Am sending these...

12/09/2009

My great-aunt passed away in 1992, she was 93 years old. With her passed her entire history - the life she could recall. I say "could" recall, because the Alzheimer's had taken what little memories remained. Suffering from worsening dementia, she'd sit alone in the living room. Often I'd visit her there, placing myself at her feet and we'd chat. Avonne would make odd propositions, such as " Kirk, let's go for a drive. Can we take the car out? I've not driven in some time". I'd answer her as though at any moment we would. When I think back to those moments, there's no denying that I wish I'd gotten the keys to the car, given them to her, and jumped into the passenger seat, letting Avonne take me wherever she thought she was going.

I don't recall being there when Avonne died. She'd been put into a nursing home; it had become unsafe for her at my parents house, we couldn't trust she wouldn't fall, or, well, maybe get in the car and drive away. Anyway, she needed more supervision - my mother had become tired and concerned, and had reached her limit. No one wanted to see here leave, but she'd have to.

When it came time to sort out Avonne's affairs, a receipt turned up for a storage facility in Palm Springs, California - she'd been a resident out there, and had been paying rent on this unit for sometime. My mother recalled it as bizarre. "It was a bigger unit than she obviously needed, possessions spread thin, some over here, some over there, empty floor space too. What seemed even weirder were the boxes of nothing; take-out food containers, boxes of these things piled up, they didn't have labels on them, those got discarded...there was a Louis Vuitton trunk, which looked from about the '30s, and boxes of books, china and household objects.".

It wasn't until these boxes began to arrive at our home in Ohio that the scrapbook material turned up, and in them these long lost Wesley Morse drawings.

So much of our lives is remembering, but it is fragmented, bit-by-bit we piece it together. But life isn't a puzzle whose die-cut pieces only fit together in one way. There are no fixed borders on our memories, we put them together in anyway we see fit. This is how it is with the drawings in this amazing collection. They came into my life as a puzzle, a fragmented picture. I didn't have the box lid to refer to, in order to complete it, and over the years a picture has become clearer, reversing the illness which took Avonne's past from her. Un-fading memories. Bringing something lost, secret, into the light.

-- Kirk Taylor

H. C. Christy, Wesley Morse and the "Des Artiste"

7/10/2009

I had contacted the assistant archivist and resident H.C. Christy expert at the Skillman Library of Lafayette College in the hopes that material relating to Morse would show up in their archives, it was a long shot, but when looking for needles in a haystack...well, you get the idea. They turned up some wonderful material. The above is a photo of Christy in his "Des Artistes" digs circa 1925, one can imagine Wesley sitting in similiar, if less opulent, surroundings. Apparently Wesley had more of a spartan lifestyle than our friend Christy here.


The above is an example of a letter sent to Christy in 1915, it is Hotel des Artistes stationery. He resided there for 35 years, and was one of it's first official occupants. Wesley moved in sometime after WWI, and below is a glimpse of the personal stationery that Wesley drew the Taylor-Morse "letters" on, it dates to 1922-23, as do all the drawings in the collection. The excerpt pictured here is from no.23, and is titled "The Shiek".

A Conversation With The Collection

6/06/2008

On a stormy evening here in Minneapolis, we trudged out to give our first ever "talk" on the collection. And it couldn't have been to a better group of folks, cartoonists all, who also braved the spooky weather to hear us ramble on for an hour or so. Even allowing us to interrupt their monthly comic jam, a gathering of The International Cartoon Conspiracy. The sense of community and camaraderie would have made the cartoonists of Wesley's era proud. We also enjoyed that they kept right on drawing throughout the presentation!



Thanks go to Steve Stwalley for organizing the thing, and for being so encouraging. Check out his always entertaining and insightful blog, STWALLSKULL! Next up for accolades would be our hosts at Diamonds Coffee, as well as the folks of PUNY for providing the projection device, which allowed the images...You get the idea.

An April Fool...Don't be a Sap!

4/01/2008

I'm thinking today is as good a time as any to share this strip. It contains several aspects which lend it to the occasion, the most obvious being, well, it's an April Fools gag. Hopefully those of you visiting the site have learned a few things about Wesley Morse, some facts in the "About" section have never been published, others not since the 20s. The two strips most often identified as being by Morse on the web are Switchboard Sally, and the above pictured strip, Frolicky Fables. The former can be seen in a small sample scan at the site for the OSU Cartoon Research Library, or the Trade Ad pictured on this site. But to my knowledge Frolicky Fables is not posted anywhere. So, enjoy!

Wesley drew the strip in 1926 for Premier Syndicate, his distinctive signature can be seen in the last panel. The writer had been, not 'Cep' as is indicated, but by VEP. A bit of an April Fools gag, because
Victor E. Pazmino is indeed the writer of these little fables, he is most famous for being the ubiquitous cover artist on the early "comic book", Famous Funnies.

Topping it off, here's another April Fools mix-up. Prior to our current understanding Wesley and Victor had been mistakenly identified by comics scholars as being women cartoonists ! Wesley was thought to be three sisters from Chicago, and VEP, well, he was Victoria, the first lady of comics!

"- AND THE SAP CHARLESTONED HOME ON SILVERY CLOUDS -..."

Yes Indeedy.

All-So-Ran

3/21/2008

A young, mischievous boy turns from a crowd of onlookers, faces us, covering his mouth to suppress a laugh...




The above detail is from one of the drawings in the Taylor Morse Collection and has captivated me for sometime. Throughout the years of carrying these pictures with me, certain details have taken hold more than others. It is from one of the more elaborately staged scenarios, depicting a dog show, in which Wesley has drawn himself as a contestant, although in a weird anthropomorphic self-caricature. I won't share the gag's punch-line...but will say that Wesley, apparently, didn't think he'd make a very good dog!

And as an update, we're working hard to complete the look of the all-new Taylor Morse website. It's going through a complete revamping and I'm very pleased with it. I hope those of you interested in such stuff will be pleased as well. Thank you for your patience.

Happy 104th Birthday, Doris Eaton Travis!

3/14/2008

I'd like to wish Doris a very Happy Birthday! Last year she danced at a Midnight Frolic in New York City to celebrate the centenary of the first Ziegfeld Follies. Her performance brought down the house!

It's amazing to think that my great-aunt Avonne could have been on the same stage with Doris, in her last year with the Follies, the 1920 edition. Avonne, on the other hand, was just starting out, kicking her way into her first year with F.Z's outfit. I know from friends that Doris doesn't recall Avonne, but I wanted to extend a warm birthday greetings from the Taylor family nonetheless.

Follies Gold

3/05/2008

Bob Hudovernik, who wrote the wonderful book Jazz Age Beauties, has been so helpful in my research regarding all things Ziegfeld Follies, Alfred Cheney Johnston, as well as offering me words of encouragement along the way. So, if you haven't read Bob's book, I can't recommend it strongly enough.

He's also developed a CD as an extension of his project, Follies Gold. Bob just recently sent me the disc, and it's loaded with content, not to mention a section which covers the Taylor Morse Collection, and how it relates to Follies history.

Wesley Morse images © 2007 Talley Morse
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