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Art of the Day: Steve Powers New Signs for Coney Island

Posted in Amusement Game, art, tagged Coney Island, Dreamland Artist Club, ESPO, Miss Coney Island, signage, Skin the Wire, Steve Powers on June 8, 2012| 1 Comment »

New signage for ‘Miss Coney Island’ and games on Coney Island’s 12th St by Steve ‘ESPO’ Powers. Photo via twitter

Over Memorial Day, we saw artist Steve Powers in Coney Island and mentioned how much of the signage for his Dreamland Artist Club project had been painted over or demolished due to redevelopment. The most recent loss was the signage on Jones Walk, where the works created by Dreamland artists in 2004 were stolen or scrapped when the game operators moved out after losing their leases. The sole surviving “coin” from Toland Grinnell’s Dime Toss sign was donated to the Coney Island History Project, which is next door to some of the relocated games.

Powers told ATZ he was going to create new signs for Miss Coney Island, Skin the Wire and other games that moved to West 12th Street from the Walk. Today the artist unveiled the supercool signs shown above via twitter. “Watch Her Dance Till the End of Love” is for the automaton “Miss Coney Island.” The dancing doll did an exclusive interview with ATZ last month about the big move and the marvelous makeover that has fans saying she looks 30 years younger. “Miss Coney Island” and the miniature animated rides of “Coney Island Always” are next door to Skin the Wire and other whimsical games located on 12th Street just off the Boardwalk. The new signs will be installed next week.

Skin the Wire on West 12th Street is one of the booths getting new signs by Steve Powers. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

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Up for Auction: World’s Strangest Girls Sideshow Banner

Posted in art, Auction, sideshow, tagged Ed Paschke, Phyllis Kind, Riverview Park, sideshow banner, World's Strangest Girls on May 16, 2012| 2 Comments »

Vintage Sideshow Banner for World’s Strangest Girls. Photo Courtesy of JMW Auction Gallery, High Falls, NY

Our favorite genre of word banner is on the auction block. World’s Strangest Girls! The sideshow banner asks the customary questions: “Why WERE THEY BORN? CAN they LEAD NORMAL lives? HAVE CHILDREN? HAVE NORMAL HUSBANDS? SEE & TALK TO THEM.”

We first came across the World’s Strangest Girls in the seminal 1997 book Freaks, Geeks and Strange Girls: Sideshow Banners of the Great American Midway. A splendid cavalcade banner by Snap Wyatt from the ’60s depicted an all-girl freak show–sword swallower, fire eater, tattooed lady, dancing midget, frog girl, alligator-skinned woman, and freakiest of all, a woman with tree roots instead of hands and feet.

Jay Werbalowsky of JMW Auction Gallery tells ATZ the unsigned word banner is from the collection of well-known gallerist Phyllis Kind, who closed her SoHo gallery and retired in 2009. Kind’s first gallery opened in Chicago in 1967, where she showed the work of Roger Brown, Ed Paschke and other artists who came to be known as the Chicago Imagists.

When we interviewed Paschke in the late ’90s for an essay about the influence of sideshow banners on the art world, he recalled fellow artists buying banners at the auction of Riverview Park and introducing them to him as well as to Kind. Friends presented Paschke with a banner of Siamese twins, which he had to fold in half to display on the walls of his studio. “I’ve always liked that kind of larger-than- life, over-the-top feeling,” the artist told us. “A heightened sense of reality is I guess the term I would use.”

The World’s Strangest Girls word banner is large enough–9′ 8″ x 11′ 5″– for a loft with 12 foot ceilings or a spacious lobby. Or perhaps you’d like to frame a Strange Girls show of your own and take it on the road? The sale is on May 19 at JMW Auction Gallery in the Hudson Valley town of High Falls, New York. Live bidding on the item is available on liveauctioneers.com

Photo Album: Art Seen By Zillions in Coney Island

Posted in art, Photography, tagged Boardwalk, Bruce Handy, free event, local, New York City Parks, Public Art, trash can art on May 4, 2012| 1 Comment »

Here’s your chance to create art that will be seen by zillions in Coney Island this summer! On Saturday, May 5th, the public is invited to paint the Parks Department’s trash barrels at the 6th annual Boardwalk of Barrels of Fun event. Registration for the free event begins at 10 am on the Boardwalk between West 10th and West 12th Streets in front of Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park and Luna Park. Paint and brushes are provided.

For inspiration, take a look at Coney Island photographer Bruce Handy’s slide show of last season’s Barrels of Fun. Amid a sea of colorful abstract compositions, you’ll find mermaids and other marine species as well as a gold-toothed Funny Face, Popeye the Sailor Man and the Wonder Wheel.