Tag: book arts

A Pre-Computer Guide to the News

Prentice-Hall, 1972. "News: A Consumer's Guide shows you how to cope with the confusion of reports you get each day from the media""Among the many features of this book":-Show how how to tell when a report is biased-Provide tips on spotting hoaxes and public relation ploys in the news-Give standards to judge "expert" opinion and "reliable" sources-List critics and other sources of help for the consumerhere wouldDust jacket artist unattributed. The problems remain.

Continue Reading →

Patrolling

Charles Johnson essay in the Seattle PI on a cure for our post-literate, "superflat" society.Edward Champion adds another nail to the newspaper book review coffin. He contends that book reviews are "tailor-made for digital delivery". Hard to argue.Project For Public Places article Libraries That Matter. Get ready for the 21st century library as they "extend their mission well beyond the storage of knowledge."Flickr set from popcornyouth of The “The Big Red C” Buzz Spector's book installation at Cornell's Hirshland Gallery.popcornyouth is the arts blog of the Itacha Times where they also have a great interview with Spector

Continue Reading →

Book Arts Roundup: JAB, Kiefer, Buzz, Bindings and Hidy

It is nice to see JAB (Journal of Book Arts) being published again. After a few year hiatus issue 21 has just been released. The journal is now being published by Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts and is "Still dedicated to providing a forum for critical, theoretical, and creative engagement with artists’ books". A highlight of the new issue is Elisabeth Long's article Editioning One-of-a-Kind Multiples: Notes Toward An Understanding of Anselm Kiefer’s BooksI concur that the display of Keifer's book art (or book art as a whole) has suffered from museum curators not having the...

Continue Reading →

The Illustration Divide

The study was called "Gender Stereotyping and Under-representation of Female Characters in 200 Popular Picture Books: A Twenty-first Century Update."The authors looked at the top-selling books in 2001 and a seven-year sample of Caldecott Award-winning books.What did they find:That "images of men continue to dominate children's picture books."-There were nearly twice as many male as female title and main characterswith male characters appearing in 53 percent more illustrations than females-Female main characters were more nurturing-Men were shown outdoors more often and women were seen indoors more -More women than men appeared to have no paid occupationIn 2005 the same team...

Continue Reading →

The Page Curler

Cara Barer is a page curler. She also happens to be a photographer.Her Dimensions and Of Words, Paper, and Shapes series are are among the finest examples of biblio-photography.How does she find her subjects:Barer realized that she owned many books that were "no longer of use to me, or for that matter, anyone else. Would I ever need "Windows 95?" she says.What next:"As I begin the process, I first consider the contents of each volume." Thenthe books go into the "bathtub for a few hours" and emerge with "a new shape and purpose. She "uses everything from hair rollers to...

Continue Reading →