>> Mark Frauenfelder is editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine. mark@boingboing.net
Years ago, I read a funny item in an old issue of Mad magazine, probably from the late 1950s or early 1960s. It was a parody of deceptive product packages. The funniest example was about a wooden model of a sailing ship. The illustration on the box showed a handsome vessel on the high seas, with details such as cannon portholes, sails snapping in the wind, and various deck adornments. But the only things inside the box were a block of wood and an instruction sheet that read: “Use a sharp knife to carve away anything that doesn’t look like a ship.”
I thought this was an excellent joke (I still do), but I never thought anyone would attempt to pull off a stunt like that outside the pages of a funny book. HOW TO DO CHALK
That was before I got my hands on a copy of Arts & SCULPTURE Crafts for Boys & Girls, by Helen Jill Fletcher (1954, Scrape away unwanted Paxton-Slade Publishing Co., 29 cents). portions of blackboard This 64-page activity book is printed on the kind chalk with a penknife, a of cheap pulp found in coloring books. The cover small pointed blade, or shows a boy holding a swell-looking toy sailboat a pin. Work slowly, exert- and airplane. The airplane is so impressive that the ing very little pressure girl (in an outfit that looks like it belongs in the von so that the chalk will not Trapp family) has turned her attention away from crumble. her painting mid-stroke to admire her brother’s craft-making skills. The look on her face is one of That’s it. near-psychotic glee. The project then goes on to show you “four
The book doesn’t have any projects involving views of a chalk Madonna figurine” followed by sailboats, airplanes, or painting. However, it does what appear to be an Egyptian pharaoh, a Balinese have instructions for making egg trees, egg faces, princess, a horse, and a sleepy giraffe. Fletcher egg baskets, egg gardens, and egg dolls. It also has thoughtfully drew a dotted line around each a guide to making a tin-and-rubber turtle, a tin-can figurine indicating the “unwanted portions” to be garden, tin-can bookends, and a tin-can birdhouse. scraped away. For children interested in smoking, Fletcher shows Just think how much sooner Michelangelo would them how to make an ashtray out of hollow plastic have completed his sculpture of David had he been tubing, sheet plastic, and cement. so fortunate as to have such sage tutelage! ×
But the project that reminded me of the Mad magazine piece is the chalk sculpture section. The Thanks to Mister Jalopy for sharing his copy of Arts & instructions, in their entirety, are provided at right. Crafts for Boys & Girls, which he procured at a yard sale.
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