Looking for a cool step stool to reach those books on the top shelves of your library or bookstore?The 50th anniversary library edition of the Cramer Kik-Step stool might be the answer.This special edition features quotes from the likes of Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger, Edith Wharton and Mark Twain emblazoned on its nonslip tread and has a slick stainless steel finish.It can easily be rolled around with the casters locking into place once you step on it. The bumper that surrounds it protects anything in its path.And for those who need to get the big heavy books on the upper...
Lady Masereel: Marta Chudolinska’s Wordless Novel ‘Back + Forth’
Noted illustrator, wood engraver, printer and book designer George A.Walker encourages his students at the Ontario College of Art & Design to "embrace 19th century linocut printmaking techniques to create extended visual narratives."One of the fruits of his labor is this stunning book by Marta Chudolinska. Chudolinska, who immigrated to Canada from Poland in 1991, cites Frans Masereel, one of the titans of the wordless novel, as her inspiration for the book. "Masereel's style is vivacious, focused more on expression and energy than on completely accurate representation" says Chudolinska. His "characters are still alive on the page a hundred years...
Library Graffiti
In the summer of 2007 Quinn Dombrowski started documenting the graffiti she encountered on her visits to the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago. She began posting the images on Flickr and by 2009 she had amassed a collection of over 700 pieces of graffiti.In the summer of 2009 the project got helped along by a story on Jacket Copy, the book blog of the Los Angeles Times, and by the time time the year was out Quinn published Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur: Confessions of the University of Chicago, a book containing many of the highlights of the collection.The...
"Books are Art Too": New Paris Gallery Mixes it Up
The inaugural exhibit at the new Paris gallery/bookshop Le Pied de Biche (“The Crowbar”) is titled “Art, Ink and Rock and Roll" and features the work of three tattoo artists.Supplementing the the exhibit is the gallery's bookstore which is loaded with underground cartoons, rare books, fanzines, theatrical jewelry and toys for adults. The gallery will also publish, print and display limited edition books.Tiffany Khalil, founder of Le Pied de Biche, believes “Books are art too,” and hopes her gallery is "a move away from the classical, sanitized gallery. The aim is to create an uninhibited space, and put forward young,...
The Argentine Book Tank: Bookmobile for the 21st Century?
Meet my new hero.Raul Lemesoff, an Argentine art-car artist, has taken a 1979 Ford Falcon that used to belong to the Argentine armed forces and turned into a 'Weapon of Mass Instruction.'Armed with 900 or so books Lemesoff travels the streets of Buenos Aires and beyond offering free books to all.He sees his 'Weapon of Mass Instruction' as a "contribution to peace through literature."Lemesoff has traveled throughout Argentina including remote parts where "literature cannot be found"His goal is to build new 'Weapons of Mass Instruction' all around the world.Just think of all those tanks he could transform if the world...