Friday, August 28, 2009

Typewriter Art

As a child I remember one of my favorite things to do whenever my my mother took me to the house of my aunt "nonnie" (her name is Joanne and her husband calls her Joannie. I couldn't say Joannie so I called her nonnie and it has stuck to this day) I loved to tinker with her typewriter.

I never inquired about it. I never asked how often she used it, and what she thought about it. I didn't have great typing skills as a child but I loved to hear the click click click of the keys and watch the metal pieces fly.

I found some typerwriter art in my search for more information about typewriters and I thought I'd share.


William Kentridge
williamkentridge.net/


www.stephenschildbach.com/fineartportfolio.htm


Arman
Infinity of Typewriters and Infinity of Monkeys and Infinity of Time = Hamlet , 1962


Rebecca Horn's Blue Monday


Typewriter art by Simon Patterson

"I constructed an enormous wall mounted ‘typewriter’ sculpture: Consisting of a giant keyboard on one wall and painted in the United Nations colours of blue and white were keys spaced out in a line on the other three walls spelling out the typing exercise,‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’, that contains all the letters of the alphabet and therefore, potentially, all meanings expressable in the English language. Above some of the keys, placed apparently randomly, were the names of the permanent members of the Security Council, the present and former Secretary-Generals of the UN and some of the places visited by Captain Lemuel Gulliver - the protagonist of Jonathan Swift’s Gullivers Travels.With General Assembly, the juxtapositions of Jonathan Swift, nationhood and nonesense was a way of playing with the various meanings of the word ‘assembly’. It refers to the General Assembly of the United Nations, assemblage sculpture of the 1960’s and 1970’s, assembling people together in an auditorium/arena or gallery. I wanted to show how side by side with place names such as Lugnagg or Glubdubdrib from Gulivers Travels, UN Secretary-Generals’ names such as Boutros Boutros Ghali or Dag Hammarsköld might also seem like a nonesensical language. You are allowed to laugh.
-------------Simon Patterson


Jeremy Mayer’s online portfolio


By Russ Abbott at www.inkanddaggertattoo.com/artists/v/russabbott/


Typewriter tattoo in Austin, Tx. Originally uploaded by Mark Wallace at flickr.com/photos/walkering/312947004/


Typewriter Girl by The Black Apple

Every now and then I think to myself that I should look into buying a typewriter of my own. Just today I found a website that might be helpful. If any of you are curious I recommend you check out http://mytypewriter.com. The site sells various typewriters from different eras. From what I've seen the typewriters range from $325 to $575. The site sells manuals, typing ribbon and even jewelry made from vintage typewritter keys. It's worth checking out even if just to gander.

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