Ellen Havre Weis, 64, of Altadena, Calif., a author, photographer, and entrepreneur who had lived in Levittown and Elkins Park, died Tuesday, July 27, of brain most cancers at house.
Eclectic in her get the job done and sensibilities, and at any time curious, Ms. Weis wrote fiction, worked in public relations and advertising and marketing, was an expert lecturer on American promoting people, and in 1982 launched the nonprofit Museum of Contemporary Mythology in San Francisco.
She was also an partaking wife, mom, mate, and colleague.
“There is a large gap to fill,” reported her husband, Gordon Whiting.
Ms. Weis’ fiction was initial released in the North American Overview in 1982, and her e-book, Berkeley: The Everyday living and Spirit of a Remarkable Town, was published by Frog Textbooks in 2004 with coauthor Kiran Singh.
In organization, she and her husband launched WeisPR in Berkeley and worked with media and industrial-arts pioneers. For the final 10 decades, she was director of marketing for Bay Mother nature Journal.
But it was the Museum of Modern Mythology that most fired Ms. Weis’ creativeness. Serving as the museum’s director, she, with fellow founders Jeffrey Errick and Matthew Cohen, collected more than 3,000 iconic marketing mascots, dolls, pillows, banking companies, salt shakers, and other goods, and captivated extra than 150 supporting customers.
On screen in a single home of a downtown San Francisco business office building ended up depictions of this kind of common advert people as the Jolly Inexperienced Huge Mr. Peanut Poppin’ Contemporary, the Pillsbury Doughboy Mr. Bubble the Frito Bandito Col. Sanders Cap’n Crunch and Mr. Cleanse.
“We check out to acquire these advertising characters out of their regular context of revenue and glimpse at them as anthropology,” Ms. Weis told the Los Angeles Periods in 1987. “Most of American culture has been exposed to these visuals. Undoubtedly the Jolly Green Large is a lot more recognizable than Zeus, or your state senator.
“Human beings need immortal people to enable interpret what is occurring to them. Why is the Jolly Green Giant so popular? You can say it is a quite superior marketing marketing campaign, but what does that necessarily mean? I consider subconsciously it refers back to the lore of the big. All these people refer to age-aged archetypes in our hearts.”
The museum was lively from 1982 to 1989, when its creating was weakened by an earthquake. With the collection out of general public see, Ms. Weis took to lecturing about the heritage and effect of American advertising, and just last thirty day period the Valley Relics Museum in Van Nuys, Calif., agreed to include her collection to its.
Ms. Weis married Whiting, a technological specialist, in 1996, and son Benjamin was born in 2001. She favored to enjoy movie noirs and obscure video clips, experienced a good eye for innovative sculpture and paintings, and was a frequent at the Creative Advancement Workshop and Gallery in Oakland.
Born in a Trenton clinic Could 14, 1957, Ms. Weis moved from Levittown to Elkins Park when she was 2, and attended Cheltenham Higher University until eventually her senior 12 months. Her engineer father and librarian mother then enrolled her in Scattergood Pals University in Cedar County, Iowa, to broaden her encounter and preserve her fascinated in lecturers, her husband mentioned.
As a teen in Elkins Park, Ms. Weis rode the bus to Rittenhouse Sq. with pals and “acted like they belonged,” her husband explained. She discovered with the Lost Era of writers and artists from the early 1900s, and analyzed Dorothy Parker and other feminine writers.
Just after higher college, she researched crafting at the University of Iowa in 1975. A passionate, she generally gushed around the grandeur of 30th Road Station when they passed by way of Philadelphia on visits, her spouse mentioned.
At household affairs, virtually in all places, “she was the spirit” he explained.
In addition to her partner and son, Ms. Weis is survived by her mother, Aimee Weis sister Margaret Chase brother Fred Weis and other kin.
A memorial support is to be held Sunday, Aug. 22, at the Orange Grove Good friends Meeting, 520 E. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena, Calif. 91104.
Donations in her name could be designed to the Valley Relics Museum, 7900 Balboa Blvd., Lake Balboa, Calif. 91406, Hangar C 3-4.