Marital Mirth

It's June.

Which means two things: The White Sox have guaranteed another losing season by going into their annual “June swoon,” and it’s the traditional month for weddings.

Well, I won’t hazard a guess as to why things are the way they are on the South Side of Chicago. But I can share some historical insight on the latter subject.

Welcome to the June edition of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist, from Caricatures by Joel.

In ancient Rome, Juno was the goddess of marriage and childbirth. So a wedding held in Juno’s month of celebration – what would have been June 1 -- was considered especially auspicious.

It is also believed that the idea of June weddings was further fortified by the Celtic calendar. Young couples would traditionally “pair off” on May 1 (May Day), to court for three months and then wed in August. Impatient youths would shorten the wait time to mid-June.

Subsequently, in Victorian times, flowers were available at that time of year for wedding décor and the scent of flowers helped to mask the smell of…body odor.

Eventually the popularity of June weddings became entrenched in the collective conscience of Western society.

After June, the most popular months to get married are September and October, presumably for the more accommodating temperatures to be found in late Summer and early Fall.

As a caricaturist, I’ve had my share of entertaining at weddings. It’s always a popular feature with lines forming almost as long as those to get the food.

Scattered among here are samples of Sign-In Boards – a uniquely fun and customized approach to welcoming guests into the reception area. 

You’ve probably seen them as elegantly posed and mounted photos of the bride and groom. These are lighter, more whimsical takes on that tradition.

This piece isn't a Sign-In Board, per se, but it was presented as a gift to Miami-based wedding event planner and TV personality Tiffany Nieves-Cook: 

You're invited the first Tuesday of next month for more throwing of the rice from Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.

Play Ball!

It's April. And that means it's time for another season (lasting a full seven months, actually) of the National Pastime. Now, in our country's current collective consciousness, that title may refer to Football. But to those of us who are old-fashioned purists for the term, that means the greatest game this country ever invented -- Baseball.

Welcome to the April edition of Not Your Usual Caricature Artist.

Before you say Basketball is the greatest game we ever invented, here's an historical tidbit: James W. Naismith, the athletics coach at what later became the University of Springfield (Mass.), created the game of Basketball in 1891 as a form of recreation and exercise during the winter months, to keep active until the Spring...his school Baseball players.

But I digress.

 

Since many of you know me as a fan of the superlative caricature and cartoon art of Mad Magazine, I thought I'd team up my two passions and display some of the fun Mad has had with Baseball through the years:



Surprisingly, I find I've done next to nothing on Baseball myself. Save for this recent piece I did for a good friend of mine with whom I went to The High School of Music & Art in New York.  Mike Brent has gone on to a happy and fulfilling career as a wonderful painter and portraitist:

 

Although we're not looking at purely baseball players here, these are two Bar mitzvah boys -- one of whom, the young man in the hat, is my son Benjamin -- who enjoyed the game along with others.

 

I'm fudging with this last guy. He, of course, is an NBA icon and principal owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, soon to be Charlotte Hornets. But in 1994, he followed his father's original dream for him and played minor league ball for the Chicago White Sox affiliate Birmingham Barons. Over 127 games, he hit a meager .202, but managed to drive in 51 runs and steal 30 bases!



Good thing, however, he soon went back to his day job.

My monthly job is to send out this newsletter. 

Hope you enjoyed Not Your Usual Caricature Artist. Look for it again the first Tuesday of next month.

Joel Kweskin