Influenced by Magic History

It is no secret that I love magic history. I've noticed a lot of folks who enjoy magic history are not performers or are former performers. My friend Denny Haney once told me that you could tell a performer who read magic history books from those who did not simply by the way they perform. In my case it's more than that. I take quite a bit of inspiration from many parts of magic history and I'd like to share one of them with you today.

One of my all time favorite magicians is Charles Mattmueller, better known as Karl Germain. I've never written about him before on this blog, but I think it's time to start including him. One of the things that fascinates me about Germain are his posters. He often used a black/red color scheme in his posters. Though it's very striking visually, I would image part of the reason was because it was cheaper to do than full color.

The poster at the top of the page lists him as 'The Master of Magic' but most often he was known simply as 'Germain the Wizard'. In this day of magician, illusionist, mentalist, mind reader and so forth, I kind of love the simplicity of WIZARD. There are only two wizards people know of today and they would be Harry Potter and Merlin, so it's not bad company to be in.

A few years back I needed a new poster and I decided to look through the many posters that other magicians had done in the past. This is not a new thing. Countless magicians have copied the Kellar/Imps poster. Escape artists and magicians who do escapes love to copy what Houdini has done. IF they don't copy his posters they very often copy the poses he struck in photographs.

I thought, the color scheme of the Germain posters was still appealing and so was the simplicity of the images. But I wanted something to make them more contemporary as well. My solution was to add the various names used by magicians, words like illusionist, conjurer, manipulator and so forth. I put all the names I could think of and used them in the background of the poster.

Then I decided to use the same font that Germain used in his name for my name, and just for fun I used the word 'WIZARD' rather than my usual moniker 'Artist of Mystery'. One other thing I did was add a quote about me by a well known source, The Washington Post. The end result, I think, is a very cool looking poster that gets it's inspiration from the past and yet looks quite modern at the same time. I hope you like it.

NEXT: Coming next will be an article about Two South American Magic Families.

Houdini Painting For Sale

Here is a chance of a lifetime. I never let my paintings go this quickly, but this painting of Houdini, which is painted in acrylics on canvas, 24x30 in size is available. I will ship it in a special box made for artwork, foam fitted, plastic covering the back and front to prevent punctures while in transit.

Though I painted a view of Houdini basically from the waist up, my intention was to put all the emphasis on the face. Notice the texture on the image below. I used a ton of paint on the face to give it a very thick appearance, but kept the remainder of the painting simpler, with the exception of the background. By the way, pay no attention to the color in the photo below, the actual color is closer to the top image.

I've not alerted anyone on my art mailing list about the availability of this painting, mainly because I'm hoping it stays in the magic community. However, today I received my first email from a non-magic person who had an interest in the artwork. So, it may be going into the 'world' rather than stay inside the confines of the magic world. I'm frankly ok with that, I just wanted to make the offer to my magic friends first.

Update: Removing the painting from the market as of midnight Dec 31, 2012.

Christmas and Houdini

I've heard from a number of people that say they find it odd that Houdini celebrated Christmas. He was after all the son of a Jewish Rabbi. Yet, he clearly did have cards/postcards that wished people a Merry Christmas. He married Bess who was Catholic and she no doubt celebrated Christmas.

While scouring through hundreds of newspaper articles over the last few days I saw something kind of interesting. I found brief write ups in the theatrical section of newspapers during the month of December about who was going to be appearing at the local theatres.  Apparently the crowds were traditionally low because of the holidays. Guess who was always working during the holidays? Houdini! And several papers mentioned that Houdini would be very helpful to bring in people. He was a guaranteed draw.

Christmas has always been a duel holiday from what I have discovered. Originally meant as a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the day also fell upon existing celebrations by different cultures. These various traditions merged into one holiday called Christmas but there appears to be a religious celebration and a separate cultural celebration. For Christians the holiday involves all the traditions, the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Christmas Tree, Santa Claus and so forth. For non-Christians, they may also enjoy various parts of the holiday like Santa, the Christmas Tree, decorating, exchanging of gifts and so on but not observe the religious aspects.

One thing very interesting about the holiday is it's always been wrapped up in controversy. First, the early Christians were actually against it.  The holiday was even banned in parts of Colonial America. Today, we find political correctness  and Christmas not mixing too well. Some groups and individuals have complained about having the word Christmas used on govt. calenders, others want Nativity Scenes banned on government property. Some groups even want to ban Santa Claus, though in his modern incarnation he is hardly a religious figure. And others have actually pressured retailers to remove the word 'Christmas' from displays and advertisements. Apparently it's ok at the moment to use the words 'happy holidays', at least until someone complains about that. Oh, and then there are a few christian groups out there actually still protesting Christmas because it isn't in the Bible, so it should not be celebrated. It's gotten a little ridiculous  if you ask me.  But as I mentioned, Christmas has carried a bit of controversy with it since the beginning.

My guess is Houdini enjoyed the secular side of Christmas. Believe it or not, there was a time when saying 'Merry Christmas' to someone was just considered a pleasant greeting. Sending Christmas cards and notes has always been known as a gesture of kindness and friendliness. I tend to think Houdini stood on the side of "Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men" which is a good sentiment any time of year. So to all my readers out there, Merry Christmas! And if you celebrate a different Holiday, may those celebrations be joyous as well. And if you don't celebrate anything, Happy Nothing, I guess, lol, or better, have a nice day!