The Bell and Marcus Three-Ring Circus

Years ago, Bolinas artist Terry Bell and our neighbor, craftsman Jim Marcus created a series of rubber stamps based on circus performers. They were wonderful and Lesley and I ended up buying a set.

However, they weren’t able to sell enough sets to make it a viable business. Terry passed away a few years ago.

Recently Jim decided to create some 3D objects from the drawings; here is Jim’s description of the process:

“I decided to try mounting the stamped images on ¹/₁₆″ plywood and cutting them out on my scroll saw with a very thin blade.

I was surprised at the different presence they had, and am enjoying making more of them.

The bases seem to give them an importance that they didn’t have on sheets of paper … but the forms are so beautifully drawn, that seen in this way, I think they can be ‘seen’ as the beautiful pieces they are.”

Here is Jim’s description of the project:

Many years ago, Terry Bell and I used to play darts in my shop.

This was about the time of the very earliest “art” rubber stamp companies that were developing that idea mostly in San Francisco.

At that time “art” stamps available were mostly images copied from engravings in old books. Though beautifully drawn, engravings had lines that were too close to be made to be used with dye based ink pads as they would bleed together. Also, there was no “scale” to them, and a stamp based on an elepahant engraving would be about the same size as a similar stamp of a butterfly engraving. Because of this lack of scale, only quirky stamped pictures could be made from them.

My background was in making miniature houses, and in that arena there was (at the time) a prevailing scale of one inch = one foot.
This allowed someone who made chairs wherever they lived in the world could sell their chair to someone who had bought a house made in California, for example, and because both had been made to the same scale, the chair would fit well in the room scene of that house.

I was reflecting on this as we played darts, and mused that a universe of characters could be drawn that would be in scale with one another, and were intended to be used with one another, but HOW they would be used would be up to the user.
Terry thought about this and suggested a Circus was one of the few places where people, animals, and things interacted.

Though seemingly a simple and obvious idea, it wasn’t being done in rubber stamps. I drove Terry to a stamp show in San Jose that was mobbed at the time, and he could see that people actually bought these things.

Terry had been a botanical illustrator for a while, and had a unique way of drawing things accurately with a stipple technique. I persuaded him to give this idea a try, and he drew two clowns…and we had them made into single rubber stamps and he enjoyed how they could be used .

We chose to make “our” circus as though it would have appeared around the turn of the century, when there was no tv, and traveling circuses were a way people actually found out what a Lion or Zebra or Tiger looked like.

The costume designs of the time tended to be based on old military uniforms, and Terry adopted that idea. We wanted to make a “timeless” circus.

He drew many characters for the expanding idea of our circus in secret for over a year since we were concerned the idea could be copied, and then came out with our first catalogue in 1981. Michael Rafferty was of enormous help in getting that made beautifully.

Both Michael and later his brother Mark helped in various ways in the manufacture of the stamps and helping our little company.

One of the most interesting things to me of the various characters Terry drew was that he would design them often to be used in different positions.

The striped clowns, for example, were of equal height, and could be used standing on their hands or feet, or on their side, or on one another. We condeived our circus as an “elegant toy”.

Even the seemingly unimportant props were just as carefully drawn as the rest. For example, when drawing a “chin cup” which would be used to balance a small ball by the acrobats, one can see that even this tiny prop contained a great deal of detail in the drawing.

Our company went out of business some years ago. In part, it was created in a time when people mailed and wrote letters, and stamps were a way of making things a little more personal. Now we have email, and only mail bills.

Also, it turned out the general rubber stamper really only wanted an angel, frog, unicorn, or like that…and not nine scaled tigers. We had some “fans” and many bought all of our circus, but there weren’t enough of them.

Recently I began to wonder what the characters so carefully drawn as stamped images might look like if presented on bases, as little sculptures… rather than stamped on a larger piece of paper. I stamp the actual stamp on paper and color it, then adhere it to a very thin (¹/₁₆″) piece of plywood and cut it out carefully on a scroll saw, then sand the edges and enclose a base around the bottom on which the image seems to stand.

I have continued to find this an interesting way they could be “seen”. The images presented here are a few examples of the way I am finding to see them.

I truly wish Terry could see his beautiful drawings presented in this way. I am pretty sure he would have enjoyed ’em.

–Jim Marcus