2 comments about Porcelain and Bone China.

1. I love this book information is very relevant, clear and concise writing and I love the photos very inspiring!



2. This book has great information for clay artists who are interrested in expanding their abilities with porcelain & bone china. Firing schedules, clay & glaze recepies, working methods all explained in great detail.

1 comments about Thermodynamics and Kinetics in Materials Science: A Short Course Includes CD-ROM.

1. This book explains thing fairly well minus a few errors in equations and plots. However, the CD has many bugs in it and is pretty much worthless if you are using it for homework or tests. The "Labs" generally do not work and have had to be reprogrammed multiple time. The "exams" section in the CD has many wrong answers and has also had to be reprogrammed. Unless you are taking this course from one of the 3 authors don't bother with the CD because it is far too much work to fix everything.

2 comments about Scribes and Illuminators (Medieval Craftsmen).

1. Christopher De Hamel's, Scribes and Illuminators is a short book, replete with illustrations, that I read in a single session. It is strictly an introduction rather than a scholarly work. Some topics are covered in more detail than others - the technique of illumination has more coverage than the selection and creation of miniatures or marginalia. The illustrations, in the main, are from medieval manuscripts and depict both the scribe/illuminator at work and examples of finished, and unfinished, pages. The pictures of unfinished pages are particularly useful in illustrating how the scribes and illuminators worked. There are some photographs of the tools used in manuscript production, but a few more would have been nice - especially of the frame used to sew the quires together. Some interesting facts embedded in the text are: parchment tended to curl toward the hair-side of the page because it shrank more, there were a significant number of women scribes, scribes would write around holes made accidentally during the creation of the parchment. Despite the brevity De Hamel manages to cover nearly the whole of manuscript production. And in that light the book is worth reading. However, if you are interested in the minute details of binding, calligraphy, miniatures, marginalia, and/or the tools of the trade you would be better off reading a different book.



2. Like all this series, this book is a real gem. Clearly written, interesting, informative, with a fine selection of pictures (most in colour), it's truly amazing how much it covers in a small book. Particularly useful are the contemporary illustrations of scribes and painters at work, showing such details as a scribe's sloping desk with holes to hold his quills and inkhorn (cover illustration). The whole construction of a medieval book is explained, from makig the parchment to the final cover. Examples of unfinished manuscripts, not shown in facimile books, provide fascinating insight into the whole production process. The inclusion of charming pictures such as the self-portrait of a scribe and his apprentice, cursing a mouse running off with the the cheese from their lunch table, brings the lives of these workers into immediate and human detail.

   If you are only going to get one book about medieval scribes and illuminators, this is the one to buy.

1 comments about The Art of Caretta.

1. The naughty, yet playful art of Italian artist Fernando Caretta takes center stage in the latest release from Sal Quatuccio Productions. This first collection of the artist's is sure to be a treat for those unfamiliar with his work. It's not easy to describe Caretta's art although I think Norman Rockwell meets Joe Pekar would be a pretty good attempt. Like Pekar, Caretta's women have a more cartoonish, animated, and innocent look to them with their wide, watery eyes and demure expressions. Yet the paintings express that Rockwellian sense of humor and slice of life, albeit with far more sexiness and eroticism that Ol' Norman would ever dream of...
   
   Caretta's women are sexy but have an almost child-like flair to them with their naiveté, although one gets the impression that despite appearances, they are always firmly in control of every situation. Rather than the photo-realism of many modern day pin-up artists, Caretta goes for brassy, bold colors and his women have supple, ample curves, particularly in their rear ends. Rarely has pin-up art been this sexy and amusing all in one package.
   
   Some great examples of the humorous side of Caretta's art include "Tempting Fate" where a priest is distracted by the derriere of one cute church-goer in her tight slacks; and then Santa gets the present he always wanted in the form of a cute little redhead dressed in a mini-skirt Santa outfit; and a sexy ballerina has just given a memorable performance of Swan Lake...sans her panties, much to the overwhelming appreciation of the men in the audience.
   
   Cheeky, sexy, naughty, and funny...all appropriate ways to describe "The Art of Caretta, Hard Candy, a new 48 page collection from SQP in full-color. Get this one!
   
   Reviewed by Tim Janson

3 comments about The Christy Report.

1. The book has some interesting vintage erotic photos, but virtually no attempt is made to place them in any historical context. The text is uninformative and useless. A waste of money!



2. This book can hardly be considered an in-depth report on American commercial sexual activity. John Quinn's text, in sixty or so pages, is a superficial overview of the last hundred years illustrated with a few vintage porn and burlesque photos, I would have expected to see examples of Tijuana Bibles, burlesque and film posters, men's magazine covers, video boxes, adult web-site home pages etc, etc. Dian Hansen contributes an interesting short postscript on the future of porn.

   What fills the majority of the book are hundreds of hard-core photos which seem to come from the output of Californian porn producer Leoram (they even have an ad on page 440) Kim Christy I guess has some connection with this company.

   The book designer, Armando Chitolina from Milan, assumes all this very (interesting) explicit material will bore the readers so he liberally splashes color panels, text and abstract shapes over the photos.

   So, not really survey on American erotica, more a visual treat on what men and women get up to in the Los Angeles sex biz!




3. This is a cover-to-cover porn odyssey...no holds barred. My copy has a very cool pink 3-D-psychodelic cover and while the text is minimal, the images are not.

   Like a good porn movie the book is light on dialogue, but heavy on action!

   TASCHEN didn't let me down on this one.

2 comments about Mosaics: 20 stunning step-by-step projects for the home and garden, shown in 150 clear and colourful photographs.

1. The instructions for the mosaic projects in this book are not as thorough as some other mosaic books, and the text and step-by-step photos are a little small for my taste, being that I like them to be easily visible at a safe distance from the project I'm working on. However, the instructions are adequate for beginners, and there are certainly a variety of fairly easy, pretty project ideas. There's a nice mosaic-encrusted wine bottle, a lamp that includes undetailed instructions for its wiring, a charming chest of 5 mini-drawers, a lovely clock face, a couple of mirrors that nicely show how to attach the mirror as well as the mosaics, an attractive partially-covered flower pot, some small ceramic square tiles decorated with several different mosaic designs that can be used for a variety of decorative purposes, and other projects. This is a fairly good book for a person getting started, but serves better as one to add to your collection as a resource for ideas.



2. I've been a glass artist for some time now. I came across Helen's book and really love it. She explains techniques very well and gives you some great projects to do. Some of the projects in the book are clocks, love letter rack, aztec box, flower pot and many more. A great book for the beginner or experienced glass artist!

2 comments about British Art Deco Ceramics (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. "With more than 400 spectacular colour photographs, this lavish volume provides one of the clearest pictures ever of Art Deco"



2. BRITISH ART DECO CERAMICS (with Price Guide) by Colin Mawston is a major new reference work on the Pottery produced during the 1920/30s, by British designers. Published by Schiffers in luxurious format, It is a hardback Book with 178 pages and over 400 colour photographs. The Book features the work of Clarice Cliff ( with over 150 photos), Susie Cooper, Shelley, Myott, Sadler, Crown Devon, Carlton Ware, Burleigh Ware, and many other lesser known Potteries. Included are Chapters on "The contribution of British Art Deco", "Introduction to Art Deco", and "Collecting Art Deco Ceramics". The Book will serve as an Introduction to the subject for the new collector and act as a valuable reference for the more seasoned collector. As well as a vast array of photographic examples, it covers the practical side of collecting including where to buy, how to buy and how to identify British Art Deco Ceramics. Dynamic and beautiful Art Deco ceramics blazing with eye-catching, bold--even confrontational--hand-painted designs on innovative vessel forms, produced by some of the most influential potteries in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s, are featured here in the many colour photographs. Spectacular dinnerwares, vases, jugs, face masks, coffee and tea sets appear in abundance. A thorough text provides brief histories of the makers, explanations of the origins and development of the Art Deco style, and valuable tips for today's enthusiastic collectors. Values for the wares displayed are given. This reference will be enjoyed by both art and ceramics enthusiasts the world over.

2 comments about Bachelors (October Books).

1. Rosalind Krauss' theories have some merits, and if you are looking at a book that will drive you up the wall the entire time shouting at it-- read this. I would never allow my grad students to read this dribble.



2. I haven't read all of the essays in this book. I might not want to. I think I've read five of the eight and parts of two others. Overall, I have not been particularly impressed. My introduction to Krauss came in an essay she authored on James Coleman, which I read for a class in college. It was particularly sophisticated: employing ideas from Barthes and Benjamin, she touched on ideas about obsolesence and signifiers that fail to signify, and in doing so brought a fresh perspective to an artist I never understood. In short, Krauss took difficult art and made sense of it. Unfortunately, in this book, Krauss takes on the foundation of the feminist canon but refuses to do feminist readings of their work. In fact, she attempts to perform an overhaul not just of critical appreciation of Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, Claude Cahun, etc., but attempts to dismantle feminist theory altogether. In the very weak essay on Cindy Sherman, Krauss overlooks obvious feminist elements of Sherman's imagery (how they mimic the form of the pornographic centerfold, for example) with some talk about the "fetishization of the vertical" and the "sublimation of the subject into the horizontal." Worse, she tries to undo Laura Mulvey's seminal essay on film theory by pointing out a few assumption's Mulvey makes. Krauss never fesses up to her own assumptions. It's not persuasive art criticism.

   Basically, Krauss's method is always to locate in the art some formal element which can then be tied to a critical theoretical term. Thus, the horizontal is a rejection of "the fetishization of the vertical"; Sherrie Levine putting single objects in glass cases is an enactment of Deleuze's "machine". Krauss reveals how artists thematize critical theory rather than perform critical readings of the work. Thus, important artists for her are those who anticipate theoretical developments. Frankly, I think Krauss is attributing meaning to formal elements which do not inhere to the element itself. And how many times can an art critic point to multiplicity and a destabilizing of identity as "avante-garde" and subversive?

2 comments about The Best of Pottery.

1. As a student, I found this book to be the greatest selection of current artists and techniques in ceramics today. Great color illustrations and glaze and firing information is included. Can't wait for the second one! A true coffee table book. This does not belong on a shelf, The Best of Pottery belongs in the studio!



2. I look through this book every night and see different things I want to try each time. Lot's of unique and great photos of ceramic art. Not a how to, but a pictorial showing the beauty and fun of ceramics.

5 comments about The Penland Book of Ceramics: Masterclasses in Ceramic Techniques.

1. I really enjoy this book. I say that in the present tense because this is not a book you sit and read cover to cover. You select parts as selecting a piece of chocolate from a box of candy, read it, savor it, and save the rest for later. It offers wonderful artist profiles and then these featured artists offer a gallery of their favorite artists' works. It is biographical, inspirational, and instructional at an advanced level.



2. I especially enjoyed the work of Sergei Isupov and Michael Sherrill, but none of the other artists were less than spectacular including the gallery of complementary work. I'm especially appreciative of the artists for sharing their inovative techniques with us. Thanks to the Penland School, also, for bringing their art to our attention.



3. The title of the book leads one to expect to receive the technical information needed to try any of the techniques demonstrated. The book does not always live up to this promise. For example, the multilayered slip technique presented by Mary Barringer demonstrates the use of slips before and after bisquing. The most critical factor here would be the composition of the slip to accommodate the shrinkage of the bisque. Granted, there are many slip recipes out there, but not all will work here. I don't need to see pictures of her brushing the slip on. That is the stuff of beginner books (if even) not "Master classes". The physical techniqes of building , modelling and shaping are well illustrated, and so the book does have its value. Michael Sherril's use of extruded clay to make his fantastic sculptures was eyeopening, and well demonstrated.



4. The pictures were great, also I liked the instructional part. The example of how to tell if the glaze is deflocuulated by putting your hands in and watch how it flows was so visual, I have used it every time I defluculated a glaze.
   It also shwed a different way to have your way with the clay, like those things that look like bananaas, how do you do that with clay, the book explained it in enough detail for your to copy,in your own style. I am very pleased with this book.



5. THE PENLAND BOOK OF CERAMICS is certainly large and colorful. The Penland School of Crafts, located in the mountains of North Carolina, seems large enough to be considered a community. "Today the school encompasses 43 buildings located on 400 acres of land. Each year approximately 1,200 people come to Penland for instruction and another 12,000 pass through as visitors." (p. 205). I expected to find more pictures in the book of the interesting three-dimensional conglomeration on the cover, which is probably not a bunch of bananas, but maybe the artist thought it was. The colors are similar to the "Yellowstone Rhododendron, 2001" and "Mountain Magnolia, 2001" shown on page 53. Even if it is supposed to be a bunch of bananas, that would not make it the most surreal thing in this book.

   I have had difficulty thinking about objects that appear to be weird in three dimensions, so the complexity of many of the pieces seems miraculous to me, but the step-by-step explanations of the process of constructing a few items demonstrate the possibilities of getting there bit by bit. The first artist featured in the book, Clara "Kitty" Couch, produces terra cotta vessels that open out at the top with an edge so thin, looking so flimsy, that the first picture in the hands on series, "Rolling out the slab" (p. 17), showing the clay under a rolling pin, ought to produce an immense leap in the understanding of how the material is originally flattened before it is formed. There are also pictures of Joe Bova "Rolling out a 12-pound (5.4 kg) slab to a thickness of at least 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) on a piece of plywood" (p. 152) and Mary Barringer "applying texture with a tectured roller" (p.198). A description of Kitty Couch's work is called "Contemplative Coilings" (p. 12), but she does not try to make it all from one long rope. She describes adding flat coils, one at a time, "When the base has become firm so that it can support itself." (p. 13). More complicated layers of clay were used to produce Becky Gray's "Autumn Leaf Bowl" shown on page 24.

   The works which I found most imaginative were by Sergei Isupov on pages 168 to 185. By painting faces at odd places, such as under the armpits of a figure called "To Cast a Spell" (pp. 168, 176 - 185 and back cover), the spooky line of Rilke's poem, "Archaic Torso of Apollo," `there is no spot that does not see you' (Translated by Walter Kaufmann in 20 German Poets, pp. 220-223) seems aptly illustrated.

   There are some specialized techniques and equipment in this book that I will not try to describe. Some combinations are so much like architecture that it is not surprising to see a box that actually looks like a building, Angelica Pozo's "White Oak Temple Box, 1997. 17 3/4 x 10 3/4 x 16 inches (46.6 x 27.3 x 40.6 cm). Cut, carved, extruded, press-molded, and hand-formed mosaic tile from terra cotta; terra sigillata; glaze cone 04; glass mosaic. Photo by artist." (p. 27).