Email
Print
Share
![[Black and white photo of native American with mask.]](./img/posada-04791u-detail.gif)
Engraving by José Guadalupe Posada
Mexican engraver José Guadalupe Posada was largely forgotten by the end of his life, and died in poverty. He was, however, soon to be quoted as a crucial inspiration for the muralist movement in his country, and as his work continued to grew in importance, his images became touchstones of national identity for Mexicans everywhere.
Throughout his career, Posada regularly provided artwork for more than 20 different periodical publications. His engravings also ended up in broadsides, chapbooks, posters, programs, books, brochures, and advertisement. In 1890 he started working for the publishing house of Don Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, and continued this cooperation until right before his death in 1913. His most famous work stems from this period.
During a recent visit to the Library of Congress, we dug out some of our favorite Posada prints, and from those we offer a gallery we’ve called Posada’s Calaveras: From the A. Vanegas Arroyo broadsides.
We’ve been reading Sherry Buchanan’s Vietnam Zippos: American Soldiers’ Engravings and Stories 1965 – 1973 (from the collection of Bradford Edwards).
Courtesy of the publishers we give you an excerpt from this fine title, artist and Zippo collector Edwards’ essay on how his collection came to be.
Anthropologist Katherine Frank has written a beautiful book, G-Strings and Sympathy, analyzing the “regulars” (patrons who regularly visit a club to see a particular dancer) in the clubs she worked in as a stripper. We have a chapter from the book for you: Searching for Escape.
We have featured Howard Becker’s writing previously in American Ethnography (see Photography and sociology). Again we want to bring to your attention one of his earlier articles: “Becoming a Marihuana User” from 1953. Here Becker shines brilliantly with his typical scientific eloquence, as he describes the psychological and social factors that need to be in place for a neophyte to succesfully get high, and later be “willing and able to use the drug for pleasure when the opportunity presents itself.”
Read on in this beautiful piece of social science, Becoming a Marihuana User.
“What do you mean a bad thing? Does it hurt your church? Well, then, let them have it. It’s their church.”
From Marvin K. Opler’s The character and history of the Southern Ute peyote rite.
Photo: Jack Butler
“A good thing about Polaroids,” artist and photographer Jack Butler says, “is that you take the picture and it’s ready right away, so you can use the photo to initiate a conversation with your subjects.”
Butler has photographed the hot rod culture of Southern California since 2003 using a Polaroid loaded pinhole camera. We have put together a gallery with selections from this unique documentation project. Click here to check it out.
“Sir, I was just now sitting around working on a Revell 1:25 model kit of a Kenworth® W900, and the absorption and joy of the work put me into some deep, deep contemplation …”
More on our feedback page.
We’re celebrating the remodel of American Ethnography’s web pages, by offering our T-shirts for $19.95. And that’s including shipping, no matter where you are in the world! It’s ridiculous, that’s what it is!
To finance our independent research project – Car Customizing & Outlaw Aesthetics – we created a limited edition serigraph. They’re hand printed by us here at American Ethnography – black ink on 100% cotton fiber paper.
We think they came out good, and you’ll find them in our online store.
Have you got some good stuff you think American Ethnography Quasiweekly should cover? Please send us an email and tell us about it!
