Thursday 22 March 2012

"why don't you come up some time and see me?"


I made this collage last summer--inspired by the expression: "I'm not a [-----], but I play one on TV."  Sometimes, I think, television is a way of perceiving our alternative personae.

Background is from one of the etchings in Piranesi's Invenzioni Capric di Carceri (1761). Dinosaur is a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, as depicted by paleoartist Luis V. Rey. Woman is actor-writer Mae West, in costume for her 1928 Broadway play "Diamond Lil"--filmed as She Done Him Wrong (1933).

The title, of course, is Mae West's exquisitely lascivious line from that film (often misquoted with "some time" at the end). She inserts a tiny pause after "and" and then emphasizes the word "see." It was named by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 most memorable movie quotations of all time.

I associate Mae West with watching TV in the '60s. I've seen several of her flicks on the small screen, as well as her appearances on "The Red Skelton Show" and "Mister Ed."

7 comments:

  1. Excellent collage. I love the fusion of the different images you have used.

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  2. Really great combination of images and colors in this one, Fi, and I think Miss West would have liked it a lot (well, maybe except for the dinosaur...)

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  3. Striking image! Enjoyed the explanation too!

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  4. Fantastic colour palette and strong image. Like the cigarette card style shape.

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  5. Thanks, y'all! Could you explain, Ron: what's a "cigarette card," and what shape is it?

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  6. Hey Fi ~ great combination of images. Cigarette cards are explained here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_card

    Basically like baseball cards...interestingly cigarette cards featured actors of the day...I have some antique cigarette cards. So, you intuitively made the image featuring Ms. West in the shape of a card she actually may have appeared on!

    Yep, I was correct:

    http://maewest.blogspot.com/2010/05/mae-west-cigarette-cards.html

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