Filed Under: "plea for attention"

The JimFlora.com homepage, long overdue for an update, finally got one. Besides our forthcoming book, The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora (due September 7 from Fantagraphics), you’ll find a first announcement about a Flora centennial exhibit at Silvermine Arts Center in September 2014. We’ve also added Amazon.com links for our two Flora children’s books reprinted by Enchanted Lion. In the coming weeks we will post information about several additions to our fine art prints catalog.

More current activity in the Florasphere (see Part 1 here): We’re preparing several new fine art prints for release, including a Mambo For Cats giclée (the oversized screen print sold out last year, but the Mambo mini remains available). Above is a mockup of a proposed print that might make it into 2013’s release queue. Our Tokyo-based Floraphile friend Takashi Okada has compiled and designed The Raymond Scott Songbook, a magnificent two-CD set of vintage and rare Scott recordings…

One of our representatives will be with you shortly. Your visit is very important to us, and we look forward to answering your questions. Such as: What’s up with the Flora blog, the website, and Jim Flora art in general? The paucity of new posts in recent months does not connote inactivity in the Florasphere. Here’s breaking news—and news which has previously broken: Flora co-archivist Barbara Economon and I have completed a new book—our fourth— for Fantagraphics:…

… a Cugat conga line, to pre-order the new Flora anthology, The High Fidelity Art of Jim Flora. It features all of Flora’s known album and EP covers (including back cover illustrations) from 1947 to 1961 for Columbia, RCA Victor, and their affiliated labels, along with music-themed fine art works, illustrations, and sketches. The book was completed last week and will head shortly to the printer. (Despite what it says at Amazon, the publication date…

There’s been little Florablogging in recent months. Not for lack of interest, certainly not for lack of fresh material. We could post something new every day for the next five years and still retain a cache of surprises. A few years ago we discovered a sketch album that contained 225 (artist-clipped and glued-in) pencil and ink drawings from the 1940s, very few of which were subsequently published or posted. That album alone could carry us…

Those perennial favorite Jim Flora calendars are in stock for 2012. You’ve got your bug-eyed saxophonist, an Aren’t-We-Having-Fun? moon, and a manic drummer to guide you through the coming Leap Year. These are hand-printed mini-calendars measuring 10″ x 4-1/2″.  If you prefer something of greater magnitude in a maritime motif, our Sheffield Island poster-sized calendar should suit your tastes:

We recently opened a Jim Flora store at Etsy.com. For now, the shelves are merchandise-sparse, but more items will be added in the coming weeks. Current and future Etsy offerings are also available through our fine art prints gallery and our Little Shop of Flora’s. Either place you purchase, the source is the same: us. We’re also considering listing some exclusive items at Etsy. We’ll have Flora 2011 letterpress calendars available in September. Same designs…

There are presently twenty different page headers at JimFlora.com. Each time you visit the site or refresh the page, the image changes. Because they rotate at random, some images will recur multiple times before you see them all. It’s a Zen exercise. Mixes well with rum. There’s also nine footers at the bottom of the homepage.

Perhaps we haven’t been formally introduced. I’m the second book of Jim Flora art published by Fantagraphics. I was born in February and shortly thereafter found myself distributed in bookstores and on the virtual shelves of e-tailers. Even though I’m almost four months old, some of you aren’t aware of my existence. So I just wanted to say “Hi,” and give you a gentle poke in the ribs. Go find me and take me home….