Sunday, August 31, 2014

Old Postcards - Fritz Reiss - The Black Forest [5]

Art of Fritz Reiss featured on antique postcards ... Winter in the Black Forest.


Looks isolated. Sunset or rise?

Postmarked 8.1.13

Wonder how long this snow cover lasted?

Unused card back

This is the last post in this Series of 5 on the art of Fritz Reiss. Please check the archive for earlier posts.

Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Old Postcards - Fritz Reiss - The Black Forest [4]

Autumn in the Black Forest
(Germany)
Fritz Reiss
This is post #4 of a series of 5 -- art of Fritz Reiss as featured on old postcards. For previous post in this series please check the archive to the right.

Special thanks to our followers who have left so many kind comments on this series so far. The last two cards in this series, Winter in the Black Forest, will be posted tomorrow.

Unused card back
Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Old Postcards - Fritz Reiss - The Black Forest [3]

From the Black Forest
This card is postmarked Leysin Village with this date: 24.XII.16XI-  We are curious about how to interpret the date. We think it is the 24th day of December, probably 1916, but the XI at the end?

"Located in the Vaudoises Alps, Leysin is a sunny alpine resort village at the eastern end of Lake Geneva in proximity to Montreux, Lausanne, and Geneva. In prior years, Leysin was known for its sanatoriums for tuberculosis; today its spectacular Alpine views across the Rhône Valley towards the Dents du Midi invite year-round mountain sports and recreation." ... from the Wikipedia artcile on Leysin.

Leysin in Wiki

This is post #3 of a series of 5 -- art of Fritz Reiss as featured on old postcards. For previous post in this series please check the archive to the right.


Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Old Postcards - Fritz Reiss - The Black Forest [2]

Summer in the Black Forest
The Black Forest (German: Schwarzwald, pronounced [ˈʃvaʁt͡svalt]) is a wooded mountain range in Baden-Württemberg, southwestern Germany. This card was mailed in Europe. The stamp is German and the postmark is 11.9.??.  The last two digits are possibly 03 or 05.  In the handwriting there is also, in the left corner of the card, what may be a date, but the only number we are fairly sure about is an 11.


Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Old Postcards - Fritz Reiss - The Black Forest [1]

We have posted several times about the wonderful art of Winold Reiss, an artist whose work was celebrated by the Great Northern Railroad in the early 1900s. His portraits of Native Americans are especially popular. Winold's father, Fritz Reiss, was a German lithographer, illustrator, printmaker, and painter. We were lucky to find some postcards featuring Fritz's work and will be posting these cards over the next few days.

We are uncertain about the translation but
believe it refers to a spring in the Black Forest
(Germany)

Fritz signed his art with what looks like F. Reiis

Unused card back
Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Washington State in 1910


In March, 1910, one of the major railroads serving the Pacific Northwest published a booklet called, simply, Washington. The 39-page publication covers all kinds of agricultural and commercial information and was intended to encourage development and draw business to the railroad. The Chicago, Milwaukee, & St. Paul Railway published the booklet and we would like share some of it here on the blog. It seemed too much to put the whole book online, but we think you will enjoy some of the photos, especially as we have enlarged them.




What a beautiful mountain before most
of it blew away!


Introduction

Sample of interior pages

A lot of apples for one tree.

They called it a stick.


Dry Dock in Bremerton, WA

We never knew celery was raised here in King County!

Now that is a lot of Codfish.


FIVE combined harvesters!


Shorthorns?


Just a sample stick.


Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

Update - Washington Brochure 

We got an offline question ... Why is one of the photos from the Washington Brochure taken in Idaho? Ha ha. Great question. Well, it goes like this:  The railroad that published this booklet was building a line from the central states to the west coast. That line happens to run through northern Idaho. So, we guess they just couldn't resist including that neat logging train in the (next-door) Washington brochure! Thanks for the question. Also, thanks for several very nice comments on this post!

Friday, August 22, 2014

Return to the Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection

We’re looking back to exactly two years ago … August 22, 2012, when, for the first time, we posted about our visit to the Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection.

Here is how we started that post …

“John's Island recently visited the Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection owned by and located near the world headquarters of Weyerhaeuser Corporation.  Bonsai is a Japanese art form using miniature trees grown in containers. We found the collection to be quite interesting and want to share some photos and information.

The entrance to the Collection is, not surprisingly, in an area with the atmosphere of a forest, just south of Seattle, near Federal Way, Washington.”

Over the past two years we have been amazed at the number of people who have looked at the series of posts we started in August, 2012. So, we decided to return to the Collection just a few days ago.

All the photos below are new and, this time, we included a few more to give a perspective of the Collection when one steps back from individual trees. We hope you enjoy the photos.

Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection
and
The Rhododendron Species Foundation
Federal Way, Washington
See our note at the bottom of this post about new ownership of the Collection.





Japanese Maple
and Info (Below)


Not Bonsai, but big tree ... We liked the sun
behind the tree. The garden area is like a forest.



Typical arrangement of the display.



One really BIG tree on the way into the garden.

Styles of Bonsai
(sign on display at entrance)

Bougainvillea
and Info (Below)
On display in a special heated room.



Bald Cypress Bonsai
and Info (Below)


Photo on display of full-sized Bald Cypress
for comparison.
Our first bonsai post, August 22, 2012 is here.

Ownership of the Collection has changed since our first visit. The Weyerhaeuser Company has donated the Pacific Rim Collection to a non-profit corporation to be operated by The Greater Tacoma Community Foundation. We believe the new name for the Collection is Pacific Bonsai Museum.

Thank you for stopping by John's Island.

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