The Luck Archive: Exploring Belief, Superstition, and Tradition

The Luck Archive: Exploring Belief, Superstition, and Tradition
ISBN-10
1595342508
ISBN-13
9781595342508
Category
Photography
Pages
224
Language
English
Published
2015-06-09
Publisher
Trinity University Press
Author
Mark Menjivar

Description

Artist Mark Menjivar was in an antique bookshop in Fort Wayne, Indiana, when he found 4 four-leaf clovers pressed between the yellowed pages of an aged copy of 1000 Facts Worth Knowing. Their discovery beguiled Menjivar so much that he began a multiyear exploration into the concept of luck and its intersections with belief, culture, superstition, and tradition in people’s lives. Menjivar has spent hours and days engaging people in airplanes, tattoo shops, bingo halls, international grocery stores, public parks, baseball stadiums, and voodoo shops—and out on the streets and in their homes. Along the way he documented his findings to create a physical archive that contains hundreds of objects (rings, underwear, food items, clovers, horses, pigs, herbs, rainbows, lottery strategies, seeds, day trader insights, statues, patches, crystals, spices) and the stories and pictures that go with them. Through photographs and first person accounts, The Luck Archive takes the best of these ideas, thoughts, and objects and gives readers a glimpse into the cultures and superstitions of a colorful array of humanity.

Similar books

  • Legendary Locals of Beacon Hill
    By Karen Cord Taylor

    John Collins Warren Dr. John Collins Warren (1778–1856) assisted his father, Dr. John Warren (1753–1815), in 1811 in removing the cancerous breast of Nabby ...

  • America and the Tintype
    By Karen Halttunen, Steven Kasher, Brian Wallis

    By Steven kasher, with contributions by Geoffrey Batchen and Karen Halttunen.

  • Rail Depots of Eastern North Carolina
    By Larry K. Neal Jr.

    This book hopes to provide rail enthusiasts, local and economic historians, and history lovers in general a look back at the heyday of railroads and how much they affected daily life in North Carolina.

  • The Hall: A Celebration of Baseball's Greats: In Stories and Images, the Complete Roster of Inductees
    By The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

    In this unique, 75th anniversary edition, read the stories of every player inducted into the Hall, organized by position.

  • Sheffield in the 1980s
    By Mark Metcalf, Justine Jenkinson

    We soon afterwards set up SCAM to complete what had been intended fifty years earlier,' explains Terry Howard, who was secretary of the group until it was finally wound up in 2017. And achieve they did by peacefully trespassing over ...

  • Brookfield and Elm Grove
    By Thomas Ramstack

    ... (standing) Conrad Ramstack, Eleanor (Hastrich) Ramstack, Alma Theis, Veronica Ramstack, Helen (Phillips) Ramstack, and Joseph Ramstack. In 2009, this same tavern goes by the name O'Donahue's Irish Pub. (Author's collection.) ...

  • Antebellum Homes of Georgia
    By David King Gleason

    ... 101 Bailey, Mary Elizabeth, 101 Banks, William, 94 Barnsley Gardens, 82 Barnett, Samuel, 26 Barnsley, Godfrey, 4, 82 Barnsley, ... James W, 79 Elliott, Virginia Tennessee, 79 Emily and Ernest Woodruff Foundation, 59 Emmel, Walter C, ...

  • Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945
    By Erin Barnett, Phil Mariani

    This exhibition includes approximately 60 contact prints drawn from a unique archive of more than 700 photographs in the collection of the International Center of Photography.

  • Legendary Locals of Lake Forest
    By Susan L. Kelsey, Arthur H. Miller

    Susan L. Kelsey, Arthur H. Miller ... This became the Bell School in the first half of the 20th century. ... The photograph of Clarice Hamill and her daughter on page 58 came from the Bell School's 50th anniversary celebration, ...

  • Pembroke
    By Karen Cross Proctor

    The Bay Path, a main route from Boston to Plymouth, ran through the West Elm and High Street neighborhoods. Over the generations, these diverse and vibrant communities have helped to shape Pembroke into the town it is today.