LA’s Great Donut

Old Devil Moon / Popular Song in the Early 1950s When Randy’s First Opened Sung by Don Francks and Petula Clark ____________________________ Not surprisingly, for anyone who grew up in LA, one of the greatest icons of the city is a gigantic donut that is 32 feet in diameter that sits atop Randy’s Donuts, a bakery […]

Survey as Probe

From Strategy Safari to Hollywood Safari John Fraim Waltz for Debby / Bobby Shew _________________________ One of the most important books I’ve ever read is Strategy Safari: A Guided Tour Through the Wilds of Strategic Management. It was written by leading management thinker Henry Mintzberg and his colleagues Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel.  I read it in 1998 when it was […]

Symbolic Dioramas

Mode for Trane ___________________________________ A little over a week ago, I posted a blog “In the Countryside of New Albany, Ohio” reported on the idea of a new type of diorama that might represent, symbolically, the conflict seen here in Central Ohio where farmland meets giant Amazon, Google and FaceBook warehouses. Now, a few miles […]

Push Button for Drama

To launch the high quality TV channel TNT in Belgium we placed a big red push button on an average Flemish square of an average Flemish town. A sign with the text “Push to add drama” invited people to use the button. And then we waited…

Countryside of New Albany, Ohio

Two Symbols : Study Notes for a Symbolic Diorama John Fraim 10/19/23 Rick Sowash / “Lullaby for Kara” from Sanctuary at 3 am (My friend Rick is an Ohio composer) _______________________________ The old and new symbols of America are represented in Central Ohio. The old symbol is the Ohio countryside of farms. The new symbol […]

Professor Galaxy

The First Dealership / Pasadena Alice Coltrane / Translinear Light _______________________________ The Diorama Muse Putting her to Bed for Awhile Or not? John Fraim I’ve just completed organizing and documenting chronologically the nine months of great creativity I went through from January to September 2018. I call it the return of the model making muse […]

The Diorama Muse

Encounters With Her (From 1/17/18 to 9/12/18) John Fraim The dioramas in the above film were created during this period of time. And then they stopped so that this time could be defined as a period of time. Giving way to a new period of time in one’s life. For artists, it is usually a […]