Fakes, Forgers, Frauds, Folly, Quackery, Hoaxes, Swindlers, Charlatans, Cheats, Grifters, Grafters and Cons

My most current project having to do with Albert's many collections has been to make a list of his books about swindlers. I am looking for a buyer for the entire collection. If you know of someone who might be interested in it, please let me know! I can send the list to them. 

A Curious Collector, A Rare Collection

Albert Morse, my late husband and partner, was a suspicious and skeptical man, which befit a lawyer and student of human folly. His professional practice involved itself in copyright law. Albert represented many of the counter-culture cartoonists of the 60s who have become a significant part of our graphic heritage and even our cultural legacy, partly because their suspicious, doggedly persistant and willingly unpleasant lawyer pressed their rights. He was often a character in their strips, a large and bearded shyster talking loudly and non-stop. The cartoon Albert came close to the personality they portrayed . ( See Morses Funnies )

A barely hidden current of chicanery and flim-flam ran  beneath Albert's baleful expressions. Perhaps all true skeptics are closet charlatans! He was often found at the fringes of San Francisco's counter culture excesses in the 60s and 70s, more an observer than a participant, a prime voyeur. It's not surprising, then, that one of Albert's ( many) obsessions was the study of society's demimonde. Fakes, quacks, swindlers, and grifters fascinated him. 

Over at least 3 decades he assembled a widely embracing collection of books on crime and deception. Though most of these books are individually interesting, often rare, often valuable in antiquarian or bibliographical terms, the body of the collection is far more meaningful than single volumes. IN this collection we find a clinical examination of fraud and deceit. 

Who might benefit from such a case study of lies and trickery? Lawyers? Law enforcement officers? Mystery writers? Historians? Thoughtful or speculative grifters themselves?

These books gave great pleasure  and some sense of satisfaction to Albert. Whether they addressed his logical lawyer's mind or his darker inner demons is impossible to say. He was not in any sense a plain spoken or open hearted man. But , like this collection, his heart was of a darker hue and endlessly fascinating. 

I have catalogued these volumes with dates and comments in the belief that some bibliophile, organization, or practitioner will seize the opportunity the collection represents: to build even further on Albert Morse's obsession with the flawed nature of man. 

Visual Thinking in Real Time

This has been "The Year of Albert". Mostly working with his collections and moving his many many objects of fascination on to other people. Now I am focusing a bit more on my graphic facilitation work. For the last two months I have been coaching individuals in how to format the page when they are recording in real time on the large paper.

These images are of 4 x 8 foot "charts" that I created in real time as presentations and interactive presentations were going on. The 80 or so participants were executives from an international organization. Since it was a multicultural event, these charts helped the group have shared understanding of the proceedings. The charts were posted around the conference site and participants gathered around them during breaks to continue and further the conversation and learnings.

The examples you see here show common organizing formats. The journey, recording around a central image and recording a speaker in a word balloon.

Tilt/Tattoos

Tilt/Tattoos

Above are two examples of Tattoo Flash by Cap Coleman ( 1884-1973)

The work this week was to make space to work in the studio and to reorganize the tattoo collection into:

• what was in The Tattooists
• what went to museum shows
• and whatever else there is.

And there’s a lot!

Tilt, and a friend of his, is coming from Illinois to help me photograph and scan it for a book of (perhaps) the entire collection. He is the owner of New Life Tattoos in Champaign, Illinois. And very interested in historic tattoo designs.

Chuck Eldridge, of the Tattoo Archive in Winston Salem, North Carolina will be writing captions for the flash and photos.

Thinking about how to frame the collection for a book.

It seemed to me that The Tattooists came out just at the time when trained artists were making their mark in a world that had been for centuries inhabited by primitive/outsider artists.

To reinforce this idea, in a review of The Tattooists, written by Chris Pfouts in 1994, I found:

“This hard-bound, coffee table-sized book was published in 1977, at a critical moment in tattoo history. The famous Houston convention had been held the year before, and the pendulum was wringing in a new direction. The art of tattoo was beginning to move off the skid rows and sailor dives and onto Main Street. As a measure of how pivotal this point in tattoo history was, Lyle Tuttle, owner of one of the largest collections of tattoo items in the world, does not collect items from after 1976. He considers the Houston convention to be the turning point between the real old school and the modern age. So Morse's book is almost like a snapshot of an historical moment.”

So that's one aspect to pay attention to as we think about a direction for the book.

There is a small leather suitcase with all the tapes from the interviews that Albert did for the book, with folks like Ed Hardy, Doc Webb, Cliff Raven, Phil Sparrow, Bob Shaw, Huck Spaulding, and Lyle Tuttle. All these guys are either retired or deceased. How amazing to actually hear their voices and their stories. I think if we can get a CD into the book and tie the photos and flash to the stories, we’ll have something really exceptional.

The giant scanner arrived yesterday, and I actually got it working today. The studio has been rearranged for people to work together for a week. Tables, chairs, space and empty shelves available for organizing boxes and photos and flash.

Working with the flash is captivating. The imagery speaks to me in much the same way I imagine it did to Albert. He thought it was in the same vein as cartooning, and I think it is in the same vein as the use of simple symbols and images in graphic facilitation.

The pages are so old, with great patina. And Albert amassed a pretty extraordinary collection of the early American tattooists. I‘ve been told this is the most August Cap Coleman flash in one place.

The Dotters of Charity

Six days at a convent in the hills of coastal California. Living and working with a religious order of women in a place out of touch with the rest of the world. An order that began in the 1600s in France. One hundred blue attired Sisters in attendance, the average age ;70 .

They had never even considered working with outside facilitators before.

The lead consultant on this project was Sr. Margaret, a Sister from another Order . I had worked with her when we were on the planning team for the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Barcelona. As she began to see the breadth of the work, and the complexity of the issues, she asked to bring in another consultant, and as they saw the length of the conference and the sweeping scope of questions to be considered, they asked to include me as well.

Two weeks before the conference we met with a planning team at the convent . I had been given a list of the areas they would be working through. I thought it was things connected but rippling out into the world. My interpretation was a large drawing ( 4 x 6 feet) of a lake with the issues rippling from the center out into the world. On the shore a weeping willow demanded to be drawn.

I was astonished as I drove into the complex and saw huge lake, the focal point of the convent, with a large weeping willow tree on the shore.

And they were amazed when they saw the drawing, and heard that I had no idea there was a lake at the convent when I drew the image.

It was the perfect beginning of our relationship…expectations of inspiration .

The charting had a great flow, through many typical metaphors, and I will show that flow in an upcoming posting. Lake, Clouds, Sunbeams, Clouds, Roadmap, clusters. We also developed a large mindmap where they experienced dot voting, thus, dotters of charity.

The week was a healing time for me. My biggest personal learning was to live with what comes. Not only live with what comes but revel in surprise and change. To be in the moment. To appreciate people for who they are in the moment. To let go of any idea of how life “should be”. Just live what it is. Let go of the past. Let go of my expectations for my life ( deeply rooted in my parent's belief systems , which didn't even work for them!) .

Much of my life I have been opposed to Catholic colonizing (Beyond wealthy and acquiring more wealth, extreme male-dominance, right with might, inquisition orientation) but it was important for this week to put my prejudices aside so that I could appreciate these women in their world, and the choices they had made for their own lives. I have found over the years that in the Catholic women's communities, there is much more heart in their work than greed.

Although I will miss their faces, and the sea of blue garbed women’s bodies, I will miss the sounds the most. Their singing, and laughing.

Things are popping!

It's been a few weeks since I wrote and the universe has been abundant.

A few months ago I spoke with Bob Levin, who wrote "Disney VS The AirPirates", a book about the ground-breaking freedom of speech case between underground artists who had been drawing Minnie and Micky enjoying themselves at orgies and the like in their comics, and Disney who lived in a house with a white picket fence and twin beds in the "master" bedroom. Levin has always written such nice things about Albert, even though Albert never agreed to be interviewed by him or even returned his calls or letters.

I had just found letters from Crumb saying endearing things to Albert as he was letting him know that he was hiring another lawyer. I never have gotten the story completely clear, but to this day rumors abound, mostly very negative ones about Albert. And these letters put everything in a very different light . I asked Levin if he would like to see these letters and other things I was unearthing in Albert chaotic archives.

At the time he was in the middle of another project, but said that when he was through he would be very interested in seeing them.

Finally he made it over to the "room full of Albert's things", my studio. It turns out that he had always been fascinated by Albert, as someone who was highly intelligent, a bit ahead of trends, and got deeply into the things he pursued. He was curious why Albert would give up a very prestigious postition as a lawyer in Mike Stepanians Practice, to become a photographer and philosopher.

His interest was piqued even more during the visit ( which he made with his wife Adele who will co write the book with him), and they are now on schedule to write an article about Albert during his years as a copyright lawyer for the underground artists. The editor of Comic Journal, who is also the head of Fantagraphics, thinks that Albert would be a very interesting subject for a book.

My interest in this is
1. To tell the story of a true bohemian who was always in the thick of things.
And 2. to add a layer of new truth to the rumor mill in the comic world.
After that , I told him he can interview anyone he likes and write whatever he finds!

Should be interesting!


So, I have been going though boxes of photos and journals ( which he kept from 1957 until he died) and putting the journals in chronological order. There is no way that Levin will want to read all of it, but I found the ones where he talked about his relationship with Crumb while they were working together. And another one that had a page beginning with "We lost the case with Disney."

Some times I feel like I am in a little bubble with Albert, like we are so tied together. Of course he is around a lot now that I'm actively selling his things. It's also near his birthday. Only a week away. When reading his journals or going through files and photos, I feel like I am in his head and that I've been talking with him all day. It's a bit unsettling at times, but never dull.

I mentioned to Levin that I really don't like to read the journals. I'll read about women he slept with that he said he hadn't , and that he was having a lot more phone sex, and sexual encounters than I knew about , especially when we were living separately. But I can also see, from how he has written about other people over the years, that he really loved me deeply. We were very connected, and I think that is why it seems like he is still around a lot .

At the same time there is a lot of interest in the collection of vintage tattoo flash that Albert accrued when he was researching "The Tattooists". It looks like Last Gasp or Schiffer Press may publish a book of all the collection, not just what was in "The Tattooists".

Tilt, a young tattooist from Illinois, is coming out here at the end of August to help me scan and photo everything.

So that leads to the photo at the top of this blog. These are some of the items I have for sale on
http://www.cafepress.com/vintagetattoo .Some people I know make a good passive second income from their "store" on Cafe Press. I am trying to put interesting old designs from Albert's collection on things that people might actually want. Check it out and tell me what you think.

I was kind of anxious to sell the tattoo stuff this year, but there is so much energy around it that I thought I would do something with it first. I am intrigued with tattoos. Its the artist in me. One should decorate their body! When I was a child I would draw all over my dolls.

When I was 5 my father told me to NEVER get a tattoo, because my husband would hate it. Hmmmmmm? Well I got a tattoo when I was 23 after I saw Albert's tattoo photography show at the Oakland Museum. For some reason I was there at the opening, and don't remember seeing him
And sure enough, the thing he hated hearing the most was, ( especially from people with tattooed flame eyebrows) " I saw your show and ran right out and started to get completely tattooed!"

There is some activity in the comic book art world as well, but I'll stop writing for now .
I have a busy week ahead, six days living and doing visual synthesis for a group of Sisters at a convent in the Los Altos Hills.

Jack Dracula and Diane Arbus

May 2008

This is the first piece of tattoo flash from Albert's collection that I sold on eBay. A self proclaimed know it all expert in the tattoo collector world told me that it was not worth much, maybe, $300.00.  Albert had it priced at $700.00. It just sold this morning for $750.00.
( Listen to Albert, Listen to Albert.)

This is the only piece by Jack Dracula in the collection. It is really a fine little piece of art. Well done, well drawn, and well constructed as a display.

According to Chuck Eldridge of the Tattoo Archives, Jack Dracula began to get tattooed in 1940 by Brooklyn Blackie at Coney Island and ended up with over 405 tattoos. At times he was a sideshow attraction and he also operated his own tattoo shops.

Yesterday I discovered that he was an occasional attraction at Hubert's Dime Museum and Flea Circus in Times Square where Diane Arbus began to experiment with photography. From the mid 1920s until 1965 Hubert's  was a living cabinet of curiosities, and home to many sideshow freaks.

I have never been particularly interested in Diane Arbus photos, because, well, there are plenty of disenfranchised  and freaky folks in my life. But a few weeks ago I saw a great little film called "Fur" (2006) about Diane's tentative and bold initial explorations as a photographer. It was really touching and reminded me of when I first met Albert and he opened me up to seeing the world through new eyes. Nicole Kidman was surprisingly sensitive in her role, and played well off the eccentric nature of her neighbor, played by the amazing Robert Downey Jr.

 Funny how things are so connected. Never heard of Hubert's before and now it's everywhere.

Click here to see a video of Jack talking about his life during the time that Arbus was photographing him. 

It's surprising where cultural considerations show up.

April 2008 at The Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin

This is a common request... and I have never seen it done really well .

A "graffiti" wall for input from participants during large-scale ongoing multi-day conferences. Generally the purpose is either to have people share what they are learning, or for participants to give input relevant to the process. 

In any case, these are the basic guidelines for assuring participation/ input:

1.Be sure to make it very clear to the participants what the wall  is for, what you hope to have happen on it, and why you are asking them to create it. You will need to mention it several times each day. It needs to be purposeful and part of the event to be successful.

2. You might have a participant "seed" it with the first comments. Or have someone standing by the board asking for input.

3. It needs to be in a place where everyone will walk by it.

4. There needs to be plenty of wide tip markers there, easy to find and reach,  at all times.

For this particular project the request was for a real looking wall, so that was what I designed. Bricks and graffiti-ish looking letters.

What was uletimately put on the board was pretty radical and not particularly useful to the group. It seemed that it had touched a miltant chord for those that did write on it, like they were really doing graffiti on a wall somewhere! The comments were more theoretical that what was going on at the conference as well.

It was actually great in a Jeckel and Hyde sort of way, allowing another side of the group  to show through. But that had not been  the intent of it.

I think the reasons for this were:

1. The environment and culture. The meeting was held near Amsterdam where people take their personal expression , art and graffiti seriously. In the future, in an environment and culture like this , I would have a simple page with a bold, clear, descriptive title.

2. The wall was not in a convenient space for posting, and there were no pens handy.

3. Instructions to use the board were only mentioned to the whole group one time, at the beginning of the conference, when things were overwhelming already.

The photos above were taken on my 2007 trip to Amsterdam.