Pope Francis Souvenirs... WHAT? How is it that Todd, a Quaker kid from Overbrook Farms and Fred, a vintage hot rod / surfer artist from Oslo, Norway, Christian yet unaffiliated with a church, get together to create some crazy cool prints of Pope Francis? I'm Todd, and I brought all this together. Though I'm plenty human and often fall short, I really try to celebrate joy, acknowledge joy, be joyfu
l and share joy. Might sound cornball to some and if so, tough! Though non Catholic, I've been fascinated with the changes at the Vatican. The former Pope and his frustration at not being able to make the changes needed in the structure of the way the Vatican is run, and all that, opened up a world to me that I didn't know existed. Pope Francis' election and his ability to step past rather than step into the sargasso perpetuating those desperately needed changes I found inspirational and brilliant. His method of walking into that situation and in addressing every major issue since is to not even acknowledge the entrenched parties with their howitzers dug in, and throw down his opening salvo with a message of love, and a question asking if we are living up to that love as called for by God? I loved that and from the beginning was not shy about bringing that up for lively conversation with friends. These were and are conversations with substance, and have been all the more exciting because of it. Soooooooooooooo, I discuss some ideas with one of my favorite artists in the world, Fred Lammers out of Oslo, Norway. His illustrations use the sort of wild style of early 1960s American cartoon hot rod and surf culture, but he has rocketed that to heights of cleverness and a sense of humor that always brings a smile to my face. My whole family loves his work, and every time I see something he's done, either sketches for fun or a poster for a rock and roll beach event in California or whatever, I am inspired by the disarmingly simple approach to design that makes you, sometimes, miss the well thought out sophistication there on the page. The discussion has been lively. We want to celebrate Francis' joy without in any way taking away from his message. We want to present him in a way that celebrates Fred's style, and put together a slowly growing body of work that when seen here on our Facebook and Etsy pages, you immediately get where we're coming from. I wanted to create large prints that people would look at 10, 20, 50 years from now and smile a warm smile. Now I know the people who will really be making money at the 2015 World Meeting of Families here in Philly will be the hot dog vendors and people selling little flags made in China. For most of the folks visiting, that is enough. We can't go to the vendor area with large prints and sell them, sending people home with cardboard tubes which would drive the security folks batty. Therefor we've set up this little shop on line. If you like the work, please share with friends and family here and far away. I sure like it, and everybody who has seen it, especially my Catholic friends and neighbors, has been pretty excited, and have made sure that is very clear to me! Speaking of my Catholic friends and neighbors, is there a MORE Catholic neighborhood in the Delaware Valley than Overbrook Farms? We've got St. Charles Borromeo Seminary where Pope Francis is staying two blocks in one direction, St. Joe's University four blocks in another direction, Our Lady of Lourdes church two blocks in yet another direction, a small friary around the corner (where me and my wife during a holiday meal asked a shorter, handsome older fellow if he played guitar, and upon hearing 'Yes' with a bright eyed grin we asked him if he was, in fact, Charlie Gracie. He was!!!) and my favorite, The Sisters of The Visitation. They're cloistered so I've only met one of them, but she's great. We met when I offered to come by and prune all the branches away from a statue of Jesus who was preaching to the underside of a canopy of pine boughs! Thanks, and enjoy! Check back regularly, as we will occasionally add another delightful print as inspiration strikes! We do have another shop on Etsy, by the way, with a very broad selection of pretty amazing historic prints. Called The Grand Review, you can find us at this link...
https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheGrandReview
