![\"Priscilla](\"http:\/\/www.catdoodles.com\/dailydoodle\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/priscilla-bday-640.jpg\" "\\"Priscilla")
<\/a><\/p>\nIn Priscilla\u2019s honor, I\u2019m posting something a little different today, that I know she\u2019d enjoy: some vintage monkey business by the late Jim Lunde, talented Chicago designer, prolific doodler, and her great, good friend. Lunde and Mom (before she was \u201cMom\u201d), worked alongside each other at Container Corporation of America, under Albert Kner, in the late 1940s\/early 1950s.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how the camera captured Mom at Container (left), and how Lunde did (at right). \u00a0\u2014Like I needed to point out to you which was which. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
These wonderful (and sometimes wicked) little Lunde masterpieces\u2014the ones Mom squirreled away, anyway\u2014were mostly drawn on little scraps of paper that Lunde used to wipe his paintbrushes on as he was working\u2014this being back in the day when graphic designers hand-lettered type. A little daub of paint would likely catch his eye and spark an idea — the way someone else might see a shape in a cloud formation that looked like a bunny, perhaps.<\/p>\n But in Lunde\u2019s case it wasn\u2019t bunnies, but birds, that he imagined, and which gave birth to many a character and visual pun, like this \u201cshoebill stork\u201d he doodled for Priscilla\u2019s 24th birthday…a July 11th, 63 years ago.<\/p>\n Here are a couple of Lunde\u2019s more flattering drawings of Mom\u2014and a couple that aren\u2019t. The caption on the second one from the left reads: \u201cYou look positively vibrating this morning. Did you sleep on your head?\u201d \u2014A reference not only to the vibration of green against magenta, but to a jarringly bad hair day Priscilla must have been having\u2014I guess!<\/p>\n One almost has to see these drawings \u201cin the flesh\u201d though, to fully appreciate them and their inventiveness. (Which is what Mom was so charmed by, I think. \u2014That, and their humor.)<\/p>\n Here\u2019s one where Lunde has made a miniature Pris head on a photograph of an eye. The doodle is half an inch tall\u2014I’ve included Lunde\u2019s letterhead for scale, and at right, a blow-up of the pupil area so you can see the fine detail.<\/p>\n Sometimes Lunde glued in little bits of things, like a dried flower petal, making the gown for the dancer at right.<\/p>\n Wherever you are, Mom, and whomever you\u2019re with, here\u2019s lookin\u2019 at you! Lots of love on your birthday, and always. And thank you Mr. Lunde for your fabulous drawings…the delight they gave Mom, and \u00a0still give the rest of us. What can I say? Your genius lives on!<\/p>\n Meanwhile, greetings to all my friends on a Wednesday evening. Thanks for your kind patience between my (hardly daily) doodles, and hope life has been treating you well since we last visited. I\u2019ll look forward to connecting again real soon. Meanwhile, many happy dreams, and all the best!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today marks the third year that we\u2019re having Mom\u2019s birthday without her, Priscilla having passed away in May of 2010. But even though I still miss her terribly, it feels like a happy day to me\u2014a chance to celebrate and … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Somewhere in her career as one of Lunde\u2019s (many) doodle muses\u2014no co-worker was safe, even the boss\u2014Mom acquired the pet name \u201cPearl.\u201d Was it because of her pearly whites? It seems entirely possible.<\/p>\n<\/a>Below is the only drawing in Mom\u2019s treasure box where Lunde has drawn her as a human female. The joke seems to be, at five o\u2019clock she leaves the office and is magically transformed from the strange Lunde-bird-creature she is at work, into someone with a neat hairdo and pressed clothes. \u2014His admission, perhaps, that she\u2019s more attractive than he portrays her as being? (What is it with those feet, though?)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Jim Lunde passed away some years ago, but I like to think that he and Mom have reconnected and are sharing \u00a0a birthday toast tonight\u2014maybe even have a peephole into cyberspace, so they can revisit his drawings, and reminisce about good times at Container. Or who knows: Maybe Lunde is still doodling…a\u00a0Priscilla\/Pearl angel-bird with a broken harp and clumsy footwear? (Maybe!)<\/p>\n