The New York Times named our book Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana, Volume II a recommended art gift book this year. The hearty and handsome collection is a great gift idea for folk art fans and history buffs. Both volumes I and II are available on the Yale University Press website.
(Brew Books)
The particular pleasure of holding a bound book is a timeless gift. And choosing to buy titles for the holidays from local booksellers tangibly strengthens communities, creating more local jobs and re-investing taxes in the community. According to Indiebound, $68 of each $100 spent at a local level stays in your city. To contrast, only $43 spent at national chains and big box stores remains in your area. Buying from local and independent stores promotes diverse shopping and robust commerce, and can even help reduce carbon footprint by decreasing the need for packaging and shipping.
In Seattle, shop for a wide range of titles at Elliott Bay Books in Capitol Hill. To discover rare and hard-to-find books, visit Pioneer Square’s Wessel and Lieberman. Peter Miller Books, near Pike Place Market, offers a well-curated selection of architecture and design books that are smartly displayed. And Book Larder, a new culinary-themed shop in Fremont, houses hand-picked cookbooks as well as readings, tastings, and cooking demonstrations.
If you choose to buy books online this holiday season, consider one of the hundreds of niche online booksellers. The New York Public Library recommends:
If you live in the Seattle area, make plans to visit Paper Hammer Gallery tomorrow night. Modern woodblock prints from Chen Qi are on display from 5-7 p.m. as a part of the December First Thursday Art Walk.
Also, Paper Hammer is hosting a not-to-miss holiday sale showcasing antique goods and a curated table of art books. The sale runs through Sunday.
Live outside of Seattle? The Paper Hammer website offers unique gifts for bookworms, artists, typographers, and fans of letterpress and design. Orders over $50 enjoy free domestic shipping.
Two important Claude-Joseph Vernet works are on view at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) now through December 11. The French painter’s work, A Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm, and its complimentary landscape, A Grand View of the Seashore, are on display on the second floor of the museum’s European galleries.
Both paintings were commissioned by well-known English collector Lord Lansdowne and were hung side-by-side at Lansdowne House in London until the owner’s death. The paintings were sold at auction in 1806 to different private collectors and are being reunited at the DMA for the first time in more than 200 years. One of the large-scale works portrays a peaceful seaport at sunset, the other a wild, rocky landscape with villagers fleeing from an imminent storm.
Produced by Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey, “Eames: The Architect and the Painter,” opens in Seattle the day after Thanksgiving at Northwest Film Forum.
For a complete list of playdates across the U.S., click here.
After several years of planning, the 201,000-square-foot, 102-acre Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened to the public last week. The museum is the brainchild of collector and Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, who addressed thousands of attendees at an opening ceremony on 11/11/11. Crystal Bridges was designed by noted architect Moshe Safdie, who incorporated glass and wood into an organic construction of pavilions set against ponds and trails.
Marquand Books is proud to produce the catalogue for the opening exhibition, Celebrating the American Spirit: Masterworks from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The book is designed by Zach Hooker and distributed by Hudson Hills Press. The 356-page catalogue features almost 200 full-color plates and an interview with Alice Walton in conversation with American art historian John Wilmerding.
Gift-givers take note. The Urban Craft Uprising Winter Show, featuring dozens of vendors including Constellation & Co., Little Otsu, and R+L Goods, will be held the weekend of Dec. 2 at the Seattle Center.
Across the Cascades in Tieton, the sixth annual Holiday Crafts & Antiques Bazaar takes place Dec. 2 to 4, offering antiques and handmade goods, including journals, albums, and gifts from Paper Hammer. Click here for complete details.
The Dallas, Texas-based Barbier-Mueller Museum has collected samurai armor for the past 25 years, currently housing about 300 masterful objects including horse armor, masks, and helmets crafted between the 12th and 19th centuries. Featuring the Barbier-Mueller Museum’s collection, the anticipated exhibition, Samouraï: armure du guerrier, opened November 8 at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. The exhibition runs through January 29, 2012 and showcases more than 140 objects.
Paper Hammer is now offering custom Memory Book Boxes for the holidays, hand-crafted using fine materials in Tieton, Washington. Each box features a personalized image and take two weeks from order to delivery. For more information and pricing, stop in Paper Hammer at 1400 Second Ave. in downtown Seattle or email dorothyc@paper-hammer.com.
Make plans to attend this week’s Chen Qi: Homage to Paper exhibition opening, a part of Seattle’s First Thursday artwalk.
Chen Qi has received numerous awards including the Golden Award of the 13th China Print Art Exhibition and the Lu Xun Printmaker Award by Chinese Artists Association. His prints have been collected in public institutions including the China National Art Museum, the British Museum, the Shanghai Museum, and the New York Public Library. Before Chen Qi travels to Seattle for the opening of Homage to Paper, he will present lectures at the University of Michigan and Stanford University.
Chen Qi, born in 1962, is a professor of printmaking at Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing and works primarily with woodblock and water-based inks. Early in his career, Qi’s intricate and realistic work was characterized by his remarkable precision in registering various cuts and colors. He has always chosen topics steeped in Chinese culture: 24 agricultural seasons, classical Ming furniture, ancient instruments, fans, worm-eaten paper, lotuses, and water. Qi spends several years developing each series—he devoted 10 years to his Lotus Series, which contains 20 different views of lotuses.
Beginning with his Water Series and continuing with his Worm-Eaten Paper Series, Chen Qi has astonished the world with his ability to create and control huge images. For many of Qi’s recent works, paper is made to his specifications in an ancient paper capital in Anhui Province, China.
Chen Qi: Homage to Paper opening reception is this Thursday, November 3, 2011, 5–7 p.m. Open Fridays, 2–6 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., and by appointment until December 23. Paper Hammer Gallery shares space with Marquand Books at 1400 Second Avenue in downtown Seattle.
Each year, El Día de los Muertos celebrations are planned throughout Mexico and abroad as a means of remembering and honoring deceased loved ones. In many parts of the world, including Eastern Europe, Japan, Nepal, and the Philippines, families commemorate loved ones in similar celebratory festivals. El Día de los Muertos is thought to have originated 2,500 to 3,000 years ago, and the festivities developed from the traditions of Olmec, Aztec, Maya, Zapotec, and other pre-Hispanic civilizations in Mexico and Mesoamerica.
This Sunday, Oct. 30, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., prominent Oaxacan artist Fulgencio Lazo will travel to Central Washington to craft a 25-by-30-foot sandpainting at the Mighty Tieton Warehouse Gallery for Mighty Tieton’s second annual Day of the Dead Celebration. Combining his original vision with customary Oaxacan techniques, Lazo is producing a unique sandpainting for the event using hundreds of pounds of sand.
From sketching to color application, building the sandpainting necessitates a group of 15 volunteers and takes two days to complete. Through a Kickstarter campaign, Mighty Tieton has raised enough financial support to purchase basic supplies for the installation, including material costs and compensation. In addition to sugar skull building and pan de muerto (dead bread) baking, other family festivities scheduled throughout the day feature food, music, crafts, and storytelling. A giant Guatemalan kite crafted by Maya kite-makers will also be on display.
For details about supporting the project on Kickstarter and information about incentives offered to financial backers, including a handcrafted sugar skull and print from Fulgencio Lazo, click here.
The festival, exhibition, and craft activities are open to the public with a suggested donation of $3. A video of last year’s sandpainting event in Tieton is below.
The exhibition will be on display from Oct. 30 to Nov. 13, Friday through Sunday from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. and by appointment.
Paper Hammer Gallery is pleased to announce Homage to Paper, a new exhibition by master Chinese artist Chen Qi. Qi creates groundbreaking prints using fresh techniques, materials, and concepts, while continuing to refine water-based woodcut printing methods. The exhibition will present work from the early 1990s to the present, including pieces from Qi’s most recent series, Lotus, Water, and Worm-Eaten Paper. Homage to Paper illustrates Qi’s transition from precise, realistic representational work to dynamic, expressive abstract work.
Make plans to attend next Thursday’s opening, a part of Seattle’s First Thursday artwalk.
Chen Qi: Homage to Paper
Opening reception Thursday, November 3, 2011, 5–7 p.m.
Open Fridays, 2–6 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., and by appointment until December 23.
Paper Hammer Gallery shares space with Marquand Books at 1400 Second Avenue in downtown Seattle.
More details about the artist will follow in the coming week.
A new exhibition titled The Artist’s Touch, The Craftsman’s Hand is currently on view at the Portland Art Museum (PAM). Featuring Japanese artwork that spans three centuries, the exhibition showcases a selection of 250 woodblock prints and includes work by Japanese printmaking icons Harunobu and Hokusai. PAM acquired more than 750 prints from collector Mary Andrews Ladd in 1932. Since then, it has grown the collection to 2,500 pieces dating from the late 1600s to the present day. The Artist’s Touch, The Craftsman’s Hand is the first exhibition to feature these works from the PAM collection.
In addition to seeing obscure Harunobu and Hokusai prints, visitors will also be able to view prints on the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923, limited-edition and privately commissioned prints, eighteenth-century actor-prints, and prints inspired by Abstract Expressionism and Op Art.
Marquand Books produced the accompanying exhibition catalogue for The Artist’s Touch, The Craftsman’s Hand. The book was edited by the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art, Maribeth Graybill, PhD. It features more than 250 full-color illustrations and includes essays by Japanese art experts and cultural historians like John T. Carpenter and Laurence Kominz.
The Artist’s Touch, The Craftsman’s Hand is at the PAM through January 22, 2012. For exhibition tickets, visit the Portland Art Museum’s website.
This Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Paper Hammer will join vendors including Lades and Gentleman, Iacoli and McAllister, and the Iron Curtain Press at the City Arts Festival Pop-Up Market at FRED Wildlife Refuge in Capitol Hill. Full details are listed here. Please stop by and say hello.
Also this Friday, Marquand Books, Mighty Tieton, and Paper Hammer founder and Creative Director Ed Marquand will receive the 2011 Anne Focke Arts Leadership Award at a gala dinner at the Bullitt Cabaret at ACT Theater. In addition to a meal, the event will feature a conversation between Ed and former Seattle Times art critic Sheila Farr. Full details and tickets are available here.
A new exhibition, “Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California,” opened this month at the Norton Simon Museum. The show features 150 prints, including almost 70 pieces created by artists connected to the Tamarind Lithography Workshop. Launched in the 1960s by June Wayne, the Tamarind Workshop studio in Los Angeles gathered new and seasoned printmakers together to learn and refine skills. At the conclusion of the program, artists took 20 prints of each completed edition and donated prints to be distributed to nine institutions, including the Norton Simon Museum. The museum currently houses a nearly complete print set.
As a result of June Wayne’s vision, the Tamarind Lithography Workshop cultivated an important educational and collaborative environment for lithography while designating a place for modern printmaking through reviving interest in graphic arts. Ultimately, the workshop renewed the art form, garnering recognition and establishing a place for printmaking in the greater art community.
In addition, “Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California” presents important mid-twentieth-century work from the Los Angeles-based Gemini G.E.L. workshop, founded in 1966.
Distributed by Getty Publications and designed by Zach Hooker, the Marquand Books-produced exhibition catalogue features 200 full-color illustrations throughout its 260 pages. The publication includes essays by established and emerging printmaking professionals and presents work from founding members of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop including June Wayne, Garo Antreasian, Sam Francis, Ed Ruscha, Ed Moses, Richard Diebenkorn, and Ken Price.
Visit the Norton Simon Museum’s website for more information about “Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California,” featured at the Pasadena, California-based Norton Simon Museum now through April 2, 2012.
The annual Frankfurt Book Fair began yesterday and runs through Oct. 16. More than 7,500 exhibitors from 110 countries around the globe will be in attendance. If you are planning to be in Frankfurt this week and would like to connect with Marquand Books at the fair, please email Managing Director Adrian Lucia at adrianl@marquand.com.
Garnering attention for arrangements ranging from Bach’s “Sonata for Viola Da Gamba and Piano” to Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me A River,” the Portland Cello Project has won acclaim playing 800 works not often or never before performed on the cello in venues across the United States. The group, launched in 2007, is composed of a changing roster of players. Their shows, as momentous and fluid as their music, move from intimate performances with four to six cellists to large arrangements featuring a choir, woodwinds, percussion, and horns. The Project’s mission is three-fold: to connect, innovate, and collaborate.
The Portland Cello Project actively partners with talented independent musicians, many with roots based in the Pacific Northwest, including The Dandy Warhols and Eric Bachmann of Crooked Fingers.
Tomorrow night, the Portland Cello Project travels to Tieton for a performance at the Mighty Tieton Warehouse at 608 Wisconsin Ave. All proceeds benefit Tieton Arts and Humanities, supporting the not-for-profit organization’s community and arts programming and initiatives. Tickets are $10.00 and are available online through Brown Paper Tickets. The performance starts at 7 p.m. and children are welcome.
“You Aren’t Here: Artists’ Maps of Personal Spaces,” a selection of pieces by 6 artists who use cartographic images and concepts in their work. The artists produce works on paper that map the terrain of the self. Works include altered atlases, sculptural wall hangings, and flat pieces that map a range of milieus: cities reimagined, moods recorded, dreams analyzed, and borders disputed.
Opening reception is this Thursday, October 6, 2011 from 5-7 p.m. Open Fridays from 2 to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and by appointment until October 29. Paper Hammer Gallery is at 1400 Second Avenue in downtown Seattle.
This weekend, join Trimpin, editor Anne Focke, and Ed Marquand at Elliott Bay Books in Capitol Hill. The trio will discuss Trimpin: Contraptions for Art and Sound. The artist will sign copies of the 208-page hardcover retrospective produced by Marquand Books. The event takes place Saturday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m.
Also on Saturday, Hector Acebes: Portraits in Africa, 1948–1953 closes at Paper Hammer Gallery. Nancy Guppy profiled the exhibition on last week’s Art Zone:
In 2010, the American Library Association (ALA) reported that 348 books had been challenged by individuals for their content. While many others go unreported, the United States Office of Intellectual Freedom has processed more than 11,000 official content challenge requests since 1982, promoting the ALA to launch the annual Banned Books Week each September. The event draws attention to censorship and brings awareness to the importance of intellectual freedom.
Photo courtesy of bannedbooksweek.org
Maintaining an endorsement from the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, Banned Books Week starts this Saturday, Sept. 24 and runs until Oct. 1. As a part of the festivities, hundreds of bookshops and libraries across the country will cultivate the public’s censorship awareness by displaying a selection of books that have been challenged. In many cases, challenged writing featured in the 2011 Banned Books Week was successfully kept in the collection of libraries and schools, thanks to advocacy by readers, booksellers, and teachers.
Sponsored by a number of organizations including the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; American Society of Journalists and Authors; and Association of American Publishers, 2011 Banned Books Week events are scheduled across the country. In addition, a virtual read-out encourages book lovers from around the world to post YouTube videos of themselves reading portions of challenged books.
The following is a list of the 10 most challenged books in 2010:
Marquand Books designs and produces fine illustrated books for art museums, galleries, trade publishers, artists, collectors, and architects.
