Neighborhood festival

Every year during the last weekend of April we're trapped in our Atlanta home. Surrounding streets are closed for one of the city's biggest outdoor events, the Inman Park Festival. We throw open our home to friends who hang out on the porch to talk, drink beer and wine, and watch the thousands of passersby milling around the vendor booths on the street. For many the highlight of the event is the somewhat ragtag Saturday afternoon parade. Just when you think the parade is over, some other group comes marching around the corner. It goes on for quite awhile. Before guests started arriving Saturday, I did a quick stroll and took some iPhone photos. The painted fabric sculpture is by an Atlanta artist, Wycliffe Lincoln Bennett. Mike Snowden of Marietta, Ga., plays one of the electric box guitars he makes. Nashville artist Mr. Hooper's paintings are cartoonish. Katherine Linn of Atlanta makes linoleum-block linocuts. The Clermont Lounge print shows an Atlanta nightspot famous for its topless senior women. AARP take note.

Toy face molds

Foundry artifacts. The second one looks like Elvis. The fourth one is copper.

Napoleon as a hitching post

Figural, painted cast iron coming up for sale at the Pook & Pook auction on May 5, featuring the collection of Mr. and Mrs. James Grievo. Mr. Grievo is a New Jersey antiques dealer. The description says the hitching post cap is "mid 19th c., in the form of a bust of Napoleon with finely detailed hair and piercing eyes above shoulders with epaulets and the initials M &W below the chin." It's 8 inches high.

Large midget sign

A wood sign slightly over 5 feet wide and 9.6 inches tall. The board is three-quarters of an inch thick. I guess it announced a sideshow featuring a midget.

Door opening owl

Takes your coat, too. Snapshot for sale by saratogastash.

I'd score it a 9

Snapshot available from House of Mirth.

Sewn and painted portrait

Profile of a woman done on linen. The head, with painted eyes and lips, is stuffed so it's raised from the background. Circa 1890.

The simplest game board

The peg game fox and geese dates to the Middle Ages. The fox tries to capture the geese while the geese try to trap the fox so that it cannot move, as I understand it. This small game board is 1-inch thick and features graphite lines connecting the holes. Some of the holes go all the way through, others don't. Its spareness appeals to me.

Urban realism

Roy Ferdinand (d. 2004) was a New Orleans artist who called his work "urban realism." His paintings on poster board of tough neighborhoods were unflinching. He was quoted as saying, "A lot of times I've used people I've known who've died on the street." That certainly seems to be the case here. Ferdinand died of cancer, pretty much penniless. He was only 45.

Al Jolson imitator

A scary looking, incorrect performer wearing baseball mitts as he imitates Al Jolson. Jolson was famous for performing in blackface yet was a champion of African-American performers, according to what I read on the Internet. He died in 1950 at age 64.

Antique anatomy model of skin

Painted plaster, could be 19th century. Looks like abstract art. The skin description is an assumption.

Over-the-top tiki mask

A carved wood creation that because of its creative paint decoration is better than kitsch. Tiki masks originated in Polynesia but quickly spread to other places where spirituality is important, such as bars in Florida and elsewhere. They depict gods or mythical figures. I believe this is the god of fruity drinks with small umbrellas. It might be as early as the 1920s judging from the wear.

Relaxing with Movie Story

Movie Story magazine was published from 1937 to 1951 when it was absorbed by Motion Picture magazine. The young woman here is transported by the glamorous lives described in Movie Story -- lives far removed from hers. I like how her feet in dirty socks rest on a film beauty's face.