Emmanuel Polanco April 17, 2013

French artist Emmanuel Polanco has been involved in some pretty cool projects. From his clean book cover designs to designing the posters for the Royal Shakespeare Company to illustrating the booklet for the United States Postal Service’s Commemorative Edition of the Edgar Allan Poe stamp. His work leans surreal and offers a fresh perspective for these classic works. for the Royal Shakespeare Company 2011/2012 production of Measure for Measure cover of French Edition of John Steinbeck’s The Pearl…

Over The Counter Alphabet February 28, 2013

Over the Counter ABC’s by Ray Geary is a drug-laced trip through the alphabet with each letter being comprised of a select over the counter medication. So here in this ‘capsulettered’ alphabet is Pills: Geary is also working on a series of bagged words! More Geary at ArtSlant

Portraits of Modern American Poets October 15, 2012

Langston Hughes by Winold Reiss, circa 1925. Pastel on illustration board. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery. You know if the National Portrait Gallery is going to hold an exhibit featuring the portraits of poets it’s going to be a good one. “Poetic License: Modern American Poets ” pays homage to over 50 poets and includes over 75 works. Walt Whitman. G. Frank E. Pearsall, 1872. Albumen silver print. Courtesy the National Portrait Gallery The…

The Art of Library Date Stamps September 17, 2012

For Italian artist Frederico Pietrella, time is a framework that can be measured in the time it takes to create a work of art. And one of the mediums he uses to illustrate the concept of time is a library date stamp. As his large-scale images take a considerable amount of time to produce, he will change the stamp to reflect the current date, adding texture to illustrate his everyday images in a complex, pointillistic…

Yoko Ono Collects Rare Books: The Book Patrol Interview April 15, 2010

I had lunch with Yoko Ono during the 2010 New York Antiquarian Book Fair. That’s a sentence I figured I’d have about as much chance of writing as, “I accept the nomination of my party for President of the United States,” but with less probability of actual realization. At the Fair on Saturday, I noticed Yoko Ono quietly walking the aisles. I thought, I must talk to her about rare books. And immediately I thought,…