This is an archived edition of our Field Report email newsletter. You can sign up at the bottom of the page!
Greetings from Fat Gold!
In this edition of the Field Report, we want to talk about: ART.
The tins we send to annual subscribers are labeled not with a sticker, but a magnet, which subscribers can keep and save if they wish. (A rarified few display a COMPLETE SET of Fat Gold magnets on their refrigerators; spectacular.)
Every time we design one of these magnets, we say, “This is our favorite one ever!”
But really… December’s might be our favorite one ever.
About a month ahead of each shipment, we talk about potential hooks or themes (is this oil especially grassy? was the harvest a total shitshow?) then go looking for public domain art that speaks to us.
What’s the public domain? It’s the art no longer covered by copyright. The details vary a bit, country to country, but in the U.S., any work of art, in any medium, produced before 1923 is part of the public domain, free for anyone to use, for any purpose.
Why the public domain? Years ago, we discovered that this kind of interpretation and adaptation adds a feeling that we really like. Call it depth; call it gravitas; call it randomness—whatever it is, it’s become the visual signature of our single-variety batches.
We like the politics of the public domain, too: the somewhat utopian idea that all art should eventually “belong” to everyone. (And remember, Robin is a novelist, so he has a material stake in all this.)
There was a cryptic theme running through last harvest’s magnets, all four of them. We have wondered if any of our subscribers picked up on it. Here they are; can you spot the feature they share?
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The answer is: they all portray people, or faces. If you look at all the magnets we’ve ever sent, you’ll discover that’s rare. Last year, we decided to give humans a chance. (You can find links to the original works of art over here.)
We’ve chosen a new theme for the new harvest’s magnets, though it will remain secret until we’ve shipped all four. We do think it will be possible to guess the theme, after the next one arrives in March.
The first magnet in the series, the one shown above—which you’ll receive if you snag a tin in our flash sale—was adapted from Autumn Evening with Full Moon on Musashino Plain, produced in Japan in the early 1600s, a six-fold screen with gold and silver foil on gilded paper:
Wow!
That image is from the amazing collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. When we go hunting for art, it’s always one of our first stops, along with:
- The Art Institute of Chicago
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- The National Gallery of Denmark
- The Rijksmuseum
- The Smithsonian Institution
- The Getty Museum
There are lots more to choose from, of course—but these institutions all make it not only possible, but easy, to access high-resolution copies of the public domain art in their collections.
From the archives,
–Robin, Kathryn, and Bryan