept of the show: How does a person working in clay approach it if that is the primary focus of their work?  If it is not, how do they perceive function when it is juxtaposed against their non-functional art?  Many ceramic artists explore and/or exist equally in both the world of function and sculpture.  In this exhibition, the artists will be exhibiting work that explores both of these ideas by presenting two pieces of their work.  Organized by James Ibur.

I’m exhibiting two pieces, the Stacked Toad Teapot Effigy (Toadlier than Teapotly), and Venomosity, a Gila-monster inspired Beastie vessel.

There will be a free reception, open to the public, on the evening of Friday April 10, in the Navajo Room (location, above). Everyone’s invited!

If you can’t make the reception at the Mesa Community College, you’ll have to wait for one Final Increment on this website…  Until then, here is a sneak preview of Venomosity ➤➤

Episode 1

During this session the staff once again permitted me to sketch the objects only with dry media, so I brought graphite pencils and a kneaded eraser, which does not produce erasure pills.  This made it necessary to add colors later with watercolor, from memory, since photos are not allowed, either.  During the appointment the objects — elevated on a black velvet cushion — stayed on the other side of the table, as did the librarian, who turned them for me if I required to see the back, or a profile.  She wore bright purple non-latex gloves, like a medical technician drawing blood, to keep finger oils and sweat off of the surfaces.

The descriptions below are my personal non-technical notes, observations both descriptive and ornithological (to the extent possible), made to assist me in capturing the quality of the surfaces later.  The Library Catalog entries for these objects include blurry, low-contrast black-and-white photos, with only brief notations of dimension, and accession date and source where known; very few have these.  The uncredited author uses the word “fetish” to refer to all of the smaller owls, probably because of their size and three-dimensional form.  There is no actual evidence of ritual use or function.  Note: scale of objects is approximate since I was not allowed to touch the objects to obtain measurements. Therefore, dimensions given are maximum in any axis, as stated in the Library Catalog.

• The “fetish” on the left, GKC/orn926g, is a naturally pitted, tool-altered brown quartzite cobble bound in a jute-like fiber with a cylindrical turquoise-glazed ceramic bead strung on the front.  (H: 9.7cm, W: 5.9cm, D: 5.6cm; no provenance)  It depicts an “eared” owl, perhaps of the genus Bubo, species unknown, with open eyes.  The tail is indicated by parallel grooves, which would have taken some effort to engrave in the hard stone.  Tool marks are not discernible.  Back unaltered.  Bead, modern (? I have seen similar beads in mall bead shops, imported from India.)
  
• The middle “fetish”, GKC/orn872b, is also an “eared” owl with open eyes, made from tree bark, possibly pine, the natural delaminations and grooves in the bark give the impression of feathery striations.  Traces of blueish pigments are visible in the deepest crevices.  Back unaltered by maker; shows bore-tracks of pine-infesting insects.  (H: 6.2cm, W:3.1cm, D: 2.3cm; no provenance)
• The “fetish” on the right, GKC/orn335f, is terracotta textured while still moist.  Also an owl with cranial tufts; partly closed or squinting eyes.  One tuft and the opposite foot or leg are marked with concentric grooves.  Back has three parallel linear impressions, perhaps to indicate tail feathers.  One foot has two talons, the other three.  (H: 5.1cm, W: 4.6cm, D: 3.6cm; no provenance).

The fact that these “fetishes” depict “eared”-type owls does not help to pin-point their origins.  There are owls with cranial tufts on nearly every continent belonging to, for example, both the large (Bubo) and the small (Scops) genuses.

Again, my thanks to the Ganskopf Foundation for allowing me access to the collection in order to illustrate these enigmatic pieces and the permission to reproduce them here, and special thanks to librarian Leyla Laguna. The images here are the property of the Ganskopf Collection and may not be produced without written permission.