it's a wrap

A BUTCHER'S #48

A BUTCHER’S hook/look (Cockney rhyming slang)

peel from corner

unwrapping in Brooklyn ©SteveButcher2019

parked

I have taken a lot of photos that I like of cars and boats under tarps, or wrapped in some way and although it’s tempting to include one or two here, they’ll have to wait - I’ll bring them out in later issues. Instead, here’s a wrapped bicycle by the crochet artist Olek outside the old ABC No Rio on Rivington St in 2010

crocheted bicycle by Olek ©SteveButcher2010

Olek was yarn bombing a lot in New York back then, especially downtown and in our neighborhood - often political and always immediate, noticeable and appealing. Bikes, cars, sculptures, people, you name it, she crocheted it - I still have no idea how she managed to create her pieces so quickly. It’s impressive.

Side note - The name ABC No Rio came from the few remaining letters visible on a sign in the window of the old, burned-out building that once read Abogado Con Notario (lawyer and notary public in Spanish)

wrap up

Sometimes I come across something that just leaves me wondering….why? How about an individually packaged eggplant? or a single potato wrapped with cooking instructions? (microwave, of course)

single servings - ©SteveButcher2022

wrapped reminder

Another reminder of an artwork while walking around - it’s an Art-Nudge! This time is was the leafless tree silhouetted against the wrapped building - there’s Mondrian’s tree. Even the edges are a reminder of his later paintings. It’s a 2fer.

branched ©SteveButcher2016

Piet Mondrian - Gray Tree 1911

Piet Mondrian - Composition #10 (on its side)

frozen wrap

One thing I’ve found that really is foreign to foreigners in Italy is that there is a very different relationship with frozen food. In the US everything frozen relates to the 1950s - in a box. Where in Italy, it’s just different. There are shops that only sell frozen food and the food is not boxed or packaged but looks the same as if it were fresh, only very tightly packed - often weirdly disconcerting! This art of vacuum packing is very different from Irving Penn’s fantastic Frozen studies.

polpo surgelato ©SteveButcher2025

and unwrap

This 1977 photograph by Irving Penn presenting a sculpture of unboxed frozen food is brilliant - and influenced every generation of food photographer that came after.

Photograph by Irving Penn, Frozen Foods, New York, 1977 © The Irving Penn Foundation