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Printed Ephemera
INSIDE MARK RUCKER'S WORLD OF TREASURES & PLEASURES
» Thursday 4 December 2008 | 5 pm
» The Bohemian Café, 524 Bernard Avenue
An informal afternoon hour showcasing people and ideas featured in Okanagan ARTS. Join us as Mark Rucker speaks about the joys of collecting, of turning a hobby into a vocation, and shows some samples from his astonishing collection of printed materials..
» This is a free event. Refreshments will be available at a modest cost.
» Seating is limited, please reserve yours HERE
A Collector Offers a Glimpse Into His World
Without the aid of original records and authentic documents, our history would be nothing more than a conjectures and amusing fables.
 Sentiment, a perceived need to refer to these materials in the future, or admiration for their physical appearance impels us to preserve items of personal or professional interest. The theatergoer or sports fan who saves programs, the mother who treasures her children's school certificates and report cards, the businessman who retains examples of his firm's advertising brochures, the librarian who maintains a vertical file of menus, trade cards, bills and flyers, all are collectors of printed ephemera.
Generations of collectors have sought ephemera, either for its intrinsic value or for the challenge of the quest. Dealing in printed ephemera has become a specialized activity of the antiquarian book trade, and these materials are inextricably entwined with political, economic, religious, military, and social history. Increasingly, editors and authors are using ephemera to illustrate books on various topics.
On Thursday, December 4th at 5pm, the Okanagan Institute Express series hosts Printed Ephemera: Inside Mark Rucker's World of Treasures & Pleasures in which Mark offers up a tour and insight into his astonishing collection of printed material which covers dozens of subject areas, spanning the years of 1840 to 1940.
  
From baseball cards to postcards, Rucker's collection is
the stuff legends are made of. Over the years, Rucker's keen eye has
attracted the attention of collectors, and publications ranging from the New York
Times to children's books, and Ken Burns' Emmy Award winning 1994
documentary Baseball.
 An author of numerous books himself, including The Beer and Whisky League:
The Illustrated History of the American Association, and Detroit Aces: The
First 75 Years, Rucker received the Tony Salin Memorial Award in 2007 from
the Baseball Reliquary for his contribution to preserving the history
of the game.
But his first love is always the image itself.
"Seeing the image in person is always the most fun," says the Peachland
resident, who has been operating his publishing and picture agency
Transcendental Graphics since 1986.
Rucker uses his artistic skills as both painter and sculptor to seek out the
beauty in the images he collects. It's this above all, that makes his
collection so noteworthy.
He started out focusing strictly on baseball imagery, but by the mid-1990s,
his need for more visual stimulus urged him to expand the agency to include
historical images of all kinds, particularly in the genres of photography
and lithography.
 
Not one to define himself by national borders, his love of the beautiful and
the obscure has helped him unearth images from Cuba, Japan, Mexico,
Dominican Republic, England and Australia. Today Rucker's collection
includes images of the Old West, aboriginal people, carnivals and circus,
theatre, the comical and ridiculous, transportation, social history, labour,
women, advertising, and the fantastic. A tiny fraction of images from his
collection appears on his website www.theruckerarchive.com.
Printed Ephemera: Inside Mark Rucker's World of Treasures & Pleasures is a free event, and takes place at the Bohemian Café. This marks the 69th event the Okanagan Institute has held since the Express series got underway in July 2007. Since that time, the series has played host to many Okanagan luminaries, including former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International Derek Evans, artists Lee Claremont and Gary Pearson, BC Book Award nominee Don Gayton, CBC Literary prize winner poet Harold Rhenisch, distinguished editor and author Jim Taylor, poet and professor John Lent, animator and filmmaker Jim Cliffe, architect Jim Meiklejohn, broadcaster Marion Barschel and others from a wide range of creative fields.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER ONLINE CLICK HERE
Where Enquiring Minds Gather. Okanagan Institute at the Bohemian Café A hearty feast of lectures, presentations, workshops and showcases celebrating our culture and community. Produced by the Okanagan Institute in association with Wheat King Publishing magazines: Okanagan Arts and Okanagan Home. Express is sponsored in part by the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan, Wood Lake Publishing, UBCO-FCCS, and in support of Project Literacy Kelowna.
The Okanagan Institute is a group of creative professionals that have gathered around the goal of providing events, publications and services of interest to enquiring minds in the Okanagan. We partner with individuals, organizations, institutions and businesses to achieve optimal creative and social impact.
Our mission is to ignite cultural transformation, catalyze collaborative action, build networks and foster sustainable creative enterprises. We invite the participation by all members of the creative community.
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