Sheryl Oring

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Thank you to a kind commenter who sent me looking at artist Sheryl Oring's website. I had been researching her Writer's Block project earlier in the week, but I was clearly looking at an outdated website. In Writer's Block, Oring imprisoned masses of typewriters in large cages, to symbolize censorship and the atrocity of war crimes committed by Nazis. The installation was presented at a historic plaza in Berlin, site of a 1933 Nazi book burning. The project required collecting tons of machines. "That is how art works. It was a challenging thing to do, because great art should be challenging," the artist stated in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

In her current work, Oring uses the typewriter as a means for bridging the gap of communication between common people and government authority. She sets up a typewriter and modest "office" in public spaces and takes dictation. People state what they want from a future president. "I wish to say" is broadly a petition for change. The resulting transcripts are sent to the White House, while Oring saves a carbon copy for later exhibitions.

Millie Motts

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I would like to introduce you to Millie Motts:

Actually, we don't know who this lady is, but she's one of many smiling vintage faces you'll find on the splendid blog and visual archive, Millie Motts. Regina Porter maintains the blog and calls herself an old soul. "I'm a collector of 1940s-60s just-about-anything," she says. "Fashion magazines, children's elementary school readers, textbooks, found photos, and miscellaneous ephemera... All of the images are from my personal archive. Old Charm magazines (for the working woman) have the best typewriter ads that I’ve found. I have a stack of old magazines that’s about 3 feet high…and growing. I always tell myself that I’m not going to buy any more until I’ve scanned what I have, but then I get to the store and know that if I don’t get whatever wonderful thing I find, it might not be there the next time!"

In honour of Typewriter Week, Regina has posted some images from her collection and also directs us to some previous typewriter-related posts: Alive After Five, Conferences & Coffee Breaks, Just my type, and Vacation. There's a lot more to see on the Millie Motts flickr site as well. I think Millie is just my type of gal!

Typewriter Week

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I'm sure you've noticed the theme of my posts this week! So I'm going to officially declare this Typewriter Week here in the UPPERCASE journal—and I welcome you to post about typewriters on your blogs this week too! Send me a link to your posts, or submit your photos, links or information to me (info at uppercasegallery dot ca) and we'll all share the typewriter love. Coming up this week: typecasting, ephemera, and typewriters in fashion photography. (photo by Kirstie Tweed)

Type Tuesday: Typewriter Typefaces

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Here is an excellent article exploring the variety of typewriter typefaces used in graphic design.

"This notion of using alternate typewriter typefaces sparked my interest in many ways. I began to think about how I only wished that making typographic selections were that simple and hands on (a sort of no-nonsense approach to typography). One of the things that I became most curious about was the names or types of custom typewriter typefaces that had been used during the height of typewriter technology and how many typefaces were commercially available to typewriter owners."

It is also posted on the Walker Art Centre's design blog, which is full of amazing projects and links.

Typewriter sculpture

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Jeremy Mayer transforms typewriter parts into life-size human figures. Their design and form play into typical sci-fi forms and—although beautifully conceived and constructed—I find them quite menacing. "I'd been trying to get my figures to look less creepy," says Mayer in an interview with Wired magazine. I've got an old grey royal that was damaged beyond repair in transit from the ebay seller, so perhaps I can create my own typewriter creature for the upcoming Nightmares show.

Extruded typewriter art

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Artist Paula Louw incorporates typewriters and other more modern communication technology such as cellphones in her art piececs. "Dysfunctional, contradictory aspects within communication intrigue me and inform my artwork," she states. "In the days when manual typewriters were used, a slower form of communication demanded greater reverence and respect in our manner of addressing people. My connection with typewriters has a very personal link. For many years my late father was General Manager of Olivetti in South Africa. He had an analytical mind and a great love for words and language and read the Shorter Oxford Dictionary for pleasure. Communication with him was difficult for me and our relationship was a stormy one. In an odd way this has informed my art which deals with communication and the barriers to it in contemporary communication media."

New life for an old machine

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Richard Polt, author of the Classic Typewriter Page and editor of Etc (Early Typewriter Collectors' association), the newsletter for typewriter lovers (to which I subscribe), took a beat-up but functional typewriter in to an auto-body shop for a makeover. He's a typewriter expert so he was able to disassemble and reassemble the machine relatively easily. The paint job cost around $120 US, so not too expensive to revive a cosmetically-challenged but fully functional machine.

Famous ribbon tins

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My typewriter tin collection is becoming quite famous on the internet — it has been viewed over 8000 times and I keep running across myself when I do typewriter research online. Today I found out via Love Made Visible that it is mentioned in the New York Times' T Magazine blog. In case you missed my original post about this collection, you can read more here and see it here.

Favourite show

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It is probably not hard for you to guess that I am a fan of the television show Mad Men. I first began watching it for the props and costumes, but the dialogue, acting and slow-to-build plotlines are quite good, too. I'm always on the lookout for the typewriters shown in the office or other scenes. There is an anachronism with the model of IBM Selectric typewriters, though. The models shown did not come out until 1961, a year after the timeline set in the show. It is apparently explained in passing— the Sterling Cooper advertising agency handles the Selectric account. (You can occasionally catch a glimpse of an authentic typewriter ad hanging on an office wall.)

The AMC Mad Men website is full of great supplemental content such as behind-the-scenes, photos and interviews (I've spent a lot of time there today!), especially their 1960s Handbook that gives some historical context. This article (and link) about early photocopiers is quite interesting.


IBM typewriter photo from Flickr.