5 comments about Tiffany Designs Stained Glass Coloring Book (Dover Pictorial Archive Series).

1. I use watercolor in these books. I've made some beautiful suncatchers with "my" artwork from this book.



2. The book presents 16 color images on its covers.
   The patterns on 16 pages are translucent black and
   white patterns suitable for enlarging 300-800%.
   The "coloring book" misnomer disguises the books use
   for serious stained glass makers.



3. This coloring book is so beautiful, you might be afraid to color on it. The artwork is wonderful and detailed, and it's a great book for older children and adults.



4. I love stained glass. I think the stained glass coloring books are fantastic. This one has so many wonderfull designs in it. Glad to have added it to my collection.



5. I love these Coloring books, and the saved me a ton in gas money. The only place that carries them , around here, is AC Moore and that is about 30 miles from here.
   Thanks

4 comments about The Complete Mosaic Handbook: Projects, Techniques, Designs.

1. After I bought this book, I read the reviews. So I ordered two other books...The Mosaic Artist's Bible and Mosaic Patterns. I by far like the Complete Mosaic book the best for the beginner. It has all the information that would be important for the beginner to know. I like the other two books I ordered, but I will use them after I get started and am into it for awhile. I read The Complete Mosaic Handbook often and get more and more insight how to go about my mosaic projects. So don't pass up this book! It's great for the beginner!



2. There are so many books 'how-to' books out there on mosaic technique. Some are accurate, clearly based on extensive practical knowledge and experience, and some have very misleading and incorrect information. I'm afraid this book falls in the former category. When an author mentions using Elmers craft glue to create a mosaic or seal a substrate, then I would hesitate to trust any of the other information in the book.
   
   For a proven 'how-to' book on creating mosaics, I would suggest 'Mosaic Techinques and Traditions' by Sonia King or any of the books by Emma Biggs, Tessa Hunkin, or Elaine Goodwin. These are all working mosaic artists and instructors and the techniques they share can be counted on to provide you with a solid foundation in this wonderful art form.



3. This is an excellent book which has a variety of projects that are sorted into difficulty, cost and time levels. THese useful categories help you to decide how you will proceed with projects. The how to parts are easy to follow and the pictures are beautiful. OVerall this is a great book for the beginner to the more advanced mosaicist.



4. The book was received quickly. It appeared that the book was taken good care of.

2 comments about Gay Art: A Historic Collection.

1. Highly recommended to all art lovers. The themes and layouts are well done.
   
   One complaint - at least a few of the artworks could have been printed in colour to enhance the visual appeal of the book.
   
   Otherwise a worthy selection of erotic gay art !



2. Felix Lance Falkon's historic collection of Gay Art was the first and only one of its kind when it was first published in 1972. Happily, Falkon is still around to revise and republish his long-lost classic. In this he is ably assisted by art historian Thomas Waugh, who provides invaluable commentary. Thanks to Waugh, we learn the names of some of the artists, who were "closeted" back in 1972. (For example, only now do we learn that some of the art is by Falkon himself.) The only reason I do not give this book 5 stars is because the current political climate has forced the authors to censor some of the art that feature gay youths. What was perfectly acceptable in 1972 is forbidden today. Such is "progress."

1 comments about Touch: Naked girls home alone.

1. The girl-next-door genre is way overdone, and it's probably not the description that Goliath should have used in marketing this new book from New York photographer, Peter Gorman. But despite my problem with the term, girl-next-door, this is a surprisingly good book of nude and erotic photography. And Goliath is to be commended for its extraordinarily high production quality of this 7x10" picture-packed publication.
   
   This is Peter Gorman's fourth book and it follows a similar path outlined in his previous two books, Stripped Naked and Naked Rooms. The central theme here is "everyday" women allowing Gorman entry into their homes, so that he can photograph each of them in the nude and occasionally acting out their sexual fantasies. Masturbation plays a role here and may be what prompted the title, Touch. But although erotica is a quality laced throughout this work, it could more aptly be described as confident women, parading themselves and their sexuality, not so much to titillate as to affirm their own sense of freedom, self worth, and self empowerment. They are beautiful, they are sexual, and they are quite comfortable with that level of self awareness.
   
   All images are color based and appear to be shot in a mixture of natural and flash lighting. There is a pseudo-documentary feel to much of the work, with very little use of background blur or other depth-of-field tricks. Everything in their rooms, in their yards, and on their bodies is sharp and clear - Gorman captures everything. Each photograph is presented in full-page format with the opposite page white and barren, driving full attention to the featured image. So, although there are over two hundred pages, there are 106 photographs of around thirty models.

5 comments about Mastering Cone 6 Glazes: Improving Durability, Fit and Aesthetics.

1. This is absolutely the best glaze book for the functional potter that is available today!



2. I can't recommend this book enough for the potter looking to better understand glazes and the firing process for cone 6 oxidation ware. It's detailed but unpretentious and will be accessible to the non-chemist potter for which it's written.
   
   Hesselberth and Roy have obviously spent a great deal of time and money learning what makes a glaze stable and safe for functional use. This is not a recipe book, though the recipes included are outstanding; rather the authors wish to better inform and equip the potter in 1) better matching his clay bodies with his glazes, 2) ensuring minimal leaching of toxic materials from his glazes, 3) learning to rely on stable and reliable materials in glaze formulation (so long Gerstley Borate), and 4) teaching the potter ways to test whether a particular glaze is safe and stable.
   
   The authors will be the first to say that what's provided here is not exhaustive but this book goes further than any other glaze book I know of in promoting the use of stable and safe glazes that fit well and look good. If you're like me, the price might discourage you. It's an investment well worth making though, and I haven't regretted it. I've now worked in two studios that have based their entire glaze palate on the recipes and principles provided in this book, and the results are reliable and beautiful.
   
   I really think this is going to set the standard for glaze books and cone 6 glazing for a long time to come.



3. Being a novice potter in search of answers regarding cone 6 glazes, this book was my 5th glaze book to purchase. I only wish that I had bought it first and I would only own one! I found this book straight forward with great information regarding not only glaze mixing but successful firing. I would recommend it to anyone trying to get started mixing their own glazes. I had tried many glaze recipes from other books and the web, only to be disappointed with the outcome. The recipes in the back of this book work wonderfully. I am thrilled!!



4. Very useful reference. Assuming you know other aspects of ceramics, this book seems to contain all the info you need to succeed with cone 6 glazes. It's not only for cone 6 though, because much of the info will apply to other glazes as well. Includes a solid explanation of glaze theory, balanced by a wealth of very detailed and practical considerations for getting the best possible results in the real world.



5. This book lives up to its title. If you want a book that covers Cone 6 Oxidation Glazes in an understandable manner, I highly recommend this book.

   In addition to the technical information the authors actually supply (in Chapter 6) some beautiful glaze recipes that meet their standards for functional use.

2 comments about Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories (Book & CD).

1. This is one of the worst books on sound art I have ever read. Its like reading an article in college newspaper. The research is incredibly week, it is as if Licht referred only to The Wire for his information. He makes many mistakes concerning John Cage (who made Sound Art in the early 60s and NOT just for "the stage") He takes cheap shots at Stockhausen of whom he seems to know NOTHING about (Cardew was wrong by the way). There is more to sound art than what can be found on Forcedexposure. This book is just awful, and I am afraid it will be used and referred to by teachers and curators in the future, which is a crying shame. And if you think I'm wrong, do some research on Sound Art and you will see that there are many many many books better than this one. After I bought it, I brought it right back and got a full refund I then used that money to order a Stockhausen CD. Please shop around before you buy this book.



2. Years ago, a critic remarked that so-called Performance Art might have been called either Theater or Dance if those media were less uptight. That's how I feel about sound art - if Music were more open as a discipline, we wouldn't need to have a special category of stuff called sound art. We would simply recognize that for most of the 20th century, music and visual art blurred into each other, and the artistic use of so-called non-musical sounds became increasingly important. Today, in the age of the sample, where Foley artists and composers are often one and the same, and most undergrad art students have made at least one sound piece in their lives, it's useful to have Alan Licht's clearly written, well-illustrated, handsomely designed volume on how composers and artists have worked with sound in the 20th century. Licht hits all the significant movements (Futurism, Dada, Fluxus, etc.) that contributed to sound art, and does a good job of exploring the range of possibilities (from sound sculpture to sound installation to Christian Marclay's floor covered with vinyl records). While I might wish that some of the younger contemporary artists working with sound got more space, you can't have everything. A few years ago, the Pompidou Center in Paris did an exhibit called Son et Lumiére, and if you can find the catalog (and read French) it provides the history of the connection of music and visual art missing in Licht's book. But until that's available in an affordable English version, Licht's book is probably the best available on the topic. And the handy CD included means you can use your ears as well as your eyes to consider the topic, a welcome addition.

5 comments about Richard Kern, Action.

1. I was expecting more from this book. I am usually more fetish photgraphy oriented and was not expecting such "penthouse" type pictures. I was expecting something further from your everyday erotica. This being said the book does have its moments with lighting and composition. For a more varied look at this type of photography I recommend Taschen's The New Erotic Photography wich caters to varying tastes. Not a disappointment no matter what your flavor is.



2. I was really blown away by this book. Pictures are of stunning detail and really show an artistic erotic art.



3. While the second review here is accurate -- and let there be no doubt, many of the photographs in Richard Kern's Action are indeed porn -- it is the first review that tells fans of Kern's work what's in store: This book is an erotic masterpiece. The photographs themselves are marvelously composed and beautifully lit. And the young women Mr. Kern has lensed are remarkably sexy and sexual. Yes, there are shots of women urinating and doing other naughty things for the camera, but, alas, that is what many of us enjoy viewing. In short, Richard Kern's new book is stunning, and those who enjoy his kind of work will not be disappointed. A superb volume, this one.



4. This review isn't to condemn this book, only to inform buyers. If you aren't a fan of Richard Kern before buying this book like me, you won't know the content. While the book is presented in coffee table book format; oversize, hardback, nice paper, ect., much of the photography is identical to what you would find in a porn magazine. Mostly young girls, hardcore shots, girls urinating, insertion of toys, semen on faces, and fettish shots. The accompying dvd is as well not photo reference, but is live footage of the models, again in a very adult nature. Probably not a standard artistic reference book if you're expecting it.



5. The evolution of Richard Kern continues. His new book, Action possesses that quintessential pizzazz that runs throughout all of his work, but it nonetheless has its own unique and wonderful flavor too. Kern has always been attracted to the atypical model - he was photographing girls from the "suicide" genre long before it became fashionable - and his affinity for sexy, young ladies continues.
   
   Within the 280 pages of Action there is a subtle yet piercing element of fetishistic sexuality. Panty clad young sirens drop their bottoms, there's toe-sucking, spread shots, and other forms of tainted affection. All presented in that infamous Richard Kern style. Fan's of Kern's work will find numerous reasons to fall in love with his breathtaking vision all over again. And there's an hour-long DVD too. Action is a can't miss!

3 comments about Remediation: Understanding New Media.

1. Not well organized, arbitrary, puffed up, dense. If writing well is writing simply and clearly, this writing gets a D. The book is fraught with tautologies and contradictions not to mention simply not matching reality. It reminds me of the products of academic careerism at their worst.



2. In Remediation, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin analyze new technologies and their implications for American society. Although the book emphasizes the ways in which new media can be conceived in terms of recent literary and cultural theory, the theoretical discussions do not pervade the work. Therefore, the book can still be quite useful to those who don't wish to delve too deeply into theory. In fact, Bolter and Grusin acknowledge the different emphases of the book's chapters in their introduction and offer readers a guide to help them make the most of their experience with the book, with respect to the readers' goals. The three sections of the book discuss the authors' theory of remediation, the place of new media in American society, and the place of the Self within the context of new media.

   In the first section of the book, Bolter and Grusin offer the notion of "remediation" as a way of thinking about new media. What they term "remediation" is "the formal logic by which new media technologies refashion prior media forms" (273). Bolter and Grusin attempt to contextualize their theories about new media within the framework of modern preoccupations with what they term "immediacy" and "hypermediacy." The desire for immediacy is a desire for a transparency in media that obliterates or lessens the perception of the media themselves in the viewer's mind. The reality of hypermediacy is the preoccupation with media itself and a hyper-awareness of the media through which our information comes. Bolter and Grusin place the logic of remediation within the context of our historical preoccupation with these trends. The new media discussed are primarily the visual: computer games, digital photography, photorealistic graphics, digital art, film, Virtual Reality, mediated spaces, television, and the World Wide Web. Discussing each of these media in great detail, the authors devote the second section of the book to demonstrating the way that the idea of remediation plays itself out in each. Bolter and Grusin examine how each new medium refashions older media and how they are often refashioned themselves. For example, they show that animated computer graphics draw upon the tradition of film and that film is now starting to draw upon the new offerings of computer graphics. They cite as their evidence a film such as Toy Story. Another example they point out is the remediation that occurs between television and the Internet. The Internet uses patterns established by television in order to determine how to appeal to viewers, and television uses new strategies of windowing images with the scrolling tickertapes and texts it has borrowed from Internet styles. Within the remediations that both new and old media undergo, Bolter and Grusin demonstrate how the twin desires for immediacy and hypermediacy are at work.

   The final section on the Self attempts to discuss how the presence of the new media in our society affects individuals' perceptions of their own identities. By allowing people to engage in different discourse communities with different levels of immediacy and hypermediacy, the new media allow for a remediation of the notion of self and community. Bolter and Grusin specifically point to the immediacy of Virtual Reality as a starting point for empathy with other people and beings. If a person can use Virtual Reality to play the role of a gorilla, that person gains a new concept of his or her identity with respect to his or her experience as set apart from that of a gorilla. Bolter and Grusin also examine in detail whether the new media have implications for the mind-body split that is central to the theory of Cartesian dualism. Some argue that technologies such as Virtual Reality emphasize the split by creating a disembodied environment for the mind to inhabit. Bolter and Grusin, however, ultimately claim that such technologies cannot allow people to escape the perception of their own bodies. In fact, by allowing for new ways to conceive of the body and the mind, new media allow for a remediation of the body that is parallel to the remediation of the Self.

   Overall this book offers interesting theories about the way technology functions in our society. It is, therefore, a good starting point for anyone who wants to consider the implications of using this technology and thereby becoming complicit in the culture's striving for immediacy and hypermediacy in our interactions with technology. Those implications would continue further for us as we remediate our old styles of teaching or otherwise interacting with technology to suit the newer forms that will inevitably appear.

   Of course, to be concerned about how your use of technology fits into this framework, you must first be convinced by Bolter's and Grusin's arguments that remediation is a force at work in our society. Personally, I find their arguments convincing in their simplicity of structure and in their wealth of evidence. Although the discussions of Lacanian, Freudian, feminist, Marxist, and other theoretical approaches can be at times heavy-handed, underneath there is an insightful commentary on the way technology functions in our society.




3. This book was most enligthening, it explained in a very structured form, what it is we were doing when creating content for new medias. As Moliere said, "doing prose without knowing it", I have used my newly acquired epistemology of remediation extensively to better explain to our young designers what it is they were doing when "re-mediating" clients'content for a new media application, be it Web, Multimedia apps or art-tech.The authors are themselves professors/researchers an use a very didactical stream of thoughts which has been exceedingly usefull to me, to better convey concepts for which I had a feeling, but nowhere near the "theory of remediation" that the authors convey.

   As an art/tech buff, who happens to earn a living with technical content remediation and hard core applications programming, the book reconciled me with a new perpesctive on the similarities between these activities. Grusin and Bolter are challenging us to excellence in remediation whatever the final purpose.

   The most important concept that the authors brought to me, was that more and better remediation has often nothing to do with more technology, and much more to do with better and more effective (or intelligent) ways to communicate.

   In my view this book is a must reading, and a reference book for anyone producing content with a certain degree of awareness. If you believe that the new media demand a "different" attitude,this is a textbook for you.

5 comments about Books, Boxes & Portfolios: Binding, Construct and Design, Step-By-Step.

1. I have done several bookbinding and box-building projects, and have looked at a number of books on the subjects. This is the best introduction I have seen. I wish I had had it when starting out.
   The language is clear and effective. The illustrations (mostly drawings) are also clear and effective. There is a helpful listing of the tools needed. All are simple hand tools, and none are particularly expensive. The suggested materials are currently widely available. If you are thinking of doing a bookbinding project, and have no experience, this book is highly recommended.



2. Ridiculously poor illustrations largely consisting of simple line drawings that have the appearance of third generation photocopies.



3. The book I ordered was brand new and I saved so much from the retail price! The best part was that it qualified for free shipping and it came within 4 days!! What a surprise that was! I have to say that I am extremely delighted to use amazon and this seller.



4. Thorough and practical. Every hand bookbinder needs a copy of this classic work.



5. Thank you for the quick and efficient expediting of my order. I needed the book right away and received it (in good condition). I will gladly do business with you again.

4 comments about Luckey's Hummel Figurines and Plates: Identification and Price Guide (12th Edition).

1. This book holds all the information any collector will need. I found it to be very useful.



2. I was hesitant to purchase Luckey's 12th Edition Price Guide because I have always relied on Robert L. Miller's No. 1 Price Guide in the past. However, curiosity got the better of me and I'm glad it did. It's a great reference, and a very good companion to Miller's guide. The main advantage Miller's 10th Edition No. 1 Price Guide has is all figurines are now shown in color... but the images are smaller than in previous editions. Since Luckey's guide (updated by Dean Genth) is presented in a larger format, it has larger images and text, which makes it easier to read. It also displays more images of the older trademark figurines to show the differences between the older figurines and their current production versions a bit better. This was important to me because I generally prefer to collect the older, more rare figurines.
   
   Figurine pricing is now essentially the same between the two guides, which isn't surprising considering Dean Genth owns Miller's Hallmark in Eaton, OH, the home of Robert Miller.
   
   For the average collector, or one that usually tends to purchase the newer released items, Robert Miller's guide is now more up to date. However, for the truly serious collector, Luckey's guide has more or different information on some of the more rare figurines such as those made in white overglaze and sold only in Belgium in the early days. Since I own several of these figurines, I found the information contained in Lucky's guide very useful.
   
   Highly recommended for both the novice or serious collector... but don't forget to purchase Miller's book too.



3. A absolute must have resource - well organized, descriptive, and easy to use. It has served me exceptionally well each time I have had to use it!



4. I have quiet a few Hummel books, but Luckey's Hummel Figurines and Plates, 11nd Edition is my favorite. The book did educate me in the different Trade Marks on the bottom of the Figurines, The Authors explanation is simple and clear. I purchased many Hummel figurines at Internet Auctions and found that the "Current Value" prices of Mr. Luckey's book are very conservative and very closed to the final Auction prices! I do recommend this book, it is the "real" thing!