Off-beat books to inspire your summer travel

Travel season is upon us! I'm featuring some hidden gems; some off-beat travel books to inspire your artistic experience of interesting places. The library has only one or two copies of each of these so you'll probably have to request them.

Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico: A Sense of Place by Barbara Buhler Lynes

This catalog for a 2004 travelling exhibition of Georgia O’Keeffe’s work features the genius’ landscape paintings and beside them, photographs of the sites she painted.  You’ll quickly notice that the macro textures of landforms carved by eons of erosion was O’Keeffe’s primary interest and that the micro-texture of soil and vegetation was not important to her at all. I thought it was a great way to get inside O'Keeffe's head. It combines paintings, photographs, and geological charts as well that describe the landscape in parallel scientific, visual, and evocative languages.  A great book if you’re an artist traveling with a geologist!

The book also contains tidbits of her life story that illuminate the person she was and her long love affair with the New Mexico landscape.

Metro Stop Paris: An Underground History of the City of Light by Gregor Dallas

Gregor Dallas, a historian, writes about key moments and characters in the human history of Paris through, of all things, its subway stops.  I hope it stirs your imagination as it did mine as you read about famous philosophers and poets, kings and citizens, life and death, and link them to the arrondissements of Paris.

At the first metro stop,  Denfert-Rochereau, in the part of Paris once called Hell, there are catacombs, and from 1830, the guillotine. The Trocadero metro stop elicits memories of French Cuban author Anaïs Nin and her Viennese psycho-analyst lover Dr. Otto Rank. The Gare du Nord neighborhood is where St. Vincent de Paul’s charitable relief happened. Saint-Germain-des- Près brings you to the heart of Paris’ intellectual soul on the Left Bank. And the last stop, Pere Lachaise, takes you to the famous cemetery where renowned cultural figures are buried, including artists David, Ingres, Delacroix, Corot, Caillebotte, and Ernst.

Leonardo’s Universe: The Renaissance World of Leonardo da Vinci by Bulent Atalay and Keith Wamsley

Whether or not you’re planning a visit to Italy or just trying to understand mathematical principals in art, this book is a treat. If I tell you it was published by National Geographic you’ll know that the photographs and diagrams are excellent. The geography of Leonardo’s life and work and the story are wonderful, too.

Cody Hooper: Abstract artist

When I viewed the website gallery of San Antonio abstract artist Cody Hooper, I found myself thinking of him as a southwestern Piet Mondrian. This talented emerging artist experiments with the glowing effects of layers of glazes. He also exhibits a brilliant sense of proportion. Lovely, evocative, beautifully composed abstract compositions. Just wanted to share him with you...

"What We See Changes Who We Are"

I'd like you to meet JR. JR is a semi-anonymous French photographer and artist whose work lives in the tradition of England's Banksy. JR's art, while not intentionally political, is deeply political. And social, and provocative.

JR embeds himself in neighborhoods, favelas, and villages around the world, learns the stories of the people who live there, and photographs them. Then he pastes their massive images onto local canvases like buildings, buses, trains, and bridges.

His latest global art project is called Women are Heroes. The images above are from that project. He has gone into poor villages where the women, the mothers, are the only stability in the family, and honored them in this images.

In the next set of images JR has photographed Palestinians and Jews who do the same job--taxi drivers, dentists, writers, etc.--and placed them side by side. He asks the viewer: "Can you tell who is who?"

JR believes that "guerrilla art is about provocation and pushing limits to start dialogue. It has the capacity to engage and break down barriers in ways art in galleries or museums does not. The audience is often those who are least likely to be exposed to art." http://blog.tec/com/2010/10/20/meet-jr/

JR recently gave a talk at the annual TED conference. (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and is about "ideas worth knowing".) Conference organizers invite interesting people to give an 18-minute talk about their work. JR's talk won the 2011 TED Prize: $100,000 and an invitation to make one wish to change the world. JR's wish? "I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we'll turn the world...INSIDE OUT."

Here's the link to JR's amazing TED video.

Literary Love: 12 Books of Art and Architecture

Here's a website with images of art and architecture created with books as the medium. A perfect match, says this librarian...

To the left is the art of Mike Smiley, shown on the website.

MARSHALL HARRIS: Welcome to my Sight

When my husband introduced me to his old classmate from Southwest High in Fort Worth, I had no doubt that he'd gone on to become a professional football player. Marshall Harris stands somewhere midway between six and seven feet tall and has the physique of a linebacker.

His art is equally distinctive. He creates architectural welded sculptures, installations, and amazing drawings. Marshall just finished his MFA and also just returned to living in Fort Worth. His drawings include nudes, but I think you'll find them unusual, in that Marshall "seeks the deeper underlying sub-context of people, places, and situations." Not too many artists draw middle-aged men...Here's a link to his website

StumbleUpon

Some days I stare at my monitor and wonder where I might find a glorious art site to inspire me. Then I remember my free subscription to StumbleUpon. It seldom disappoints and often entertains and inspires. Here's how it works. When people discover an interesting site, they recommend it to StumbleUpon. When you sign up for StumbleUpon you list your interests (arts, photography, gardening, science, politics, etc.) and StumbleUpon sends you those recommended sites periodically or you can search them whenever you want. Here's the link so you can explore it yourself.

ARTIST'S DATE: Read art magazines

When Julia Cameron wrote her now-famous book, The Artist's Way, she promoted the idea of regularly going on an artist's date in order to keep the soul fresh and inspired. Here at the library we have some great tools for artist's dates: art magazines and journals. We also have nice soft lounge chairs, coffee, and lovely light streaming through the windows. C'mon by!

Architectural Digest

Aperture

Art in America

ARTFORUM

ARTnews

Art Journal

Communication Arts

Computer Arts

Computer Arts Projects

Digital Photography

Dynamic Graphics

Film & History

Inside Photoshop

Layers
Outdoor Photographer

Popular Photography & Imaging

Print

PRO Digital Imaging

Southwest Art

Threads

Image from flickr: cc: Now Reading Computer Arts Magazine: by Bene