Good Golly Miss Molly!

 

 She is a force unto herself. She is also, like the second side of a rare coin a force that is selfless, giving and dedicated to humanity. Her actions are especially dedicated to the oppressed of humanity; many times outcasts and the victims of the world’s multitude of oppressors. This; as a focus meaning, the rich, the one percenters. She is also an artist, illustrator, writer and film maker.  Her work is sought-out and included in the collections of institutions such as MoMa and The New-York Historical Society. She is successful at what she does. This wondrously industrious young woman, Jennifer Caban is better known by another name. Her nom de plume by the way is Molly Crabapple.

Molly Crabapple in her time has gone far beyond lip service to her causes. Including such as the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, the many times illegally held and abused detainees of Guantanamo Bay, The Syrian ISIS Resistance Radicals and other disenfranchised Americans of all stripes. She’s a radical. It is more than evident in much of her art and in her approach as well. She is at heart springing for the counter-culture and fast becoming a just outside the edge main-streamer.

Molly Crabapple is a second generation artist; growing up her mother was a commercial artist. As a result she say first hand that there was money to be made using art or one’s talents for profit. Molly; never short of creative ideas, sold drawings and illustrations for profit regularly and in tough times posed unabashedly for nude photographs, pretty much for anyone (artist or not) that could come up with $100 and a camera; this was Molly the entrepreneur/ business woman.  Molly worked for several years as the House Artist at “The Box” an avant-garde Manhattan night club. She remembers that fondly as being “The Box’s Toulouse-Lautrec.”    She was also one of the original “Suicide Girls” and worked in Burlesque. You will find with Molly Crabapple there is a definite burlesque sensuality and a kind of  French/Rococo influence  tinged with her own wit and humor. These qualities are implicit within many of her most successful pieces. And sometimes; on occasion, they are simply magnificent cartoons.

Molly Crabapple is one of the most successful, engaging and productive artist in today’s art world. I highly recommend her memoir “Drawing for Blood.” It is completed with illustrations, well written, beautifully packaged and provocative.

What remains here is a continuation of “Miss Molly’s” drawings, posters, videos etc. Hopefully yours’ to Enlighten, Embrace & Enjoy!

       "A History of the War on Drugs"  

         Molly Crabapple  & Jay Z   

 

                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                              

                        

       

                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                         

                           

I think that school just isn't for everyone. A lot of people don't learn well when they have to sit in a place for eight hours. A lot of people learn best lying in their own bed, teaching themselves from books.

…and I was a bad student. I was a brat. If I was a teacher, I would not have liked myself.

"I Have Your Heart" 

by

Molly Crabapple

                                                          

Illustrated by N.C. Wyeth

Robinson Crusoe Illustrated by N. C. Wyeth was what the cover read. It was one of the classic and famously beloved volumes published by Scribners in the early 20^th century. The book was a solid hard-cover edition that looked good and felt good to the hand. The illustrations were compelling, lush, heroic things that as far as I remember discovering was truly “love at first.”  For all it’s worth this encounter was something that has hooked me for life; the love of illustration, books and most particularly the illustration work of the master; Newell Convers Wyeth.

Wyeth had illustrated Treasure Island, The Last of the Mohicans, The Yearling and others in his time for Scribners. His work was always colorful and exciting. When I found Robinson Crusoe in the school library I had no idea how renowned N. C. Wyeth was. I just knew he was phenomenal in what he was doing and I was always able to imagine and wonder, even becoming lost in his detailed emotionally realistic visions. Wyeth towers among the best and is still much an inspiration for me. 

Wyeth would influence generation of young people including his children, especially his son Andy who became equally famous in his own right and then grandson Jamie who continues the family legacy. The Wyeths are certainly America’s finest and most cherished family of the visual arts. They are also great ambassadors of excellence and accomplishment. 

In a rite of passage when our school closed due to integration in 1966 we were allowed to take one book from the school library. Robinson Crusoe Illustrated by N.C.  Wyeth was my; without hesitation, choice. I have it even now and as I hold it and peruse it, I remain in awe as it makes me smile.