Ferrebeekeeper Image

Don’t change that channel! Long-time readers who glance at the top of the page may erroneously think they have stumbled into a different blog, but nothing could be further from the truth. After many years of happily blogging with our old banner (the inimitable moralizing masterpiece “Beer Street and Gin Lane” by William Hogarth) Ferrebeekeeper is moving to a painting specially made for this blog.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the presence of mind to actually paint the image to fit the strange squashed aspect ratio of WordPress blog banners, so most days you will have to content yourself with looking at a central slice of the full image (click here for larger resolution).

For today though, here is the entire work.  You can see some of the various themes of Ferrebeekeeper represented in this strange floating flatfish.  A hive of industrious bees works away collecting the pollen from a colorful garden as a gothic angel wielding a farm implement watches from the sky.  A  stern bee-like woman with a Canadian waterfowl and a garden snail watches the bees work beneath a jeweled crown of gold and a celestial star (which represents astronomy).  In the right side of the sky, a pigeon flies up into the clouds (perhaps startled by the green serpent).  The central fish hovers above a sunset sea where a Chinese junk sails on to a historical Gothic city (near-future blogging plans include a great deal more writing about metropolises of the past, present, and future).

I omitted my favorite theme “Deities of the Underworld” in favor of the large central flounder itself.  As you may have gathered, the flatfish is currently of paramount symbolic import in my work and represents topology, ecology, history, and the ever-changing life cycle.  At the more outre range of these meanings, however, the benthic fish is a sort of emissary between the world of life and the dark gods beneath (an interpretation sharpened by humankind’s merciless depredations of the bottom-dwelling fish).  The new banner is also an attempt to bring my various pursuits more closely together: a sort of “branding” exercise if you will (I also hope you will kindly forgive this vulgar language borrowed MBA programs–I usually try to speak more coherently and elegantly, but lately I have been feeling somewhat at-sea and I am willing to borrow some terminology and concepts from these execrable rogues).  Speaking of cross-branding, you may want to check out the great flounder oracle!  Ask it questions, and the sagacious fish answers with the truth of the deep!

I hope you like my new banner.  Like most artwork not made on a computer it looks better in the real world, but at least it suits the theme of the blog.  As always, let me know what you think and get ready to read more about cities (and maybe see some more enigmatic fish-themed art).  Thanks again for reading and I will see you here tomorrow!

 

Pullman Brown

So, I tremendously appreciated all of the thoughtful responses to last week’s post about branding.  I took all of your kind words and good ideas to heart and I am continuing to mull over the secret mysteries of what makes some things so profoundly popular.  In fact, this concept of branding (and the psychological and practical underpinnings of recognizable things) bears on today’s post about color…specifically about the color brown, which Ferrebeekeeper has shamefully overlooked in the many posts concerning different hues.  But first, we must digress back to America’s railroad past…

Pullman Car Interior. Box #16 Folder #723.

The Pullman Co. was a railroad concern which operated sleeping cars from 1867 until 1968 throughout the United States. The name was legendary for comfort, style, and service.  Pullman was a visionary entrepreneur who discovered inspiration in a bad railroad journey he had suffered during his youth. This uncomfortable ordeal became the impetus for a lifelong obsession with traveling well.  His cars featured comfortable foldaway beds, separator drapes, fashionable furniture, and other amenities unknown in the day. In time there were even libraries, dining rooms, and rolling kitchens which served meals cooked on the (traveling) premises.

The Pullman Co. also played a big role in African American history, since the attendants who worked on Pullman cars—the equally legendary Pullman porters–were largely black.  The porters’ union was important in American labor struggles and was one of the first nationally organized entities to stand up for African-American concerns at the workplace and beyond.

In fact, the story of the company touches on all sorts of different aspects of late nineteenth and early twentieth century life. There was a sprawling company town in Illinois where everything was Pullman.  There were horrifying strikes, and strange incestuous deals with railroad monopolies, and all sorts of turn of the century business and political shenanigans.  Eventually there were manufacturing alliances, and anti-trust cases. However all of this is part of a different & bigger story…

Gosh…

As the railroads were replaced by highly dangerous automobiles, the Pullman Company attempted to branch out into trolleys and even buses, but the concept of comfortable and elegant travel was doomed to fade from the world.  Sadly the era of luxury travel by light rail has receded into the storied past and Pullman cars seem like they belong to a vastly bygone era—like clipper ships, powdered wigs, or eel pies.

A Brunswick Green Locomotive with Pullman Brown Cars

However, the name does not just live on in sad railroad ballads, it also had an associated color—Pullman brown.   Pullman selected a shade of brown for aesthetic reasons and because it was easy to clean (no mean feat on a nineteenth century railroad).   Presumably he liked the color too (although here I am speculating). When the company died, this color lived on…and there was another national company which operated big boxy wheeled things ready to pounce.  People who have never seen a Pullman sleeper car should instantly recognize the color, because UPS uses it as an integral part of their brand.  All UPS trucks and uniforms are Pullman brown.

The reasons for this are multifold. Perhaps most importantly most parcels were (and are) packaged in brown cardboard so the association was natural.  Also the color apparently is easy to keep clean (or perhaps a more punctilious person would say it doesn’t show dirt).   Apparently, early on, UPS discovered that people had fond memories of Pullman brown and associated it with luxury and competence. Today UPS has all sorts of trademarks, patents, and suchlike legalistic protections over the color (!) and it is even part of their off-putting slogan “What can Brown do for you?”  I wonder what other corporate branding choices trace their history back into bygone worlds.

Ferrebeekeeper?

Honey Bundt Cake (Wayne Ferrebee, 2013, oil on panel)

OK, I need some help from you. It’s necessary to build Ferrebeekeeper into a more consolidated online platform which combines my twitter feed, my art gallery, my Etsy store, and, above all this blog. The question is whether I should build outward from this extant brand or do I need to start afresh with a new name? Come to think of it, are you all even out there or am I talking to some nefarious WordPress algorithm that generates a random number of “views” every day?

The cropped version of William Hogarth’s “Gin Lane” which I have used as a banner forever

OK, let’s not get distracted by meta-questions and stick with the fundamental naming issue: Ferrebeekeeper is a sort of play on words concerning my surname “Ferrebee” and a place to keep things like a “file keeper”. Best of all, the roots combine together to evoke beekeepers! Long ago, my webmaster was crafting a site for the now defunct line of toys I designed. She randomly typed my name into a website which was selling names and it corrected her: “did you mean FERREBEEKEEPER?” Obviously that was no good for selling toys, but later on I adopted it as a provisional name for my personal blogging project and it has stuck…until now.

Oh gosh! Oh gosh! [hyperventilating from generalized business anxiety]

According to marketing MBAs, when it comes to branding, shorter is always better. Maybe they are on to something: ”Zoomorphs” (the name of the aforementioned toys) was two syllables long and a real English word and yet people still got completely lost on how to pronounce it or say it. I had friends who called the toys “zoomers” for years. Erudite classicists would ask about Zoo-O-morphs as though inquiring about the state of the world’s phytoplankton. People would look at it and give up and just say “uh these zoo things…” Now think of how much worse it is with a 5 syllable name! Ferr-e-bee-kee-per…might as well be an obscure village in Wales or a metabolic pathway that nobody talks about. So MBAs would hate this name…but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. After all, the world they have made is catchy & easy to remember but ever so meretricious.

Ferrebeekeeper Mascot?

On the positive side of Ferrebeekeeper, everyone knows what beekeepers do and they are well liked. Beekeeping is an ancient useful art stretching back to prehistory. It says something about the blog itself too: handling ideas is a complex craft which can yield sweet sweet results, but which can also result in mass attack by a stinging swarm. “Ferre” is a prefix which means iron. Iron beekeeper sounds pretty amazing. I could even have my own iron beekeeper mascot! Also I don’t risk losing fans and followers by making a transition to…to what exactly? Some tech-sounding one syllable name? They must all be gone by now.

The tech names WERE all gone other than “eferrebeekeeper” Hmm…people DO like the letter “e”

Anyway, please let me know what you think! I know how smart everyone is from all of your clever comments: now would be a good time to help out with your opinion…