Road Show: Art Cars and the Museum of the Streets Review

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(More customer reviews)Expression is not bound by rules and ignoring these rules is a way of life for some. "Road Show: Art Cars and the Museum of the Streets" is a unique book discussing cars and how they have become a medium of artistic expression all their own. Discussing the history of the automobile and its evolution, authors Eric Dregni & Ruthann Godollei provide much in the way of intriguing thoughts and show many examples of people using their vehicle to say their message. "Road Show" is a must for those who have a shared appreciation for the automobile and modern art.


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The automobile has long been a symbol of status, power, and autonomy, and ever since King Tut rolled through Egypt on his golden-wheeled chariot, artists and drivers have dreamed up mobile masterpieces. A striking photographic tribute and social history, Road Show navigates a path across high and low art, showing how people around the world are transforming their vehicles into stunning folk art, obsessive collections, social commentary, and visionary performances. In this fascinating showcase, we see how Henry Ford\'s motto, "Any color as long as it\'s black," has been hung out to dry. From the Wienermobile to a hand-carved wooden Ferrari that drives in the canals of Venice to a giant red stiletto heel, Road SHow brings the "museum of the streets" to life.

Eric Dregni has written thirteen books, including Follies of Science, Weird Minnesota, Midwest Marvels, The Scooter Bible, Ads That Put America on Wheels, and Let\'s Go Bowling! He lives in Minneapolis where he teaches Italian and creative writing and plays guitar in the mock-rock trio Vinnie & the Stardusters.

Ruthann Godollei is a professor of art at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and her artwork has been exhibited internationally. She has participated in and organized art car events for over twenty years and drives a 1985 Volvo covered with thousands of printed green gears.

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New Knits on the Block: A Guide to Knitting What Kids Really Want Review

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(More customer reviews)Vickie Howell hosts a knitting show (Knitty Gritty, on the DIY channel) that lives up to its promise of being "fierce, fresh, and fabulous," and so does her first book. I have to admire the editors who had the nerve to use a cover shot showing Vickie holding oversize needles draped with hopeless tangles of yarn - and a "what-me-worry?" grin on her face! Don't you worry either - inside you'll find clearly laid out instructions for some of the most winsome and winning children's gear you've ever seen. This new collection of accessories, hats, garments, and costumes for the young and the young-at-heart will make you gasp with delight.
I have two personal favorites which I would wear together were I still of trick-or-treating age, and call myself a sea-horse: designer Tinna Marrin's mermaid costume (which has to rank among the top five renditions of mermaid costumes ever designed by human hands - this one is elegant, convincing, and ever so mermaid-like, with the most life-like tail you can imagine, except that it makes you want to cuddle it) and the felted unicorn hat (not just a spiraling horn, but also two totally horse-like ears, all perfectly sculpted in felt), designed by Christina Benedetti.
Bev Galeskas designed the felted wizard and princess hats, sure to please the Harry Potter fans in your life. If you've ever wanted to try needle-felting, the book offers clear instructions as one method of applying stars to the wizard hat. I'm sure that when J.K. Rowling's seventh book comes out, there will be hundreds of these wizard hats topping the heads of young and not-so-young wizards in bookstore lines.
Vickie thinks out of the box - that's for sure - in this case the card box. She's designed a knitted version (backed in fabric) of the classic memory card game, offering a knitter who's never worked two-color knitting before a chance to try it on these small squares. She also offers a knitted, squishy bowling set which can be played harmlessly (and in theory anyway, silently, early Saturday morning while the parents are still asleep) in the house.
Lori Steinberg designed a pirate bath set which will make your little rascal walk the plank right into the foamy sea of the tub. It includes a friendly sponge-stuffed parrot, a Jolly Rogers washcloth, a fine hat, and best of all, a black eyepatch. You may need to design and knit a large shark to throw into the bath if your pruny little pirate refuses to get out.
Kids revel in fantasy play and nowadays have less and less time for it because of their busy schedules, TV, computers, and the academic demands that are put on them at a younger and younger age. The knitted things in this wonderful book (which I hope is the first of several) can change that for the child in your life. Let them watch the costume or plaything or garment come into being in your hands and on your needles, endowing the completed object with your love and a special enchantment to be carried into fantasy play. Some of the simpler pieces would be good starting points for a child who wants to learn to knit - casting the spell of knitting over them for a lifetime. I think this book lives up to its subtitle: "A guide to knitting what kids really want." Go for it!

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Vickie Howell--the popular host of DIY network's Knitty Gritty--plus a dozen contributing designers have stepped out of the box with 25 super-original, funky playtime projects that are as much fun for parents to knit as they are for children to receive.Not another boring sweater! Vickie Howell, and her group of talented contributors, will make you the most popular parent on the block with the coolest projects for kids' stuff ever. These knits are gifts children will go nuts over, because they include a playful range of costumes and toys. Crafty moms and dads can create such enchanting items as a wizard's hat and princess crown; a super kid cape, mermaid dress up, pirate bath set, alien tooth fairy pillows, bowling ball and pins, and a tool set with pouch. Vickie includes estimations of how long each project will take to complete, along with tips for busy knitters and advice on special techniques, such as felting, tassel making, and edgings. Many of the designers have appeared on her show--but every item is a never-before-seen original.

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Discrepant Abstraction (Annotating Art's Histories: Cross-Cultural Perspectives in the Visual Arts) Review

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(More customer reviews)Kobena Mercer has long been an important figure in the world of cultural theory and identity politics. He has more recently turned his attention to the fine art object itself. In this groundbreaking book Mercer and a range of other art historians and scholars examine the place of the black artist in the fine art arena. Contrary to art history artists of the African diaspora have played an ongoing and important role in advancing the high art paradigm of painting. Abstraction does not only mean Jackson Pollock! Here Mercer and his critical cohorts examine the role that black artists have played and continue to play in making painting and abstraction an engaging and meaningful conceptual practice.

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For anyone who thinks the question of abstract art is settled, this book will come as a surprise. Discrepant abstraction is hybrid and partial, elusive and repetitive, obstinate and strange. It includes almost everything that does not neatly fit into the institutional narrative of abstract art as a monolithic quest for artistic purity. Exploring cross-cultural scenarios in twentieth-century art, this second volume in the Annotating Art's Histories series alters our understanding of abstract art as a signifier of modernity by revealing the multiple directions it has taken in wide-ranging international contexts.Impure, imperfect, and incomplete, the version of abstraction that emerges from this global journey—from Hong Kong and Islamic regions to Canada, Australia, Europe, and the United States—shows how the formal ingenuity of abstract art has been cross-fertilized, from abstract expressionism onwards, by creative discrepancies that arise when disparate visual languages are brought into dialogue. Discrepant Abstraction is essential reading for students, practitioners and anyone curious about cross-cultural interaction in the visual arts.Copublished with inIVA/Institute of International Visual Arts, London

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The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales Review

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(More customer reviews)Hey, I may be in college, but this was a book I read all the time when I was little. I'm currently taking Children's Lit, which requires me reading 70 children's books. I found this one burried in my room, forgetting that I still owned it. I read it, and it still made me laugh. "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales" is one entertaining book.
It's some of your favorite fairy tales.....except told in parody form. They're hillarious. My favorites are "Jack's Bean Problem," "Little Red Running Shorts," "Chicken Licken," and "The Really Ugly Duckling." But they're all very funny. The Little Red Hen will crack you up as she blabbers on about how no one is helping her and how horrible this book is.
The book is by Jon Scieszka and is illustrated by Lane Smith.
It doesn't matter how old you are, this is one of the funniest children's book I have ever read. Fun for all ages. Great writing and pictures. Have a look whenever you can. I'm sure you will not regret it.

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500 Bowls: Contemporary Explorations of a Timeless Design Review

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(More customer reviews)In addition to being beautifully presented, the bowls depicted in this trim 8" x 8" publication, run the gamet from functional to sculptural, not missing some wonderful stops in between. Leslie Thompson's Patterned Pueblo Bread-Raising Bowl is a perfect example of function - a utilitarian shape accented with a band of scraffito patterning - and at the same time, sculptural in appearance. Her Hatched Triangles bowl further back in the collection is just that, a sculptural interpretation of classic form! What's even nicer is that in many instances, more than one bowl is shown by the same artist, giving the peruser a sense of the creator as well as their creations. This book showcases clay artists chosen for their work rather than their notoriety, something many other contemporary epistles fail to do. A great compliment to this is Lark's previous publication, 500 Teapots.

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Five hundred inspiring variations on the simple, functional bowl will fire any potter's imagination. Displayed on each page are bowls that reinvent and reinterpret the form, and use techniques from across the globe and through the centuries. More importantly, every piece, such as Kate Maury's wheel-thrown porcelain, Stephen F. Fabrico's slab-built bowl with handles, and Ruchika Madan's stoneware Fruit Bowl, testifies to the artist's boundless inventiveness. Captions give each bowl's size, with details on its material and glazes.

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