Category Archives: Goodwill Finds

DIY: Monsters painted into thrift store paintings

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Have you ever drawn on a second-hand print? One of my favorite recent developments in upcycling thrift store finds is painting monsters into old landscapes. Here are two of my favorites:

by Chris McMahon (source)

by Chris McMahon (source)

by Thyrza Segal (source)

by Thyrza Segal (source)

I recently found a framed landscape at Goodwill for $5 and decided to try it for myself! Here’s the painting before:

Before monsters print

And here it is after the cryptids arrived in the village:

FinishedCryptidPainting

If you’re curious, the creatures are (clockwise from the left): a hodag, a Jersey devil, a large yeti, and a small Loch Ness monster.

Monsters painted by Aubin Thomas

I used Sharpie paint markers for this project. I hadn’t used them together like this before and I’m extremely happy with how it turned out! If I waited for the previous application of paint to dry I got a clean line for the next layer of paint, which is wonderful to know when you’re working in a space so small. If you try this on your own thrift store painting, I absolutely recommend Sharpie paint markers (and Sharpie didn’t even pay me to say that, I just like them that much!). It’s also a good idea to sketch out what you’re going to draw beforehand so you can get an idea of how big the monsters in the painting will be and where they should go.

Aubin Thomas yeti in painting with Sharpie paint paints

Goodwill’s Art For Everyone Event

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Thank goodness for Goodwill. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve discovered a treasure there that brightened my day for less than the cost of a gallon of petrol. Although my favorite thing at Goodwill is their record collection I have occasionally found some gems in their framed art section. Because of that I was naturally very excited to hear about their Art for Everyone event for December’s First Friday Art Walk! This is an evening where Goodwill pulls together dozens of special pieces that have been donated to them and puts them in a curated collection that is for sale at very reasonable prices. I managed to narrow my purchases down to the three pieces below:

Francis J. Quirk portrait via In the Usual Way

This is a signed portrait by Francis J. Quirk. A quick Google search tells me that Quirk was a professor of fine arts at Lehigh University, but what drew me to the piece was the use of shadow. When I was in art school I always had the worst time properly conveying negative space so I truly admire people who can sculpt two dimensional drawings by what they don’t mark on the paper. I almost didn’t buy it (it was $10 and I’d gone in telling myself I had a $20 limit) but it kept catching my eye from across the room and I felt I just couldn’t leave without it.

Marx Brothers sketch and Dionne Quintuplets Calendar

My favorite Marx Brothers movie is A Night at the Opera. There’s a scene in it in which Groucho asks Chico if he knows what the word duplicates means and Chico replies “sure, those five kids up in Canada,” referencing the Dionne Quintuplets. So imagine my delight at finding a sketch of The Marx Brothers leaning up against a calendar featuring a painting of the Dionne Quintuplets! The Marx Brothers piece is nothing special (it appears to be a print) but the Quintuplets calendar is from 1951 and is a promotion for The Amherst Lumber Company in Ohio. It’s seen better days despite being in plastic now, but I love this type of ephemera so I don’t mind at all. Plus, I got both of these for $15 and my money will go to help others. I really can’t tell you how much I love shopping at a place that provides such interesting things while also allowing me to put my money toward something other than a CEO’s third vacation home.

What’s the best thing you’ve ever found at Goodwill?

Mixed Sensory Sunday: Gertrude Lawrence and The King and I

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Gertrude Lawrence and Yule Brynner from the New York Public Library Archives

Gertrude Lawrence and Yule Brynner in The King and I (photo from the New York Public Library online gallery)

In the spring of 1951 the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I opened on Broadway. The actress playing the role of the feisty heroine Anna was Gertrude Lawrence. The role of Anna was written for Lawrence who, after a decades’ long career on the stage in both America and her native England, was looking for a comeback in the postwar years. When the idea of turning the book Anna and the King of Siam into a musical was presented to her, Gertrude Lawrence wanted Cole Porter to pen the score. When this did not work out, Lawrence’s manager brought the idea to Richard Rodgers, whose first reaction was to decline since he did not think much of Lawrence’s musical abilities. After some consideration, though, he agreed and he and his partner Oscar Hammerstein II turned the book into The King and I. Gertrude Lawrence exceeded Rodger’s initial expectations and went on to win the Tony award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Anna.

Gertrude Lawrence Souvenir Album Decca 1952

I found this record at Goodwill today. It is an original copy of the Gertrude Lawrence “Souvenir Album,” which was released by Decca in 1952 and features the songs she was most known for. I am unable to find when the album was released so I’m not sure if it was released before or after her death (she died of cancer in 1952 during the run of The King and I so there would be interest in her either way that year). The album has 8 songs on it, including some now standard tunes she originated. Below is one of those songs, George and Ira Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

Mixed Sensory Sunday: Florence Foster Jenkins

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I recently picked up this absolute gem at Goodwill in South Portland, Maine. When I found it, I discovered I have a horrible poker face because the minute I realized what it was my jaw literally dropped of its own accord in astonishment.

Florence Foster Jenkins record found at Goodwill

Florence Foster Jenkins was born into wealth, but eloped with a doctor at the age of 17 when her father refused to pay for her opera lessons. After her marriage dissolved she began a relationship with the actor St. Clair Bayfield, who would later become her manager. In 1909, Florence’s father died and she inherited enough money to allow her to seriously pursue her music career. She did this in Philadelphia and then New York and while she moved in high social circles and gave recitals few actually thought she was talented. Indeed, in surviving recordings of her singing she rarely hits the notes she means to hit and has a tough time with songs in foreign languages, but her confidence makes her worth listening to. Though she was aware many thought of her only as a novelty and some critics dismissed her, she famously quipped that “People may say I can’t sing, but no one can say I didn’t sing.”

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“Der Holle Rache” (Queen of the Night) sung by Florence Foster Jenkins

Swap selections, part one

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In a little under a month it will be time for SWAPMaine again and I’m awfully excited! In fact, I’m so excited that I’ve already begun going through my wardrobe to figure out what I’ll contribute. Here’s a look at some of the items I’ve placed in the “give away” pile so far:

Sea foam L.L. Bean sweater set

I got this cute sweater set at a clothing swap recently and although I love the color it’s just too big on me to justify keeping it around. My favorite part of this set is the little iridescent buttons:

Tootsie Pop Tee

This shirt is from another time in my life and doesn’t at all fit the style I have now. Ah, well. Someone will either like it or think it’s ridiculous enough to wear ironically.

Embroidered snowflakes skirt

This is a simple cotton skirt with pockets and it’s one of my favorites. However, it’s another piece of clothing that’s too big for me.

Mocha flowers skirt

I bought this skirt because it reminded me of mocha chip ice cream in the springtime but I can’t overlook the fact that it’s the wrong length for me. I’m five feet tall so if a skirt makes me look about a foot shorter than I am it needs to find a new home, no matter how adorable it is.

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Those are my selections so far, but I may have more as the days progress and we get closer to the swap! If you have some clothing or shoes you’re ready to swap, bring them by the Portland Flea For All building on Saturday, June 9 between 10am and 2pm and pick up your free ticket to the clothing swap the next day. For more information, visit SWAPMaine’s blog at swapmaine.com 

Goodwill Finds- “Songs by Tom Lehrer”

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Yesterday I made a trip with my mother to Goodwill in South Portland and, as usual, went straight for the records to see what I could find. After flipping through a large amount of classical compilations and a few copies of the most ubiquitous thrift store record I found something that made my nerdy little heart skip a beat:

“Songs by Tom Lehrer” was first released in 1953 for a limited run of 400 copies, of which this appears to be one. It was recorded in Boston, where Lehrer was, according to the back of the record, “in attendance [at Harvard University] until June 1953, as undergraduate, graduate student, and teacher of mathematics.” The songs deal with a number of subjects, some academic, some social, but always satirical. I’ve been a fan of Tom Lehrer’s work since 2008 and instead of overwhelming you with how wonderfully warped and funny I think he is, I will instead provide you with the biography written on the back of the record jacket:

“Tom Lehrer, longtime exponent of the derriere-garde in American music, is an entirely mythical figure, a figment of his parents’ warped imagination. He was raised by a yak, by whom he was always treated as one of the family, and ever since he was old enough to eat with the grownups he has been merely the front for a vast international syndicate of ne’er-do-wells. But enough of Lehrer the artist. What of Lehrer the bon vivant, the man about town, and idol of three continents (and Madagascar, where half a million gibbering natives think he is a God)? At last reports he had settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he earns a precarious living peddling dope to the local schoolchildren and rolling an occasional drunk. Here he spends his declining years with his shrunken head collection, his Nobel Prizes, and his memories.”

Here is a video of Tom Lehrer performing my favorite song of his (not on this record, however) called

“Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.”

Enjoy!

As a final note: The back of the record sleeve has some damage that looks like this:

Please, don’t let moisture get to your records and don’t stack them on top of each other.

Poor little records end up sticking together if you do.