thursday april 24
Celebrating Spring and our earth, Mother Earth and Her Children: A Quilted Fairy Tale (2007) is a German children's poem with gorgeous needlework illustrations by quilter Sieglinde Schoen Smith. This is a modern translation by Jack Zipes of Sibylle von Olfers' 1907 German book, Etwas von den Wurzelkindern ("Something About the Root Children"). Soon we'll see Mother Earth's ABC.
Smith took Olfers' illustrations and created a gorgeous award-winning quilt based on the original illustrations. She started quilting for comfort after her son passed away, and the book is dedicated to him.
Another lovely book celebrating spring is Monarch and Milkweed (2008) by Helen Frost and Leonid Gore. Beautifully illustrated, the book describes the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly, so closely dependent on the Milkweed plant.
Another one for Spring is Ruth Brown's Ten Seeds (2001), the pictorial countdown from 10 seeds to one sunflower in the garden, naturally giving us ten more seeds.
Happy Spring!
wednesday february 13
Here’s one for all of you art history buffs, lovers of Tracy Chevalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, and even readers of what are now popularly being called microhistories, those fascinating social histories that look at how a single insignificant object or place or event changed or reflected the course of world events.
In Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, Timothy Brook uses the objects glimpsed in Vermeer’s paintings to explore how economy and culture became globalized in the seventeenth century.
The broad-brimmed hat of the dashing officer in Vermeer’s Officer and Laughing Girl becomes an emblem to explore the American fur trade and the search for the fabled Northwest Passage. A porcelain dish of fruit in the foreground of Young Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window leads to a discussion of the Chinese porcelain trade, and so on.
Continue Reading…
thursday february 07
Winter can be a very long stretch of time for a baseball fan. Dreams of sunny afternoons at the ball park begin to float around with increasing frequency. There is an art exhibit currently installed in the atrium of the Main Library that serves to make those idealistic images even more alluring. For a generation of fans, Willie Mays is the embodiment of grace in the outfield. In oils, watercolors, collage, and pencil drawings, Mays is represented for his artistry and for his love of the game.
Originally gathered in 2006 in honor of Mays' 75th birthday, the collection was first displayed at the Louisville Slugger Museum. Cincinnati author Mike Shannon, editor of Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine and creator of the annual Casey Award, was the curator of this art collection; the Library has it on display through March 20. Mr. Shannon will appear at the Main Library on Saturday, March 1 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm in the Reading Garden to meet the public and to sign books. The accompanying book can be purchased at the Library Friend's Shop, open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
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monday january 21
In college, my major was graphic design, but by my senior year I discovered (or should have realized all along) that librarianship was my true calling. Even so, when I went to bookstores, I would naturally pick up books with interesting covers and check the back flaps to see who designed them. One name kept appearing again and again: Chip Kidd.
You’re already familiar with Chip Kidd if you’ve read some of my earlier blogs, because he designed the covers for An Anthropologist on Mars, Schulz and Peanuts, and my all-time favorite cover, The Secret History. But Kidd has designed many more (mostly for publisher Alfred A. Knopf), and you can see a 400-page retrospective of his work in The Chip Kidd Album: Book One: Work, 1986-2006.
Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, David Sedaris’ Naked, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain) are well-known Chip Kidd covers included here.
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wednesday january 16
I have to confess that I have become completely addicted to our new New Arrivals service. If you don't know, it's a part of our website that lists every new title we receive. You can look at it whenever you're in the mood for something new, or you can subscribe to all or parts of it as an RSS feed so that you can make sure you never miss a thing in the categories you're interested in. Still better, you can put holds on anything that tempts your fancy. Some of the entries include reviews, and some of them include cover images.
That's of course why I put a hold on this book, Ellen Highsmith Silver's Floorquilts! Fabric Decoupaged Floorcloths--No-Sew Fun. The cover is gorgeous, showing a floor covering that looks like a quilt. Silver describes the process with which she treats artist's canvas and decoupages fabric onto it, using traditional quilt fabrics and design principles, for colorful and durable floorcloths. It seems like a very do-able project, though time-consuming.
Now, will I ever actually make one of these? Maybe not. (Well, to be more accurate, very, very probably not.) But I love the fact that I know this book is in our collection and that if I ever get inspired to get out the fabric scraps, I know exactly where to find my inspiration.
thursday december 13
After the unwrapping of gifts en masse in the basement of my grandparents’ house on Christmas Eve, there wasn’t much left to do. So I spent the evening in the big red armchair by the fake fireplace reading things in their magazine rack. The Peanuts comic strip books were my favorites. I read the same ones year after year.
Little did I know it then, but Peanuts will always be associated with my childhood. Through Charles Schulz’s strips, I have fond memories of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang. But how much do I actually know about Schulz himself?
Author David Michaelis has just written a new book called Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography that traces Schulz’s life from his modest beginnings as the son of a Midwestern barber to an icon of American popular culture. He realized his dream of creating a newspaper comic strip, yet was lonely and never fully understood by the people who adored him.
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thursday august 02
Although I'm not really focused on knitting as much during the summer, I just had to blog about Fitted Knits. I like this book! One of the first things that caught my eye was that it uses yarns in a variety of price ranges. What kept me interested were several hip-looking patterns designed to be knit in one piece from the top down. Yay! No sewing seams!
Fitted Knits is a great resource for beginning and intermediate knitters interested in patterns with a little more shaping. One of the great features in the book is that not only are the patterns sized to specific measurements, they're also broken down into separate design parts. This makes adapting the patterns to one's own proportions much easier.
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thursday june 07
Last fall, when my husband went to Chicago on business, I came along and roamed the city on my own. Since I love architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s work, I made sure to visit his famous Robie House near the University of Chicago.
Later, we stopped in Oak Park, Illinois for a tour of Wright’s home and studio, where he lived with his family and designed his early work. My husband and I, guidebook and umbrella in hand, found some of his other houses that reside here and admired their simple elegance from the sidewalk.
What ties several of these houses together is his Prairie style of architecture. I recently discovered a book by Alan Hess called Frank Lloyd Wright: Prairie Houses, which beautifully showcases the exteriors and interiors of Wright's Prairie homes in Chicago, Oak Park, and elsewhere.
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tuesday may 29
The Butterfly Show has taken flight at the Krohn Conservatory in Eden Park through June 24th!
When I think of butterflies, I always think of the butterfly alphabet by nature photographer Kjell Sandved, whose amazing butterfly photographs can be seen in A World of Butterflies and the children’s book The Butterfly Alphabet.
Originally from Norway, Sandved came to the United States in 1960 to research a wildlife encyclopedia that he was working on. The Smithsonian Institution invited him to view the museum’s collections, and that’s when he peered into a cigar box of butterfly and moth specimens and first saw a letter ‘F’ on one of the wing patterns. He taught himself how to take photographs, and a quest for an entire alphabet had begun.
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sunday may 13
Pleasant Hill Shaker Furniture by Kerry Pierce is a wonderful new book on the subject. Kenny Pierce is a professional furniture maker and an authority on Shaker woodworking and furniture. This attractive volume is filled with photographs of Shaker dwellings, workshops, tools, artifacts, and, of course, the furniture remarkable for its clean design and simple beauty. The Shakers worked wood as an expression of their devotion to God, and this is certainly evident in the objects they created.
Pierce selected 16 pieces from the Pleasant Hill collection for detailed analysis. A measured drawing of each is provided, with an accompanying discussion of material section, hardware, and construction techniques. So this book has practical value for the home woodworker.
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wednesday may 02
If you haven’t yet seen the Andrew Wyeth exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum, make time for a visit during this last week! The collection, loaned by the Marunuma Art Park, consists of 114 watercolors and drawings that lovingly capture the life and seaside Maine home of Christina and Alvaro Olson.
The independent Christina, who had an undiagnosed degenerative disease, refused all help but that of Alvaro, her brother. She preferred to crawl and drag her body through her increasingly dilapidated home and grounds rather than use a wheelchair.
Hence the posture and power of her reaching figure in Christina’s World (1948), Wyeth’s most famous work and one of the best-known works of American art. Christina’s World belongs to the Museum of Modern Art and does not travel because of the fragility of the tempera paint Wyeth used. But this exhibit features 10 studies, such as early compositional notations, detail studies, and the final watercolor sketch.
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saturday april 21
If you go to library school, you'll sooner or later have the conversation about "What if someone comes into the library and asks for a book on how to build a bomb?" As far as I can tell, the library has no how-to books on this subject, but if it did, the answer is that we would help the customer find it and not question his or her motivation.
In library school, this discussion will quickly deteriorate to questions like "What if a customer comes in and wants a book about how to make crystal meth?" The library has chosen not to buy books on this subject either, although there are certainly books about the problems associated with meth labs and addiction. The library's electronic collection, which you can access from home, however, has a government document called Clandestine Methamphetamine Labs. This 78-page PDF file includes photos, so you can recognize a meth lab if you see one, and compelling reasons why you shouldn't build your own.
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monday march 19
A few weeks ago, I spent an afternoon absorbed by the life story of a musician I knew nothing about. And now I find out that musician is coming to Cincinnati in May. Director Jeff Feuerzeig won a 2005 Sundance award for The Devil and Daniel Johnston, his documentary about the innovative and talented artist Daniel Johnston. Intertwined with Johnston's remarkable songwriting and visual art is his personal struggle with manic depression. Interviews with friends, colleagues, and his devoted parents as well as Daniel's recordings dating back to childhood, make for a gut-wrenching, complex portrayal of love, survival, and art.
Daniel Johnston performs live at The Southgate House in Newport on Friday, May 11.
friday march 02
I got a new toy--an MP3 player!
I've been kind of enthralled with exploring all its little glowing menu options instead of reading books like a good library blogger should. Thus, I'm having a hard time coming up with a book to write about this time around. I can however, recommend as an alternative my current passion, which is listening to digital audiobooks every chance I get!
I do have one book recommendation that's pulled directly from my current idee fixe. Knit one, Felt too has a very cute fair isle pattern for a felted cell phone/mp3 player case. I'm adapting it to fit my player and spending some quality time on the couch with my earbuds plugged in and my knitting in my lap. What's playing while I knit? Death of a Hussy from Netlibrary, one of the Hamish Macbeth mysteries that the library doesn't have on CD. Awesome!
tuesday february 06
Frank Warren, who conceived the Postsecret Project where people anonymously write their secrets on postcards and mail them to him to be published, will be at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati on Wednesday, February 7th at 7:00 pm. Warren is promoting his new book, The Secret Lives of Men and Women. This is his third collection of whimsical, heart-wrenching, chilling postcards, arranged in collage with original illustrations. For those interested in art, human psychology, and the secrets we all keep.
Other PostSecret books:
PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
My Secret: a PostSecret book
tuesday january 30
I am not one of those crafty hobbyist people. But in the last year or so, I have found a hobby that is fun, rewarding, and serves both the creative, right-brain person and the left-brain, analytical science guy within. I am talking about brewing beer. Though not an alkie or a weekend warrior, I do enjoy beer. Good beer, that is, as I am a serious beer snob. Enough about me, though, let's talk about brewing. It is simpler than you might imagine. Just hop (pun intended) in the car, drive down to
Listermann's, buy the gear and a kit, bring ‘em home, and brew it up right in your very own kitchen. Three weeks in the fermenter (a five-gallon bucket with a lid), three more weeks conditioning in the bottle, and you have two cases of yumminess to imbibe. Time for a party!
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thursday january 11
When I had my first child almost two years ago, a good friend threw me a shower and made a beautiful quilt for our nursery. Another friend wove a baby blanket. This past Halloween, my mother sewed a dog costume for my daughter to wear (complete with brown spots and floppy ears and tail, very cute!) Even if you're severely deficient in this area (like me!), you still might enjoy reading some arts-and-crafts-themed mysteries. Here are some of my favorites:
- In Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton, full-time CPA and part-time knitter Kelly Flynn investigates the burglary death of her favorite aunt in Colorado.
- Earlene Fowler's Fool's Puzzle is set in San Celina, California, where young widow Benni Harper has recently moved to take a job as curator of their folk-art museum. While trying to put together a quilt show, she discovers the body of a local potter in the museum's studio.
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saturday january 06
This weekend is your last chance to see the Cincinnati Art Museum’s exhibition Waking Dreams – Experience the Enchantment, a gorgeous collection of major works by Pre-Raphaelite artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, and many others.
The drawings and numerous lush paintings abundantly demonstrate the mission of these 19th-century artists: to bring candid emotion and vitality back into English art, which they believed had become rigid and derivative. They wished to return to what they saw as the aesthetic values of the late Middle Ages and 14th century – before Raphael. The show also includes fine objects, from furniture to jewelry, as examples of the movement’s emphasis on creative craftsmanship of the highest quality.
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friday december 29
After the April 2003 fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces, the world was horrified to learn that the Iraq Museum had been looted. The museum housed an enormous collection of Mesopotamian artifacts, and therefore the most ancient creations of human civilization. I remember a friend crying over the presumed loss of the wide-eyed worshipper (votive) figures , the Golden Lyre of Ur, and the pair of exquisite Ram in the Thicket statues, fabricated of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, copper, shell, and red limestone.
These are among the oldest Mesopotamian treasures, the 5,000-year-old legacy of the Sumerians, who gave us writing. Among the writings feared missing were the Code of Hammurabi, the best preserved among early bodies of law, and the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the first surviving works of literature and still a great read.
A News Hour interview in July with reserves Marine Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, who had been charged with recovering the treasures, seemed to offer some hope, simply because Bogdanos made such a powerful impression. An assistant district attorney with a master’s degree in Classics, he himself seemed to exemplify civilization through a remarkable combination of idealism and resolution. Toward the end of the interview, Bogdanos was asked about his prospects for success. He replied with an almost laconic serenity:
“I'm a Marine. I expect to recover these items, no matter how long it takes…. To those who have taken the items, I urge them to listen to their conscience and their sense of duty in returning those items. And to those who need to be guided by emotions other than those, my message is simple: We will find you, no matter how long it takes and no matter where you are, we will find you, and we will recover this property.”
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wednesday november 15
Seven paintings, including a Cézanne masterwork, were stolen from art collector Michael Bakwin’s home in 1978. Bakwin recovered the Cézanne, Bouilloire et Fruits, more than 20 years later, when a corporation offered it for sale and a suspicious Lloyd’s of London underwriter called the Art Loss Register. But soon after, Bakwin was forced to sell Bouilloire et Fruits – for more than $30 million – simply because he could never maintain enough security to prevent another theft. He eventually regained four more of his paintings, but two remain missing.
This story from Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft illustrates both the good and the bad news about the current situation. The good news is the Art Loss Register, a London-based organization that maintains a database of stolen works. Since its creation in 1991, the Art Loss Register has done much to compensate for light trade regulation, inadequate governmental resources, and low motivation to identify or report suspect provenance.
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wednesday october 04
I haven't been knitting much lately, but now that it's getting cooler out I'm starting to get the urge again. This has mostly manifested itself in looking at cool new knitting books rather than actually knitting anything, but hey, I'm working up to it! I've found two books I was very impressed with this week. The first, Big Girl Knits is the first knitting book I've found where my size was on the bottom of the sizing chart! This book fills a great need for nice looking knit patterns for larger women. The informational section at the front, as well as pattern indications for recommended body types is also very useful. Plus, the little wrap sweater on page 66 is divine!
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wednesday september 20
Fashion Week in New York just concluded this past weekend. All the designers were there, showing gorgeous runway fashions that will be the prototypes for our Spring 2007 clothes.
"The Independent Woman" is apparently about whom the designers were thinking this year, as it is a common theme among the collections.
Visionaries: Interviews with Fashion Designers (2001) by Susannah Frankel gives us a look into the lives and creative processes of fashion designers through interviews with them.
Stylemakers: Inside Fashion by Marcia Sherrill (2002) outlines influential behind-the-scenes people in the fashion world: trend spotters, stylists, photographers, and business people who choreograph what we will eventually see in stores.
An interesting behind-the-scenes book about the Men's fashion industry is Joseph Abboud's autobiography, Threads: My Life Behind the Seams of the High-Stakes World of Fashion (2004).
Fashion Designers by Pamela Golbin (2001) is a beautifully illustrated chronicle of trends by some of the most influential designers.
Continue Reading…
thursday august 24
"Intriguingly beautiful works of art." Not words most would associate with graffiti, that blatantly vandalistic and incomprehensible scourge on our fair cities. Maybe the naysayers should see the book DF: Idiots On Parade. Published by Shake It, Ink. (as in the Northside record store), this book displays legal and illegal creations by the notorious DF graffiti crew. The DF group has been around for over twenty years, with origins in New York, though now claims members across the country (including Cincinnati). These folks are also successful--some have attended the best art schools, scored design jobs with high-dollar accounts such as Nike, been on television, and had their works shown in galleries around the world. Local DF artist Rapes, & possibly Scribe (from Missouri) will have several pieces displayed in the Main Library as part of Listen To This!, a Hip Hop-oriented music business program scheduled for Sunday, October 15. Check it out. Other library materials on graffiti art include: Graffiti World: Street Art from Five Continents by Nicholas Ganz, GV4, Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City by Joe Austin, Chicano Graffiti and Murals: The Neighborhood Art of Peter Quezada by Kim Sojin, and Graffiti, Post-graffiti.
wednesday august 16
I noticed in the newspaper the other day, the Gee's Bend quilts are going to be on display in Indianapolis starting in October of this year. The Gee's Bend exhibition has brought a spotlight onto African American quilting in the United States like never before. These beautiful abstract quilts have been traveling the country for almost four years now, garnering critical acclaim and generating amazing public discussion. The book, The Quilts of Gee's Bend, is a gorgeous view of the quilts and their makers.
I have a particular respect for African American quilting because it was an African American quilter's work that really got me interested in quilts as art. Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold was a major inspiration to me. It's a children's book, but I was already halfway grown when it came out. Still, the idea of telling a story through a quilt snagged me. Ringgold's work is so visually rich, it's hard not to be captivated. For a more adult take on her, as well as a lot more examples of her work, try Dancing at the Louvre.
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monday august 07
Quilts for Change, an international juried quilt show will be opening on Thursday August 10th at the Cintas Center. In honor of the show, here are a few books to broaden your appreciation of traditional quilts as well as those that venture into the fine arts.
Wild by Design, a beautiful overview of American quilting, is an illustrated catalog of some of the finest quilts from the collections of the International Quilt Study Center. One of the more interesting facets of this book is the conversational format, which offers several perspectives on the same quilt. This book is a good snapshot of the progression of the American quilt through the years and ends with several modern art quilts.
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friday july 28
If you haven’t seen Making a Legacy, Living the Legacy at the Cincinnati Art Museum, this weekend is your last chance!
Sunday is the final day for this exhibition of the work of five African American artists from the tri-state area, each using a different medium. The result is a very rich show – Joyce Young paintings, Melvin Grier photographs, Carolyn Mazloomi quilts, Ellen Price prints, and a Thom Phelps installation. Making a Legacy was mounted by guest curator Thom Shaw, another local African American artist.
More of Grier’s photographs and an interview with him can be seen in the video Bearing Witness: Melvin Grier. Prints by Shaw and Price are included in Cincinnati Portfolio III: A Porfolio of Ten Prints. And be sure to explore the beautiful work in Mazloomi’s book Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts.
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State Fair by Arthur Grace (2006) captures in black-and-white photos an amazingly accurate feeling of The Fair. Look deep: next to the slightly strange is the touchingly wholesome; these are lovely images of innocence and accomplishment that I recognize and lived through with my own family.
Fairs have always been big, important parts of our summers. We are regulars at the Hamilton County Fair. In years past we have been exhibitors, showing 4-H cattle, dogs, chickens, and rabbits. One of my daughters was even the Hamilton County Fair Queen! My other daughter was, however, Grand Champion Poultry Showman, an accomplishment that should not be underestimated.
Our Hamilton County Fair is not the biggest or grandest, but it is a 151-year tradition that will hopefully survive its current monetary hard times. It definitely has its share of faithful fans.
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monday july 24
Project Runway, a fashion design reality show on Bravo! every Wednesday night, is one of my favorite television shows of all. "Who will be the next big fashion designer?," asks hostess Heidi Klum. It is fun to watch, and also it is inspiring!
In the spirit of the design competition, our catalog offers a variety of books and magazines on women's style and fashion design.
Style and fashion design tips:
Fashion Magazines, all of which are available in the Library collection:
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thursday july 20
The June sale of Gustav Klimt's ravishing 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, a Viennese society lady, brought a record-breaking price of (reportedly) $135 million, primarily from Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics magnate, philanthropist, and art collector. Lauder acquired Adele Bloch-Bauer I for the Neue Galerie New York, a small museum he co-founded in 2001 to exhibit early 20th century German and Austrian art. The Neue Galerie unveiled the painting on July 13 along with four other Klimt works on loan from the Bloch-Bauer heirs, including the second portrait of Adele from 1912.
The sale also brought long-delayed justice for the Bloch-Bauer family. Led by Adele’s 90-year-old niece, Maria Altmann, they won back the paintings just this year from the Austrian government. Austria had refused to return the property that the Nazi regime confiscated after Adele’s widower, Ferdinand, fled in 1938 to escape the fate of six million other European Jews.
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saturday july 08
Emily Carr was an artist of renown in the early 20th century. Born in British Columbia, she went into the forests of Canada at a time when women did not routinely travel alone. Her paintings and writings portray the wilderness of Canada with love and reverence, especially the Native American Indians of her area.
A book of her memoirs, The Book Of Small (2004), is a reissued volume of anecdotes from Emily's childhood. The adult Carr wrote the memoirs in a wide-eyed, loving manner, giving us a picture of childhood in a place that was just a breath past "frontier", a place that gave "Small" a grand chance to accumulate her early life experiences where her world was wide open and slightly wild.
Books of Emily Carr's paintings evoke the beauty of the western Canadian forest and the noble local culture. Emily Carr at the Edge of the World (2003) is a perfect introduction.
Susan Vreeland has written a novel about Emily Carr, The Forest Lover (2004), which is loosely based on her life.
Get to know Emily Carr. She will inspire you.
friday july 07
I have just traveled to India between the covers of this stunning book: India, by Oliver Follmi (2005). The photography in this book is amazing, displaying the beauty and diversity of this enormous country.
I love cities, and The Cities Book: A Journey Through the Best Cities in the World (2006) published by Lonely Planet takes us to 200+ cities of all sizes around the world. This is a follow-up book to The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World (2005) that covers 230 different countries.
Closer to home, enjoy the view in Panoramic Parks: An Appreciation of Cincinnati's Parks (2005), by Thomas R. Schiff, or go to each of Ohio's 88 counties to see Ohio's Bicentennial Barns (Beth Gorczyca, 2003).
You could go out west and explore with Bart Smith Along the Pacific Crest Trail (1998), or take off on a train trip in Great American Rail Journeys (2000).
Travel in library books: it's free, there are no timetables, and you don't need to worry about learning how to get by in another language. Have a great trip!
saturday july 01
I remember a snippet of an article I read recently which wondered how many recipes in a cookbook had to appeal to someone before they would buy the book. I think the author posited that it was six. Tastes being what they are, that's probably right. I think knitting books are much the same. It always amazes me how many times I find a book of one person's designs equally divided between intriguing and appalling. That was the case with Loop-D-Loop.
I was sucked in by the sweater on the cover; a random cable tunic, it looks like tree bark in the deep grey used for the model. It's lovely. I was not so enthralled with some of the other patterns; the cowl, especially, occasioned a "huh?!" moment. More traditional knitters should beware; this book tends toward the avant-garde. On the whole though, there's much to whet one's appetite, patterns ranging from moderately easy to very difficult, including various gauges and photography that has a lot more ambience than your average knitting book. There's even a sweater in there that I think both my mother and I could agree on (the cardigan modeled on an English riding jacket), though, of course, I'd want it in black and she would insist on off white.
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wednesday june 21
In 2004, Frank Warren began an art project which involved leaving postcards in public places- restaurants, libraries, bus terminals- and asking people to mail them in with a secret of theirs written on the postcard. The project is ongoing, and Warren recently published some of the postcards in this fabulous collection which is at turns hilarious and devastating. Included within are secrets from ordinary people about obsessive habits, dreams never realized, undisclosed memories of abuse or confessions of furtive acts. The collection is compulsively readable, and you may be inspired to send Frank your own secret- many participants have attested to feeling unburdened after doing so...
By the way, if you enjoy this kind of voyeuristic look into the secret lives of others, you would appreciate the Found books and magazines put out by Davy Rothbart.
monday june 19
Artists aren’t generally known for business savvy, but if you’re serious about getting your work out there and taking it as far as you can, then marketing, accounting, and the law will have a big impact on your otherwise creative life.
Several staff members at the Library – themselves artists and artisans – have developed the Artist Resource Guide: Books and Web Resources for the Working Artist to help budding Vincents become their own Theos. The Guide collects a wide range of titles and links on one convenient web page, which will be updated periodically.
Here are just a few of the books you'll find:
Living the Artist's Life: A Guide to Growing, Persevering, and Succeeding in the Art World by Paul Dorrell
How to Survive and Prosper As an Artist: Selling Yourself Without Selling Your Soul by Caroll Michels
Crafters' Internet Handbook: Research, Connect and Sell Your Work Online by Genevieve Crabe
Opportunities in Commercial Art and Graphic Design Careers by Barbara Gordon
Continue Reading…
saturday june 17
After my last post, I wanted to know more about ghost towns. I found several cool things, including a series of books on Ohio ghost towns, lots of ghost town and urban exploration sites, and an online photo gallery of many ghost towns in the southwest. I also found Ghosts in the Wilderness: Abandoned America.
Ghosts in the Wilderness is a big format art photography book, so it will take some effort to carry it home. It's worth it! The photographs are a nice blend of color, black and white, sepia and hand tinted. The subject matter is evocative: vacant main streets, flaking interiors, abandoned buildings and rusted out trucks under an endlessly variable Great Plains sky. Pretty pictures of entropy and decay make for an interesting "armchair travel" experience that encapsulates the essence of so many miles of the American West.
thursday june 15
Remember being a little kid and spending delightful hours with your Cinderella or Winnie-the-Pooh pop-up book? Pop-up books have changed! Pop-up artists -- or rather Paper Engineers -- are producing beautiful books worthy of being call works of art.
Robert Sabuda is arguably the best popup artist around. His latest creation, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Sharks and Other Sea Monsters (with Matthew Reinhart, 2006) is a fascinating, fabulous exploration of sharks, dinosaurs, whales, and mollusks from ancient times to today. For a patriotic boost, look over his America the Beautiful (2004), or enjoy the beauty of snow in Winter's Tale (2005) with illustrations that will leave you speechless.
Also noteworthy, David A. Carter's One Red Dot (2005) has delighted and surprised every audience I have presented it to, of every age.
Of course after seeing these books you will be inspired to make one. The Elements of Pop-Up: A Pop-Up Book for Aspiring Paper Engineers by David A. Carter will show you how.
Paper Engineering for Adults? Of course -- but I prefer "Pop-Ups for Grown-Ups"!
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wednesday june 14
If you are an admirer of edgy, captivating book covers then chances are you have probably eyed books designed by Chip Kidd. Chip Kidd is a graphic designer with Knopf publishers and is regarded by many as the best in the business. He recently put out Volume 1 of a collection of some of his most memorable and provocative covers. Not only are the covers of Chip Kidd's books a visual treat, the inside content is usually pretty interesting- at a recent signing at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, I had the opportunity to ask Chip Kidd whether he reads any of the books whose covers he designs. He replied that he tries to read all of them. Generally, the covers Kidd designs are for books worth reading. Here are a few to try:
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Seek My Face by John Updike
Naked by David Sedaris
and of course, Kidd's own semi-autobiographical novel The Cheese Monkeys
tuesday june 06
Metal clay is a wonderful option for jewelry makers who love silver and gold, but not metalsmithing techniques. If you work with beads or wire, you can use this relatively new medium to design and create your own metal beads, pendants, and other components, instead of having to use whatever is available on the market. And of course you can also produce rings, brooches, decorative objects, and any other items traditionally made by metalsmiths.
Introduced in the 1990s, metal clay consists of silver or gold particles, an organic binding material, and water. When the piece is fired, the binder and water disappear, leaving a solid metal form -- .999 fine silver or 22k to 24k gold. The two product lines, Precious Metal Clay and Art Clay, offer a variety of forms (lump, paste, syringe, “paper” sheets) and several formulas for firing at different temperatures with a kiln, torch, “hot pot,” or even the kitchen stove.
We recently built up our collection of metal clay instruction books, and more are on the way. These books are beautiful as well as helpful, showcasing many gorgeous designs – not always the case, alas, with even the best jewelry-making guides. The titles include:
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friday june 02
Every so often I end up with a library receipt on my desk at home with a title circled, spotted with exclamation points and the annotation "Buy This Book!" The Yarn Girls' Guide to Simple Knits by Julie Carles is the most recent of these. I am a relatively new knitter, my first attempt to knit (at age nine, on slippery metal needles with yucky acrylic yarn) having been an abject failure. Now, armed with bamboo needles and much better yarn, I'm a knitting fiend. I have been scouring the knitting books, trying to find a basic book with patterns that straddle the happy medium between "grandma made you this nice cardigan (with intarsia ducks!)" and You Knit What?!
For a beginner like me, one of the great things about this book is the simplicity of the patterns. However, in addition to easy, the projects are also nice-looking. Simple, classic sweater patterns in bulkier yarns that don't look "too bulky" on a solid frame like mine were the initial draw. The thing that sealed the deal was the warm wool cap with earflaps; the top is round not peaked, and it's so cute. I can't wait to knit one for next winter!
There are two types of people in the world: those who love the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, and those who haven't read them yet. If you're of the latter group, I heartily recommend them all! For people who like to read a series "in order", the discworld reading guide is a great visual resource.
Recently, I picked up The Art of Discworld which features Paul Kidby's illustrations of the Discworld and its denizens. Ordinarily I have trouble with other people envisioning my favorite fictional characters, but Kidby's illustrations are very well done, if not always exactly what I pictured. I especially liked the drawing of Cohen the Barbarian which appears on the cover of The Last Hero.
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