1 comments about Turkish Designs (Agile Rabbit Editions).

1. I bought this book/CD-ROM intending to use the patterns in my graphic design work. I had assumed (wrongly) that these images would be permission-free. After receiving the book I learned that use of Agile Rabbit Editions' graphics in a professional capacity requires permission from the publisher. I have found this permission process takes several days--a major problem when working under a short deadline. Depending on the usage, there may also be a fee in addition to the initial cost of the book. If you want a ready-to-use copyright-free graphic resource, then you're better off sticking with the books put out by Dover Publishing.

5 comments about The Sketchbook Kit: An Artist's Guide to Techniques, Materials, and Projects.

1. This set is perfect with a travel-sized booklet accompanying a good quality sketchbook. My son is a serious artist and just loves this! It is a great size for a child, also. The text is a nice one, especially considering its size. This is not for "young" children not serious about art as it isn't "kiddie" oriented. The set is for adults or teens, or seriously artistic children. My son thought this was his best holiday gift this year and he is 10.



2. This is a nice item for beginning artists as a little gift.
   It is portable, practical, and beautifully put together.



3. My son (19) is into art and sketching. I had bought other sketchbooks but they were cheap. This one is excellent, the paper is thick, is bound very well, the charcoal and pencils are made of high quality and last a long time. Don't waste your money on other cheaper/cheezy products, this is a keeper.



4. Writing will never be the same for many children. The world of charcoal pencils is changing, for the better if i could shout it to the world i would scream i love this pencil set, buy it you won't be dissappointed!



5. My son is pleased that he finally has different types of mediums to use, and a book to show him how to utilize them properly. He is looking forward to using it, soon after he is done with all the video games from Christams! He is only 8, but has a great eye for detail, and I think this is definitely a good starter for his mature senses.

4 comments about Chinese Label Art: 1900-1976.

1. If you collect Chinese labels this is a must have book.



2. Chinese label art has long been outstanding, so it's surprising that few coverages of Chinese ad art have revealed its history before. CHINESE LABEL ART 1900-1976 provides a fine survey of packaging and labels from the period, pairing stunning images from around China to beyond its borders into Hong Kong and Macau. From tea and medicines to foods, cigarettes, firecrackers and religious items, over 400 color images pair with an authoritative discussion of history and art from Andy Cahan, who has been collecting Chinese ephemera for most of his life.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



3. In this fantastic work (in all meanings of the word), Cahan opens a door to an utterly unique aesthetic - one most of us have only caught a glimpse of when we set off firecrackers as a child, or wandered through an Asian Food Market - a world of lurid colors and incredibly ornate designs, populated with dragons, temples, bearded Mandarins, strange winged creatures, and smiling sages. An initial epiphany during a celebration of lunar new year in New York's Chinatown when he was an infant led Andrew Cahan into a collecting odyssey - into old shops and factories in the backstreets of the "Chinatowns" of U.S. cities to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taipei. This beautifully printed book is a distillation of the fabulous collection of graphic art Cahan accumulated in his lifetime of collecting. Cahan's insightful commentary on the art illuminates the use of colors, symbols, and designs, as the art evolved in response to religious, political, and cultural influences from both within and outside of the region.
   I would like to second the previous reviewer's perceptive and enthusiastic endorsement of this book! The Graphic Arts of China is a delightful and beautiful work of art in itself. Here's an opportunity to learn all about an utterly exotic and previously unexplored cultural phenomenon, while experiencing a vision of a fantastic world, reminiscent of the imaginary China of Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung books. Highly recommended!



4. Sometimes the best way to understand a culture is to take a deep look at it through a keyhole: the home cooking of French housewives, appreciation for American R&B records in the rural villages of Africa, the flourishing of Yiddish newspapers on the Lower East Side of New York City.
   
   Now Andrew Cahan opens a window to understanding Chinese culture through an unexpected route: the vivid, fantastic, charming, and surprisingly hip label art that appeared on packaging for fireworks, cigarettes, and other consumer products in the early-to-mid 20th Century.
   
   Most of this book, as it should be, is pictures, and what glorious pictures they are! The smiling face of Buddha unexpectedly adorns a pack of firecrackers; an entrancing image of a deer with a pine shoot in its mouth stands before a snowy mountain on a fabric label; one of dozens of happy infant boys raises his hands on a label for "The Baby" cigarettes. Along the way, Cahan offers fascinating insights on the changing social dynamics in China during that tumultuous century, examining gender issues (without getting tedious) and the ways the rise of Communism altered community values (without getting polemical). Along the way, he tells his own story of being a young suburban Jewish kid who was seduced by these brightly colored curiosa on visits to New York's Chinatown. His writing style is warm, elegant, and full of affection for his subject.
   
   For people who collect this stuff, this book is a must-buy. But if I was a young rock star shopping for a killer-hip design for my next CD cover, I'd get a million ideas browsing through this marvelous book.

1 comments about Raku Glazes: The Ultimate Collection.

1. This book contains more recipes than you could ever use. Great selection of glazes and love the book

2 comments about Love, Love, Love.

1. "Love, Love, Love," by Andy Warhol, reproduces several different works, done in various media, by graphic artist Andy Warhol. Some of the selections are black-and-white, and some are in full color. These drawings and paintings are complemented by many quotes from Andy Warhol on the title subject.

   This is a delightful book, full of witty and whimsical images. Hearts, flowers, angels, lips, and other motifs are frequently used. This is a great book both for both Warhol devotees and for general readers.




2. The pages pour out with emotion! I loved every minute of it! You would love this if you love love... Give it to your lover and you're sure to receive smiles and more!!!

5 comments about Sketchbook Navy Blue cover, 8 1/4 x 11".

1. Some previous reviewers say this sketchbook has only around 170 pages, but under "Product Details" above, Amazon says this sketchbook has 224 pages. FYI.



2. The texture and grain of the paper was really enjoyable to use, and I would consider this a great gift purchase to any aspiring journal writers or even artists. However, the major complaint I would have is the feeling that there aren't as many pages as originally anticipated. I was expecting over 200 sheets, but ended up with about 170 or so. Though this is not a big deal, but it would be advisable to list this someplace on the website and differentiate it from similar products of the same company.
   
   Great product in most other regards.



3. Great bargain and the weight of the paper is enough to handle light watercolour washes. The paper is smooth and works great with ballpoint pens.



4. I agree that these are great journals and sketchbooks. For some reason Amazon does not list the number of pages in the various Watson-Guptill sketchbooks, even though it is printed on the sticker. I have two versions of this book with the same ISBN number - one bought in 2001 with 224 pages and one bought in 2004 with 176 pages. Maybe Watson-Guptill has trimmed the size of the sketchbooks. So the most recent version has 176 neutral pH, nonyellowing archival-quality pages.



5. These make the best sketchbooks and journals. The binding is excellent and very durable. The paper is smooth and fine, a joy to write or draw on. For a two-week trip to France, I bought a Watson-Guptill sketchbook for use as a travel journal. This journal went everywhere with me, knocking around inside my totebag and being taken in and out of the bag many times a day for writing, and yet it arrived back home showing hardly any wear and is today my most valued souvenir of the trip. Every time I travel, I buy another of these wonderful sketchbooks. They're the best.

No comments about Whistler's Mother: An American Icon.

1 comments about Ornate Pictorial Calligraphy: Instructions and Over 150 Examples (Dover Pictorial Archive Series).

1. This book instructs very little, and most of the examples are birds, birds and more birds. Well, I'm no ornithologyst and I know that this book could have diversified more on the examples session. Buy this only if you have a thing for drawing birds.

1 comments about Collective Intelligence in Design (Architectural Design).

1. Architectural Design is a magazine in book form that consistently pusheds the state of the art in design, nominally in architectural, but in reality all kinds of design. In this issue the general subject is taking advantage of the communications capability of the internet for collective or collaborative design efforts. A lot of the discussion is not specific to architecture, but is on the general developments in social, economic and political organization in the form of peer-to-peer networks and communities.
   
   The articles here typically represent the absolute state of the art as it exists today. As such, they serve only as an inkling of what might be there in the future. Examples: Working with Wiki - Wiki from the Hawaiian word for quick - are on line platforms where anyone can make entries without supervision. The Grid - a worldwide collection of computers of (generally) extremely high performance that allow huge problems to be approached. At this time the Grid is quite small, only a handful of supercomputer centers, but it promises to change many of the ways we have approached computing.

5 comments about Henry Clay Frick.

1. One step above a vanity press endeavor. A family member's gothic tale about the wealthy business tycoon Henry Clay Frick and his two daughters, Martha and Helen. Martha dies in infancy (too many words in this book are spilt on the details of the accidental ingestion of a pin that caused her demise) setting the stage for a psychological drama playing out over decades and apparently worthy of Freud.
   
   The great works of art contained in Frick Collection are used here merely to illustrate the strangely introspective, maudlin, or near crazy behavior of this dysfunctional family.
   
   Only if you have a very deep need to know about the Frick family should you trouble yourself with this tome.



2. I found this book fascinating as it covered not only the events that made Frick stand out as a leading industrialist, but also details his painful family life, including the loss of two children, that shaped his thinking and way of life.
   In addition, this book details Frick's passion for art collecting and goes into vivid detail about the meaning behind some of his purchases as contrasted with his life events.
   I am looking forward to touring the Clayton home preserved in Pittsburgh in the future.
   Beautifully written.



3. 
   The illustrations are glorious. The text is well-researched. The narrative flows effortlessly. The book is a treasure!
   
   This is the book you want to read if you want to know more than the basics about the true stories from Mr. Frick's life, his involvement with the steel industry of Pittsburgh in all of its ramifications, the accumulation of wealth and the intricacies of running a powerful corporation in those heady days.
   
   Thank you, Martha, for telling a bit more about the story of the South Fork Club and its members... And also for telling about the assassination attempt... Yes, we would have wished a bit more on the on-again, off-again relationship between Mr. Frick and Mr. Leishman. Perhaps you might consider making the story of their eventual falling-out the centerpiece to another good book?
   
   Because there is more to the story!
   
   Much of it has been discreetly hinted at in this book. The careful reader will find himself or herself looking into other books that tie in with this one, some of which I review elsewhere.
   
   One only wishes that we could eavesdrop on a long conversation between Ms Sanger, Patricia Beard ("After the Ball"), Teresa Carpenter ("The Miss Stone Affair"), Les Standiford ("Meet You In Hell") and - of course - the incomparable David McCullough ("The Johnstown Flood")!
   
   Oh what a treat that would be!
   
   It would have benn helpful had Martha chosen to describe the lives of those who interacted with Frick as members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club he established, in much more detail. They were his Pittsburgh friends and buisness colleagues, and many were related to him by marriage.
   
   If you find this review helpful, check out the others I have mentioned! Happy reading!



4. "Henry Clay Frick: An Intimate Portrait" is an excellent work of history, biography, and a stunning visual presentation of art. The result of a decade long effort by a Great Granddaughter of Mr. Frick, Martha Frick Symington Sanger, the book is a beautiful volume from its construction, to what is displayed and written within.

   This is not as scholarly a book as Simon Schama's "Rembrandt's Eyes", and so it should be judged with distinct criteria. This is a family history as related by one of its members, so in exchange for the objective view of the Historian, we trade a certain objective detachment for an intimate portrait of the man, his family, and the legacy of art he collected. I was amused to read that one person thought that some of the works bought by Mr. Frick were "Duds". I would agree that when your collection includes multiple paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Renoir, Veronese, El Greco, and Van Dyck, to name a few, some are perhaps "better" than others. I would also suggest no one would take a pass if offered a work for their own.

   Mr. Frick was a very tough businessman, at times brutal, and he never hesitated to employ these tactics when he perceived his business interests were threatened. This does not make him unique among the major Capitalists that built this Country, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Fisk, and many other were also notorious by today's standards, or were they? Private armies may no longer be used, but public welfare, and the fate of employees is not always at the top of the list today either. I do not attempt to justify what they did, rather to suggest a more dispassionate view is in order. Our "Robber Barons" are often compared to the Kleptocrats of today's Russia, and that truly is absurd.

   Fortunately many of these men amassed great collections of art whether rare books, paintings, historical documents, or something else that caught their interest, and we are the beneficiaries of their collections. The Morgan Library or The Frick Collection simply could not be duplicated today. Theoretically Mr. Bill Gates could pay the price, but where would you find a brace of Vermeer's offered for sale?

   The book is not perfect in it's history as others have pointed out, however on balance I believe the work to be excellent, and certainly the most personal insight into the life of Mr. Frick.

   Mr. Frick and others like him make easy targets, that they were flawed is not the issue, they were. They also gave back in a variety of forms a great deal of the wealth they accumulated. This may not be enough for some or even for many, but to have left no legacy other than that of brutal businessmen, I suggest, would be a great deal more disappointing.




5. Do not be fooled by the size of this book. Once you open the book you will not find it easy to close it.

   This book satisfies on many levels. If you are an art lover, you are amazed at the artwork and how beautifully the publisher reproduced it. It's the next best thing to being in Frick's art collections yourself.

   If you are interested in Frick or the post Civil-War industrial era, you will at last find a revealing biography of the man that finally acknowledges that he was a human being, albeit flawed in some ways. This book should shatter some commonly held myths about Henry Frick.

   My only complaint is some incomplete research. I have discovered several historical errors that a good editor should have caught. For example, and perhaps most blatant, many figures and stated facts relating to the 1889 Johnstown Flood are incorrect. But Frick's reaction to the Flood is an insight not known to many until now.

   Mrs. Sanger should be proud of her book. This will serve as a definitive history of both the man and his legacy. This will be a valuable addition to your library.