2 comments about How to Create Tree Sculpture: TEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS FULLY ILLUSTRATED.

1. Extremely concise, detailed, easy to follow directions for making the most realistic wire-wrapped trees imaginable. Sal writes in an open-ended manner so that you can easily take what he's taught you and move on to a new level of your own making.
   
   After creating 10 trees using Sal's method and some examples of finished trees I found on his web site, I have moved on to incorporate my own style and methods that just scream "unique"! Kudos, Sal!



2. I was afraid it was too good to be true: a $10 book on how to create unique wire tree sculptures? But this book turned out to be well worth it. It's written well and has good illustrations showing step-by-step directions for making the trees. Definitely recommended if you have an interest in this and the reasonable price makes it that much better!

5 comments about Collectors Encyclopedia of California Pottery.

1. Nice enough book, but it is so hard to really provide a complete guide to such a broad subject. I was looking for information about Brayton Laguna blackamoors, and the offering was sparse, nothing more than a line in the index, and a brief description in the text. Maybe the author will do a book on Brayton Laguna blackamoors one day. Anyway, I returned this book because it did not fit my needs. It is hardly an encyclopedia, but rather a pretty picture book with some expanded captions as text. If you want a real tutorial on California pottery, work the search engines at eBay or Google...you can spend hours reading and looking at pictures.



2. This is an excellent book that I use often to identify pottery pieces. Not only does it contain beautiful clear photos of pottery it also provides a wonderful brief, well written, history of the various potters and potteries. Very informative indeed! I also reccommend California Pottery Scrapbook by this same auther.



3. Great guide that covers a good majority of California Potteries with a good selection of works from each potter. Values are not too inflated and color pictures are wonderful. A must if you need a general guide to vintage California Pottery, a hot item right now.



4. Being that I live in Ohio, the big pottery names here are ones like McCoy, Roseville, and Weller. I knew nothing about any of the West Coast pottery companies. I desperately needed a source of reference. I chose this book and I have not been disappointed. It covers 28 companies,gives a biography of each,shows examples of the marks used, and very clear photos of items made by each.Descriptions and values of the items shown are also included.I highly recommend this book for any pottery buyers library.



5. I would recommened this book to anyone interested in collecting California pottery. This book has a large selection of photos of the various types of pottery produced and the different markings used on the pottery.

5 comments about Making Miniature Flowers With Polymer Clay.

1. This is the only book on this subject that I know of, so it's better than nothing. But it's frustrating throughout because the photos depict the author's hands better than the items she is holding. The verbal instructions are fairly good, but in this topic better pictures are a must. Maybe there will be a second edition with this problem corrected. Meanwhile, enjoy her pretty hands.



2. This was the first book I ever bought on polymer clay. I barely knew what polymer clay was - I looked in the book, thought "I can do that", bought some polymer clay and by that evening was making fabulous roses. This was the perfect introductory book - the books I have subsequently purchased and used would have scared me off. This is the basics, how to condition the clay, roll it into balls, make the shapes, assemble them, bake, and maybe paint a little. No color palettes, skinner blends, no fancy equipment - just clay, your hands, some wax paper, cornstarch, scissors, toothpicks and an oven. The instructions are incredibly detailed, the pictures perfect - Quast doesn't leave you to try to figure out a single thing. No matter how "uncrafty" or unartistic you are, the projects in this book will make you think you were born for the art of polymer clay. The book covers roses, dogwood blossoms, daisies, cherry blossoms, pansies, daffodils and irises, and ends by showing you some great jewelry and decorative household items you can make.



3. This is a must-have book for anyone wanting to learn to make beautiful miniature flowers. It is great book for all levels, even those who have never worked with polymer clay.

   At first glance I though it would be hard and very time consuming. I was wrong. I was amazed at how easy it really was. In less than two hours, I had a very impressive looking rose bud.

   The author first covers materials and how to work with polymer clay. Included templates help you judge size & shape. Each part of every flower is then explained step by step. Numerous color photos help to guide you.

   Flowers covered include roses, dogwood, daisies, cherry blossoms, pansies, daffodils, and irises. There are a few projects in the back showing you how to frame the flowers and make jewelry or ornaments out of them.




4. I have many books on polymer clay and this is one of my favorites! The techiques show here can be applied to any sculpture but what impressed me was how lifelike these projects look! And with such detailed explanations and illustrations it is an easy jump to use these techiques to create flowers of your own choice. I have made figures from polymer clay for 7 years now and most books are repetitive to me, I found this one re-energized my creative juices and gave me something new to make, I now make minature flowers to adorn some of my figures and have been pleased with the new dimension it adds.



5. Step-by-step instructions on how to make seven different flowers using polymer clay. Detailed diagrams and tips (from tools and materials to color blending). Good book for beginner flower artists in the polymer clay medium. Provides list of sources and references.

5 comments about We Beat the Street: How a Friendship Led to Success.

1. Outstanding book! I am fortunate to know Dr. Davis. No wonder why this is such a great story. A great man with an incredible outlook on life. He spent some time mentoring my nieces while they were attending Rutgers University and inspired them to do great things. Doc, They both graduated and are attending grad school:) Thank you! I also had the opportunity to meet Sharon Draper(Co-author)when she came to the middle school where I am now a teacher. The school love all of her books.
   
   My nieces and I are also products of Newark, NJ and the Bronx, NY. "We Beat the Street" is a voice for those inner city kids and every kid that have dreams but yet do not have the resources immediately available in their homes, community and in their every day life. A great story of how to overcome obstacles, stigmas and how to give back to a community.



2. We Beat the Streets by three doctors, Sampson, George, and Rameck, is a nonfiction book. This story is about three friends that go to a medical school and they wanted to be different doctors. I learned that people should hang out with the people who want to bring you higher to a higher grade. I like this book becouse it has a lot of adventure and mystery.Other will like it because it has magnificent stories that will make you want to read more. -by Kevon Pierrot



3. This book is an excellent read aloud book for teachers of young African American males. It encourages and helps them realize that no matter how badly one's life begins, it doesn't have to stay that way. It's a great discussion starter to help young people voice their concerns in a format that normally would not be available to them.



4. Chris Cummings
   
   
   We Beat the Streets
   
   This book "We Beat the Streets" can show people, it doesn't matter were you come from. You can always become something even if you live in the ghetto.
   
   This Book is about three doctors, George Jenkins, Sampson Davis and Rameck Hunt, and all three of them come from a New Jersey city, Newark. All three of them fulfill there dream and go to college. In the book there are incidents from the lives of all three doctors about them living in the bad areas of Newark when they were kids. They did some bad things at first in there lives but then they realized later on in there life that the street life won't pay off in the end. As the reader reads this book they will follow Sampson, Rameck and George as there journey from first grade through medical school. See them achieve there goals. In this book "We Beat the Streets" it shows tragedy of street life and how still living in bad communities you can always achieve your goals.
   
   The content of "We Beat the Street" was edited really good for such young readers, making it a want to read book for this age level. The style of this book was simple but also attractive which will catch reader's eyes. Also the message was to the reader is excellent. It puts a warning to readers and also it's a inspiration, and encourages higher education, especially for those who doubt their ability to achieve there education goals. "We Beat The Streets" was one of the best books I have ever read on a subject like this. I extremely recommend this book to readers.



5. In this work three African American doctors tell the story of how they used their brains, loyalty, and few good chances to escape their tough urban neighborhood, go to college and medical school, and become doctors. The book is targeted for an adolescent audience, although there is an adult version, called "The Pact" available. At the end of each chapter, the doctors give some advice to young people who want to achieve more than those around them expect.
   
   Quote: "Young people need positive role models and guidance in their lives. There is no underestimating a positive figure in a child's life."
   
   I picked this book up because it is the only one recommended by more than one of my ninth graders. I enjoyed the anecdotes about the childhood and teenage years of the young men, but mostly I appreciated their frank discussion of the challenges their lives presented, the choices they needed to make, and the belief of many in their neighborhood that they would never get out. I think young people would enjoy the work even more than I did, since the authors were careful to target students.

5 comments about Turning Green Wood.

1. If you want to be successful when you turn green wood or newly cut lumber on your lathe. I recommend purchasing this book and reading it all the way through before you begin your wood turning project. When you use green wood there are different procedures that you need to follow than when you use dried lumber. I had tried to turn some green logs on my lathe and had many problems with wood cracking and was very unhappy with the results. After purchasing this book I learned the reasons why my previous attempts had not been successful. I only wish I had gotten the book at the same time I purchased my new lathe. It is an excellent resource on how to use green logs and newly cut lumber that can add flexibility and save money on wood costs when you use "found wood" and cut the logs yourself.



2. Great book - great photos - great ideas - great explanations and written so anyone can understand the directions and concepts (even me).



3. Great and a must have for all turners. The book is more oriented toward bowl turning but covers a ton on green turning with plenty of pics and diagrams. Michael O`Donnell goes to great length to educate the reader on how wood dries based on where it is cut form the tree.



4. this is a good basic book of how to deal with green wood and also the use of crotchwood. well written and illistrated



5. As a beginning turner, I searched for books that were both informative and interesting to read. This book approaches turning with 'green' in mind but also has some very good information about wood properties and turning in general. Very much worth buying even if you are an experienced turner.

No comments about Sculpting From Life - A Studio Manual of the Sight-Size Method.

4 comments about Joseph Cornell: Master of Dreams.

1. This is a large format, paperback book with lots of photos of work, many of which I hadn't seen before. The text is interesting but full of psychological insights and artistic inferences which do not come from Cornell but from the author. I found it worthwhile as a reference work for the photos and dates of works. A much more fascinating biography of Cornell is by Deborah Solomon of Sunday NY Times Magazine interview fame. Published in 1999, I believe, "Utopia Parkway." A really good read, especially about Cornell's later life where he became famous and met a lot of rising female art stars such as Yayoi Kusama and Carolanne Schneeman (sp?) and even had sexual escapades! Not the isolated hermit we thought he was!



2. Joseph Cornell's work is beautiful. It's a pity that he is such a poorly-known artist but as the author suggests perhaps he was born a few decades too late or his art was a few decades too early. He has certainly missed out on his rightful place in most books on Surrealist art. This book is very-well presented - a photograph or two of Cornell's work on almost every page and text not only explaining the inspiration and the work process behind the assemblages but also conveying the quirky nature of the artist. If Joseph Cornell showed little humour as a person then there is plenty of it to be found in his work (e.g., lobster ballet box). This art book is so well-written and interesting that it can be read from cover to cover in one day. There is something new to be found in the photographs every time.



3. Fortunate is the arts library to have the restored and embellished 1977 monograph on the life and work of American artist Joseph Cornell, an artist whose importance not only to the craft of assemblage but to the history of American art continues to grow as the years pass. Author Diane Waldman initially based her monograph on extensive interviews with Cornell and his confreres in preparing the 1967 retrospective of Cornell's art for the Guggenheim Museum. And fine though that now extinct monograph was, it was important to update it with the added information gleaned from the 1978 gift of the bulk of Cornell's archives donated by the heirs of Cornell to the Smithsonian Museum, forming the Joseph Cornell Study Center in Washington, DC.
   
   But enough of background. Waldman the writer and historian presents here one of the more sensitive tributes to Joseph Cornell in print. Included in this rather brief book are over forty color plates of many of Cornell's greatest works. The color reproductions and photography of these basically three-dimensional works is outstanding and allows the viewer to pause with each work, enhance the visual appreciation with the accompanying writing by the author, and then return once again to the biographical data of a man at odds with conformity and with somewhat fractured social graces.
   
   Joseph Cornell was a unique artist and one whose impact on all forms of art (especially the eventual 'installation art' phase) is yearly more appreciated. This fine book is as sound a source of information on his life and works as any of the now many volumes on the shelves. Highly Recommended to both the novice and the expert. Grady Harp, February 06



4. Finally, a beautiful, comprehensive book about Joseph Cornell and his work. Diane Waldman knew Cornell intimately ever since she was an art student (and through doing gallery shows for him), and this affinity shows; this is ultimately a book of love and tribute to a friend.

   The biographical material is excellent. Most fascinating segments deal with Cornell's stranger sides, such as when at his brother Robert's funeral, Joseph put a sheet over his head and laughed, creeping everyone out, and explained it was only a side joke that Robert would have understood. Cornell was terribly timid in front of women (particularly the ones he fancied) and had a complete dependence on his mother (he died months after she did). Waldman probes these and other significant personal issues (such as his association with Surrealism, and how the younger artists that have passed through him have influenced his work) and examines how they factored in Cornell's art. The book is generous with illustrations - Waldman supports her points with not only Cornell's work, but with other artists that were influential to him.

   However, it is the lonely and telling poetry of Cornell's work that is the heart of this book. The boxes that Waldman chooses to include are presented intelligently, and beautifully. The innocence and nostalgia of each box is lovingly portrayed. The Medici series - Cornell's especially heartbreakingly beautiful and mysteriously passionate work - is presented perfectly by Waldman with thoughtful commentary and context, capturing in full its yearning and ardor. Waldman has given us a book that speaks eloquently about why Cornell is an artists people will remember for generations hereafter.

2 comments about Sarah Sze.

1. This terrific book provides well-done photographs of much of her work, along with an interesting text. I just wish it had the "split coupe" that is strung from floor to floor at the MOMA in San Francisco, but you can't have everything. The next volume of her work will have it, no doubt. Her sculptures remind me of the bridge in William Gibson's recent science fiction - organically grown structures made of the stuff we use (and often throw away) every day, combined with an imaginative vision, spots of nature, and elements we can't quite identify. It is wonderful work - to me she is the most exciting artist out there right now. I'd like to have a large house (very large!) full of everything she's done, but that's not going to happen, so this book is the only way I know of to have so much of it close by.



2. I have long admired Ms. Sze's work. This book is essential for anyone concerned with contemporary sculture and installation. The pictures are beautifully reproduced. Highly recommended.

1 comments about Sculpture (Midi Series).

1. SCULPTURE FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE PRESENT DAY is a huge and beautiful book published originally in four volumes, but here those volumes are compounded into one heavy but articulate book. The writing is varied yet for the most part not only informed but readable and the number of illustrations is overwhelming. Both in black and white and in color, they are sharp and color-corrected and accompany the writing with specificity.

   The book is divided as follows: Part 1 - THE GREAT ART OF ANTIQUITY From the Eighth Century BC to the Fifth Century AD; Part 2 THE GREAT ART OF THE MIDDLE AGES From the Fifth Century to the Fifteenth Century; Part 3 THE GREAT TRADITION OF SCULPTURE From the Fifteenth Century to the Eighteenth Century; Part 4 THE ADVENTURE OF MODERN SCULPTURE In the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Each period is examined with scholarly precision but at the same time the essayists are allowed subjective response, a factor that makes the reading more enjoyable.

   For the artist and art lover who are looking for a fine reference book on Sculpture through the ages, this is a very fine work - and very affordable. One minor complaint: though Picture Credits are listed, there is no Index for the works in the book. If you are looking for a particular work to review you must know the era in which it was created and then work your way through that section until you happen on it. Were it not for this frustrating omission, this would definitely be a 5 star recommendation.

1 comments about The Care of Bronze Sculpture: Recommended Maintenance Programs for the Collector.

1. Not particularly advanced, but good for the collector and many bronze artists. Slightly repetitive, but affirmative of very good bronze finishing/conservation practices in a variety of enviroments.