Bookantics Art and Antiques Maintained by:   tomgravy( 1216) Eclectic interests and a delight in the unusual. Often featured are Lawrence, KS artists such as Outsider artist DIX; Sculpture Thomas Kellogg; Painter and Potter Nancy Hubble; and 92 yr old Grassroots folk artist Betty Milliken

Apologies to all as we will be offline and unavailable for a few days. We will be back at the computer again on May 24th so please check back then.

We will reopen with many new items and old ones on sale! We will also be selling books and smalls in lots so stop back by for some amazing items.

Thanks to one and all for your patience and valued patronage. It is our great pleasure to be part of your ebay experience,

Thomas and Nancy

Back to previous page  THE WONDERFUL OBSESSION: ART IN ITS MANY FORMS Betty wearing her newest creation: December 28th, 2002 IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS Sunday, November 24, 2002 Lawrence Journal World Lawrence, Kansas Sunday, November 24, 2002 Lawrence IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS Age, vision loss fail to cripple artist's creative spirit By Mindie Paget, Arts Editor Hundreds of tiny eyes stare up from a table in Betty Milliken front room. They're windows to the world for diminutive faces molded in bubble gum, window caulk and grapefruit skin. The entire room is lined with shelves bearing stacks of trays, each holding another layer of strange miniature likenesses ?" the children of Milliken obsessively artistic imagination. Even friends have been horrified by the bizarre shrunken heads. But Milliken, yet an eccentric free spirit at age 91, has been slowed only by her own vision, fading after decades of working in dimensions fit for a doll house. She's about 80 percent blind now. In her minds eye, though, she recalls her first experiments in portraiture: a handful of pecans that, for whatever reason, she decided would make ideal canvasses. She was 18. still don't know what fascinated me to make a little face on that pecan,she says. Her penchant for mugs never went away. She can really explain why. don know. Maybe when I looked in the mirror I thought, can do better than that, she says, giggling. Utterly self-taught, Milliken media through the years have been photography, painting and sculpture. She sings a charming soprano and plays a mean ukulele. Scott McClurg/Journal-World Photos Lawrence artist Betty Milliken, 91, has been translating her creative tendencies into photographs, portraits, cameos and tiny sculptures for seven decades. She will sell her unique work created from materials like chewing gum, grapefruit skins and window caulk during Saturday Bizarre Bazaar at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H. Below are two faces Milliken created using apple and pear pulp. Her work is displayed at the Grassroots Art Center in Lucas and will be for sale Saturday at the Bizarre Bazaar at the Lawrence Arts Center. e got hobbies, so I never get lonesome,Milliken says. can reminisce through some of these hobbies and make a regular movie out of it. Crafty crafter Milliken ?" petite, slender but hardly fragile ?" plops down on her couch. It draped in leopard print fleece and a patchwork of crocheted afghans. his is my throne,she says. She slips off her bright red sandals and pulls her right foot nearly to her chest. (Remember, she 91.) She stays limber and light on her feet by practicing accupressure. She swears by the kneading therapy; it her secret to longevity. The secret to her unique artistry lies in thrift and whimsy. She converts ordinary household items ?" the pulps and skins of fruits, bread dough, baby powder, chewing gum, cotton balls, roofing tar, tub and tile grout ?" into inventive art objects. Born in 1911 in Detroit, Mich., Milliken was a child of the Great Depression, always very much aware of her immigrant Hungarian family meager financial means. It forced her to be resourceful, and the habits stuck. Literally. Chewing gum, she discovered, works well as a material to make molds because it sticks in place while she works it into the shapes she desires. How do you turn gum into clay? You chew it. ou gotta get all the sugar out of it. You make it hard by leaving it set out. Then you make patties out of it,she explains, mashing her hands together. e chewed everything. The Big Red is good if you like that flavor. Cinnaburst holds it better than anything. Milliken has learned through trial and error what works best. One tray of cameos holds 20 or 30 versions of the same little boy face. Each cameo is made of a different combination of substances. he an experimenter,said Milliken daughter, Lawrence artist Nancy Hubble. he considers herself an inventor. f it around, she collects it and uses it. One of her cameos wears a tiny baby blue hat Milliken knitted years ago. Another bears locks of Milliken own hair. Grapefruits and grassroots Milliken worked in a Florida grapefruit factory in the 1970s. Now, grapefruit skins have become one of her main work surfaces. ho ever thought?she says, smiling at the irony. Milliken lets the skins dry, turn brown and a little leathery before piercing them from behind and stuffing bits of cotton between the membrane and the rind to create relief. Faces emerge. She paints the cheeks and other features, sometimes adding clothes she clips from magazines, and seals the face with shellac or clear nail polish. In keeping with the definition of a rassrootsartist, Milliken has no formal artistic training. Back when bread didn cost more than 10 cents a loaf, she check out a dozen books at a time from the local library and extend the due dates until she had scoured every last word. That how she taught herself just about everything beyond her eighth-grade education. She hasn been able to read words on a page or work on such a small scale without assistance since last December, when her second eye began to succumb to macular degeneration. She gets help from her daughter and son-in-law, and she slowly learning to use a tool she got from Vocational Rehabilitation that lights and magnifies objects. he worked in such tiny detail,Hubble says. ow wee trying to work bigger. For Milliken ?" forever the optimist ?" the size doesn really matter so much as long as she can get the artistic impulses in her mind out into the tangible world. hat what I want to do with these eyes,she says. You and I would throw it away. Betty makes it into something! THE STUFF OF DREAMS The following is a partial list of materials experimented with individually and often in combination with one or more of the other materials on the list Used to make cameos sculpture, bas-relief and skin heads. Anything goes! Apples, prunes and pears - pulp and skins Bread dough Baby powder Casting resin Chewing gum (the newer gums do not work as well as the old ones) Contact shelf paper Cotton balls Crayola Model Magic Fabric ( rayon nightgowns, cheese cloth, felt, gauze bandage, cotton) Found feathers Fingernail polish in clear and colors Various sorts of Glues (Sobo, Elmer..) Grapefruit and orange skin or rind Her own hair, her dog hair. Library paste Modeling clays of various patents Mylar, can lids, buttons,bottletops and bits of plastic used as backing Nuts - Pecan Paints of various kinds (Fabric, oils, acrylic Paper mache Pipe dope Pipe cleaners Plaster of Paris Plastic grocery bags Plasticine Plant leaf Pottery clay Rubber mold compound Road asphalt Roofing tar Rouge Sculpy in various forms Styrofoam food trays and noodles Talcum powder Tub and tile grout Varnish, shellac and clear acryrillic Window glazing compound Winterizing caulks and silicone Wood putty Favorite Items Betty Milliken NESSIE & THE PROM QUEENS 2002 (Check it out!) Favorite Links A close up of the latest necklace.. grapefruitskin, old wig, catfood tin can lid, old felt, braided yarn, nailpolish. To protect bidder privacy, when the price or highest bid on an item reaches or exceeds a certain level, User IDs will be displayed as anonymous names. For auction items, a bold price means at least one bid has been received. Note: Anonymous names may appear more than once and may represent different bidders. Look for Betty's Nessie and the PROM QUEENS Item Start End Price Title High Bidder/Status 110051484574 Nov-02-06 Dec-16-09 21:38:29 $49.88 RARE! Letters of A Roman Gentleman McKinlay 1926 Cicero Available 110084681630 Jan-26-07 Dec-11-09 19:35:46 $8.00 The Enlightened Mind Anthology of Sacred Prose MITCHELL Available 110084681847 Jan-26-07 Dec-11-09 19:36:29 $28.00 A Player's Place, Story of the Actors Studio AL Pacino Available 110084682184 Jan-26-07 Dec-11-09 19:37:44 $28.00 RARE Elville English & Irish Cut Glass 1750-1950 Available 110084684472 Jan-26-07 Dec-11-09 19:46:11 $48.00 RARE Elville ENGLISH TABLE GLASS 1960 LONDON Country Lf Available 110084684995 Jan-26-07 Dec-11-09 19:48:17 $28.00 The Old China Book by Hudson Moore (1935) Available 110152306470 Jul-23-07 Dec-09-09 13:58:34 $36.00 VG 1st ED! BOGART & HEPBURN Making of the African Queen Available 110185515960 Oct-26-07 Dec-14-09 18:45:04 $204.44 1st MINT SIGNED The Moor's Last Sigh RUSHDIE #489/1000 Available 110215109128 Jan-15-08 Dec-05-09 20:26:25 $288.00 Ultimate Eames ERA Fish Platter A. RAY ARTIST SIGNED LT Available 310079302395 Aug-29-08 Dec-22-09 14:19:33 $64.88 Antique ART DECO REPOUSSEE’ SILVER Bowl Hand hammered! Available 310164171054 Aug-24-09 Dec-22-09 19:32:52 $20.00 INDIAN BUFFALO HUNT Listed Choctaw Artist Danny Miller Private Listing Go see all current items for sale by this member. User:skitszo( 194)  Date:Nov-13-09 02:11:10 PST Praise: Very nice print User:parkwood2473( 6178)  Date:Nov-02-09 12:39:28 PST Praise: Good buyer, prompt payment, valued customer, highly recommended. User:blingdropoffstore( 3312)  Date:Aug-23-09 20:55:54 PDT Praise: Thank you for an easy, pleasant transaction. Excellent buyer. A++++++. User:redchestnut( 324)  Date:Aug-12-09 12:35:23 PDT Praise: extremly well packed , thanks a million User:checkback669c( 542)  Date:Jun-04-09 04:22:48 PDT Praise: Quick pay, thanks! User:checkback669c( 542)  Date:Jun-04-09 04:22:48 PDT Praise: Quick pay, t hanks! User:checkback669c( 542)  Date:Jun-04-09 04:22:48 PDT Praise: Quick pay, thanks! User:k.hannah( 5267)  Date:May-03-09 15:41:18 PDT Praise: Thanks very much! I hope you enjoy the book! User:rredster( 1933)  Date:Apr-30-09 15:25:12 PDT Praise: Book was received as described. Many thanks! User:mydakotamailbox( 2278)  Date:Apr-29-09 13:20:41 PDT Praise: Lightning fast payment. Thank you for your purchase. A++++++++++ To see all feedback for this member, go to the Member Profile page. View this member's Reviews & Guides. View this member's My World page. To create your own About Me page, click here.