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Sarah Gumgumji is the Program Manager for CREATE. Sarah will post a new topic each Wednesday. You are encouraged to join in the conversation! Please note that disrespectful content will not be tolerated. This page will be monitored to ensure we uphold the standards of the ART YARD community.
Inspiration for this week: illustration recipes
What are you reading? Are you reading print books? Listening to audio books? Reading on your phone? Reading out loud to others or listening to someone read out loud?
Post your artwork, photos, book reviews, bibliography and all other things that relate to this weeks CREATE inspiration -- BOOKS!
The books I was reading when I did the Magical Things from Quarantine Books are Barkley L. Hendricks, Birth of the Cool; Snapshot, Painters and Photography Bonnard to Vuillard edited by Elizabeth W. Easton; and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, illustrated by Maira Kalman.
I love all of these books!!
Snapshot appeared in my last big Inside Outside painting. I found it in the window of Unnameable Books, a used bookstore on Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights.
When I went into Unnameable Books to share an image of my painting with the people who run the shop, Birth of the Cool was displayed on a table towards the back of the shop. I ADORE Barkley Hendrick's work and squealed in delight when I saw the book. It is currently on loan to Quentin. Who I expect is enjoying it immensely.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was written by Gertrude Stein in 1932. It is a memoir of sorts told from the point of view of her life partner Alice B. Toklas. This version is illustrated by one of my favorite artists Maira Kalman! This one I am savoring. I have it on my desk and read a few pages every day.
I am reading the Gertrude Stein/Alice B. Toklas book too! Well, I finished it last night. Maybe I should have savored it as you are doing.
I also read books in Kindle on my phone.
I just finished Amazing Grace a life of Beauford Delaney by David Leeming. I read Leemings biography of his good friend James Baldwin a few years ago and loved it. His sensitive and thoughtful biography of the deeply talented artist, mentor and dear friend of James Baldwin, Beauford Delaney Iives up to my high expectations.
I finished this painting this morning:
Meridith McNeal, Magical Things from Quarantine A Life of Beauford Delaney on Kindle, 2020, watercolor on paper, 12x12”
I WANT to like to read via Kindle but can't seem to get into it. I've been listened to podcasts while knitting but haven't tried audio books yet either. Guess I'm really old-school?
@Dennis Buonagura I think the scale of the phone makes it challenging for some to read on it. And the illumination seems to either be a plus (I like it) or bother ones eyes.
While I paint I often listen to audio books. Look at what I am listening to now!! What about THAT title?!?! 😸
Felix Plaza adds to the Book thread: "For my book I chose Manet-The Still Life Paintings. A show I saw at the Walker Art Center in Baltimore. An exquisite show featuring his still lifes especially the late works when he was dying and wrote letters to friends with drawings on the page. Scholarship is amazing and we see the lineage of various artists he looked to and my beloved Velasquez."
Felix, I love the painting and the story! Thanks for another great contribution to ART YARD CREATE.
Akash just sent in this drawing of the cover of a book he is reading.
@mlgkittin Akash,
I just read a synopsis of this book. It sounds remarkable. Layered and intense. Perhaps quite frightening. What did you think of it?!?
Has anyone else read that book?!
Working on this one...
@jennifer.r.dodson Jenn, Have you read “Kissing The Witch: Old Tales in New Skins” by Emma Donoghue?!
https://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Witch-Old-Tales-Skins/dp/0064407721
I finally finished my illustration of inquisitive and book-loving Belle using a variety of media, such as watercolor, oil paint marker, and sharpie.
Oh my goodness!! Radical
reworking.
One of my favorite book protagonists, not yet complete. I am using a combination of acrylic paint, color pencil, amd microns.
One of my favorites as well! As a child I re-read the Annotated Alice & Looking Glass every year!
I was just emailing with the gallery director at Magazzino Gallery, Palazzo Polignac, Venice, Italy, where my exhibition Graceful Confusion was to be on exhibit this spring. We discussed the exhibition catalo, which I suppose we can now consider a limited first edition, and it spurred the idea to add a photo of the catalogs on my coffee table!! Topical now on more than one level.
Marie Roberts sends in these great Book related pieces!!
@bitterwonder Marie, I love these drawings! I think Lola and Frances are cut from the same cloth. Always up to mischief!
@bitterwonder
I've been reading from David Whyte's "River Flow." Here are a few poems that have resonated with me:
@evelyn.rv.beliveau Evelyn, these poems really do seem fitting right now. I like the notion of “Everything is Waiting For You” and am drawn very much to the idea of a “dream-ladder”!
Thank you for sharing.
Earlier this week I ordered a copy of MFK Fisher’s, How to Cook a Wolf If my memory serves, I think it too will resonate in this time.
“It is all a question of weeding out what you yourself like best to do, so that you can live most agreeably in a world full of an increasing number of disagreeable surprises.” MFK Fisher, “How To Cook A Wolf”, 1942
Guess Meridith and I are on the same wavelength - I've been reading The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas during quarantine. I know I read it about 40 years ago but it's thought-provoking when taking a 2nd look. I like how it engages the form of autobiography while actually authored by Gertrude Stein, her life partner. How does one write in another person's voice - or does one even try to at all? This edition is illustrated by Maira Kalman. I finished it last night. Now, on to another.
@Dennis Buonagura Dennis, I found that hearing about so many artist (now well known) in the present time was very interesting. One mentioned as being the only one strong enough to lift a heavy painting. Monet considered boorish by the cook because he asked what woukd be served for dinner before announcing his intention to stay for the meal, etc brought art history to life!