Continuing my latest 'sweeps month' (September, 2015), I offer you another work of 'classic typewriter art' (created over forty years ago)...

Inspired by a more talented artist who did a recreation of the "Mona Lisa" with a manual typewriter (which I saw in the "National Enquirer"), I'd tried my hand a similar art piece, using my mother's Royal manual typewriter.

One of my favorite comedy teams were Laurel & Hardy, whose film shorts were shown on "Let's Have Fun", a Sunday morning children's show (originating from New York City) - hosted by Chuck McCann (who, with make-up, can easily resemble Oliver Hardy). With the help of puppeteer Paul Ashley, he can also provide the voices of both Stan and Ollie through a pair of hand puppets that resemble the comedy duo. So, it came as no surprise that I'd decided to create 'typewriter art' of the two of them...

Using my electric light box, I'd traced a portrait image of Laurel & Hardy on a sheet of graph paper, and determined where to place the Xs, Os, and other keyboard characters (mostly punctuation marks, like periods, colons, commas, semi-colons, etc.). Then, placing a sheet of plain paper into my mother's Royal manual typewriter, I began the painstaking task of hitting the right keys - in order to make the imagery work out just right. (Of course, I had made a few mistakes, but they were rectified with little sheets of correction paper.)

Now, flash forward to August, 2015, when I had learned about Chuck McCann's 81th birthday on Facebook (where I'd 'friended' him, just a few year ago). As a birthday present, I'd posted my Laurel & Hardy 'typewriter art' on his wall, and added the following comment: "If you show off this artwork to any 'millennials', they will probably ask you two questions... (1) Who are Laurel & Hardy? and (2) What's a typewriter?!"

I'll have more 'classic typewriter art' next week. Meanwhile, your 'feedback' (pro and/or con) is more than welcome.

'Typewriter art' made by Jed Martinez