Mary Engelbreit v. Lisa Frank

I think because I was younger and more impressionable in the eighties, I have more of a soft spot for 1980s nostalgia (Michael Jackson, Family Ties, leg warmers) than I do for 1990s nostalgia (Julia Roberts, Lilith Fair, dress clips). I put this to the test going through my Mary Engelbreit stickers. Let me make it clear that I love her work as an illustrator, but some of her concepts are whimsical and nonsensical in a way I don't really get.

 

I mean, I do get it: chair of bowlies. Cute. I might like it better without the caption.

 Princess of Quite a Lot. Okay. Like of nail polish and cake?

Many of her designs seemed targeted toward suburban, middle-aged women who enjoyed gardening, tea, and platitudes.

These are just adorable illustrations. For some reason the words and overall themes don't grab me. I wonder if I'd be more into them if I'd been introduced to concepts like "time for tea" when I was twelve.

The reason I wonder this is that I was super-into Lisa Frank, whose airbrushed designs scream commercialism, whose colors are garish and whose designs make no sense at all. Granted, Lisa Frank was marketed at kids and Mary Engelbreit at readers of Victoria magazine, but still. I understand the appeal of Lisa Frank, even today.

Yes!  A bear on a rainbow ice cream cone! Clouds raining hearts! Lands made up of junk food!

 I don't need to take mushrooms to accept at face value cats embracing rainbow moons, oversized clowns with unicorns in their hands, or tropical birds hanging on upside-down rainbows in the sky. Nope, no explanation needed.

Perhaps I just have a preference for the rococo, but it's also true that my tastes in 1986 were unsophisticated and, as a results, my standards for excellence were lower then.

Loved it.

So I have to wonder if my preferences are skewed as the result of my age. Or is Mary Engelbreit simply too grown-up and wordy?

Happy New Year!

A little late.

Countdown to Christmas: Lisa Frank

I don't know. I mean, I don't mean to be a grouch. But in my opinion, there's something about Lisa Frank that doesn't work well with the holiday aesthetic. Tripped-out unicorns and teddy bears are fine at any other time of the year--but not at Christmas.

Stoned bear as Santa, maybe. But why the inverted rainbow and heart on the unicorn's ass? What about that says Yuletide cheer?

What the eighties mean to me

Anyone who gets the title of this post without Googling it gets a sticker!

Anywho, when perusing my old sticker collection I realized that there are certain stickers that have a kind of retro cachet (like rainbows, unicorns, and Strawberry Shortcake) and then there are those that stay stuck in the 1980s. There are just certain things that we all liked in the 1980s that seem unlikely ever to be revived. A short list:

1. Mimes. I went as a mime for Halloween twice, in 1985 and 1987. I was very into the face makeup.

This was my "favorite sticker" for a while. I think I was impressed that it was made in France (but purchased in Quebec on a family vacation):

Now I look at it and think, supermodel posing for Summer's Eve print ad.

2. Teddy Bears dressed up like humans and photographed. This was actually a thing for a while, but I haven't seen it in years.

Jogging, naturally.

3. Dressing up like punks. Again, me, Halloween: 1984. Better of course if you can get teddy bears to dress up like punks and photograph them. 

Or whatever.

4. Junk food as art form, for junk food's sake. This was clearly before the obesity epidemic. It was before cholesterol became a household word. It was the era of McDonald's ads supporting the 1984 Olympics on TV, Webster as the spokesperson for Burger King, and ...

 

worrying not just about Star Wars but Junk Food Wars.

This sticker is an airbrushed image of a double bacon cheeseburger. Let's just think about that for a minute.

Nobody combined junk foods like Lisa Frank. What could possibly improve an airbrushed bacon double cheeseburger?

Only airbrushed layer cake, teddy bears, and ice cream, that's what.

Don't forget the unicorn on top!

Monday

Monday can mean only one thing: back to work, and back to school. I will write more about Lisa Frank in the future, but for now, only one question: why where there never pink unicorns prancing outside my school? (And a second question: what kind of drugs are those teddy bears on, anyway?)