“Though you may have a love for such things, you will perhaps be impeded by your stomach … “ —Leonardo da Vinci on the study of human anatomy, c. 1508—10*
Throughout his life, Leonardo da Vinci worked to understand and illuminate the mystery of human anatomy. His skill as an anatomist is revealed in notes, sketches, and drawings that depict bones and muscles with an accuracy centuries ahead of its time. At da Vinci’s death in 1519, his research—which he planned to publish—was placed with his personal papers and lost to the world for four centuries.
The Royal Collection in London is currently showing da Vinci’s anatomical work in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist. The exhibition at The Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace highlights the incredible detail and scientific fidelity with which da Vinci recorded the human body.
The exhibition catalogue was produced by Marquand Books and designed by John Hubbard. It features eighty-seven illustrations of da Vinci’s key studies, including his dissections of the skull, drawings of major organs and vessels, and notes on human proportion. Collaborative essays by Martin Clayton and Ron Philo provide historical insight to da Vinci’s anatomical research, which, according to da Vinci, was impeded “only by time.”*
To learn more about the exhibitionLeonardo da Vinci: Anatomist or to purchase the catalogue, visit The Royal Collection online.
*Martin Clayton, Ron Philo. Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist.(London: Royal Collection Publications, 2012), 29.
Maps may be one of the most pleasing reference tools in which form and function meet. Some of the books we produce include maps created by our production artist (and resident cartographer), Jeremy Linden. We recently sat down to look through some of the maps he has made for our clients and to discuss his mapmaking process.
What was the first map you worked on at Marquand Books?
In 2009, I created our first in-house map; it was for the book The Arts of Africa. I traced out the map, drew in the country outlines, and put the labels where the client wanted them. We went through a couple different color schemes as I worked with the designer to coordinate the map with the theme of the book.
Tracing the outline was pretty tedious. When you’re doing it, you’re working really close up to the map, but when you zoom out, you have this awesome, detailed coastline. Making the map was really fun; for some reason, I really enjoyed it.
This image shows the steps taken to create a street map of van Gogh’s nineteenth-century Paris.
What were the next maps you made?
The year after The Arts of Africa we did a much smaller, less-detailed map of Japan for the book Dreams and Diversions. Then we worked on a few small figure illustrations. The next big one—which is probably one of my favorite maps—was for the Art of Armor.
A detail of the map from Art of Armor.
Why is this one your favorite?
It was more detailed and, because of the book’s design, it allowed me to be more stylized. I also had a full, double-page spread to work with. This book included a timeline, so I designed the timeline and map to match. I got to come up with icons and keys myself, so I drew little daimyo castles. It’s gratifying to take the maps and adjust them to complement the design of the book—in this case, the black and orange of the map plays with the Japanese lacquer and the rusty orange colors of the armor.
The map of Australia in Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art is very detailed. Tell me about your design process.
I made this map right after Art of Armor, and I wanted to make sure it didn’t look the same. I really like the dark background of the Art of Armor map, but I didn’t want to go that route again. With this one, I picked up the color from the text and tried to make the elements reflect the aboriginal art, with the repeating lines and dots.
A detail of the map from Ancestral Modern.
What books tend to include maps?
So far, it’s been books with specific regional information. The Arts of Africa and Ancestral Modernare good examples—they want to show where in the area art came from. With Ancestral Modern, topography plays into in the actual works of art. We’re working on a book now about French faience and porcelain, and the map will show locations of the manufactories. We’re also working on a book about van Gogh, and that map will include biographical information about where the artist lived and how those regions influenced his art.
What do you like about designing maps?
I love maps; I think they ground the story. And making maps seems so simple—it’s just an infographic—but there really is an art to it. It’s not that you’re coming up with something new, but you get to decide how you will take the information and present it. That’s when it starts to become fun.
If you could design any map, what would it be?
I would probably do a non-fictional place. I’d like to try my hand at making a map look antique. So far, my maps have been very clean—just information. They look very modern. But some of the maps we’ve had made in the past look almost painted. I think painting a map digitally would be a fun challenge.
A comparison illustrating two different styles. The left was the initial design; the client thought it was too modern for the subject matter of the book. The right is the adjusted, more demure design.
“[Day] is one of the rare photographers who has something to say, and he knows exactly how to say it.” — Robert Demachy*
Boston photographer F. Holland Day advocated for the acceptance of photography as fine art. In the early 1900s, he gained international recognition as a leader in the Pictorialist movement—a style of photography that resisted the notion of photographs as mere records of reality. From intimate portraits of friends to stylized photographs of models in costume, Day’s work demonstrated his ability to create and capture scenes with as much detail and emotion as an artist working with paint.
The current exhibition at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography, explores Day’s dynamic persona through a variety of pictures, including photographs by Day and portraits of the artist taken by his contemporaries. The photographs reveal Day’s diverse interests, independent spirit, and elaborate imagination.
Marquand Books produced the exhibition catalogue for Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography. The 132-page book, designed by Zach Hooker, presents more than ninety color illustrations and includes essays by Trevor Fairbrother, the curator of the exhibition.
“I want to remain vulnerable to beauty. I want to be stopped in my tracks by something I call beautiful that I have never noticed or seen before.” – Barbara Rogers
This month Hudson Hills Press will release Barbara Rogers: The Imperative of Beauty. The book documents Barbara Rogers’s development as an artist and teacher and chronicles her use of figurative, abstract, and ornamental forms.
Nature is a prominent subject in Rogers’s work, and she explores its nourishing and destructive powers. Vibrant colors, animals, and people compose her early paintings, while abstract and ornamental forms take center stage in her recent works. Present throughout her work is Rogers’s pursuit of beauty: “Through my paintings, I am reclaiming a space for beauty in the midst of everyday life; I seek to create a place of respite, reflection, and contemplation.”
Marquand Books produced The Imperative of Beauty. Designed by Zach Hooker, the 224-page book includes more than 150 color illustrations and features essays by Paul Eli Ivey and interviews with Rogers by Marilyn Zeitlin. Visit Rogers’s website to learn more about her life and work. To purchase The Imperative of Beauty, visit Hudson Hills Press.
The book’s true fascination comes in its color photographs and illustrations, scores of them. We see naturalists in the field, the tools they used and the specimens they returned—legions of stuffed birds, minerals, mushrooms and insects … the story of the Academy of Natural Sciences engrosses. Its collections, sampled here, are valuable, and the attitude of its founders—that satisfying one’s curiosity about the natural world is celebratory activity—is refreshing.
The book chronicles the museum’s 200-year history of collection and research. It was produced by Marquand Books and designed by Jeff Wincapaw. To purchase A Glorious Enterprise, visit the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Exhibition catalogues and other art books line the shelves at Marquand Books. We asked our design director, Jeff Wincapaw, to select a title and discuss its design process with us. He chose the exhibition catalogue Willie Doherty: Requisite Distance, produced by Marquand Books for the Dallas Museum of Art in 2009.
The exhibition was significant; for the first time, Doherty’s media installation Ghost Story was shown together with photographs he’d taken in Ireland during the 1990s. The exhibition separated the works into adjoined rooms. The catalogue takes its design cues from both the nature of Doherty’s work and the layout of the exhibition itself.
What makes this book different from others you’ve worked on?
The exhibition had two parts we needed to include in the catalogue: a series of photographs and a video installation. The challenge was to bring both segments of the exhibition together in a book and to somehow recreate the movement of the film on the page.
How did this influence the design?
Well, we wanted to bring the experience of the exhibit to the catalogue. To simulate the rhythm of the film and create emotional responses for the reader, we varied the sizes of the video stills, how many were on a page, and so on.
To separate the two parts of the book, we used a formal white backgound for the photographs and a dark gray for the film’s still photos. The gray makes it feels like you’re in a theater—everything but the image fades into the background.
In what way did the subject matter shape the design?
The format of the book conforms to Doherty’s photographs and film. Overall, the design is restrained. The typography is neutral, understated. An essay separates the photographs from Ghost Story, and once into the film portion of the book, it is primarily pictorial. There aren’t page numbers. We kept it as minimal as possible in an effort to present the work cinematically.
The subject matter is beautiful, but it’s also discomforting. The pictures from the film are moody and, subconciously, a bit unsettling. We wanted them to pop off the page, so we used a gloss finish on the photographs, which helps to illuminate them.
To purchase a copy of Willie Doherty: Requisite Distance, visit Yale University Press online.
Last Friday, the L.A. Times featured an article on the Norton Simon Museum’s current exhibition, Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in California. Highlighting works from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the exhibition chronicles the revival of printmaking in the United States.
Marquand Books produced the 256-page exhibition catalogue that was edited by the show’s curator, Leah Lehmbeck. Proof illuminates the history of California’s postwar printmaking boom through essays, illustrations, and a chronology that identifies key people and events of the movement.
Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California opened October 1, 2011 and runs through April 2, 2012. To learn more about the exhibition, visit the Norton Simon Museum online.
The Bellevue Art Museum’s current exhibition Knitted, Knotted, Twisted & Twined highlights more than ninety pieces of jewelry by local artist Mary Lee Hu. The show chronicles Hu’s work from the 1960s to the present and focuses on the original techniques she brought to the worlds of jewelry and metalwork.
Employing fiber techniques like twining and weaving, Hu manipulates metal as if it were textile. Her methods cause light to reflect off her jewelry in deliberate, mesmerizing ways. By wrapping wire and folding metals, she constructs textured neckpieces, earrings, bracelets, and brooches, as well as several small animals—a lizard, turtle, and squid are a few of the creatures displayed.
The 128-page exhibition catalogue, designed by Jeff Wincapaw, was produced by Marquand Books and features more than eighty color illustrations. Essays by Janet Koplos and Jeannine Falino illuminate Hu’s journey in metalwork and jewelry design.
To learn more about the Knitted, Knotted, Twisted & Twined exhibition and catalogue,visit the Bellevue Arts Museum online.
[Traylor] was beautiful to see—so right with himself and at peace—as the rich imagery of his long life welled up into his drawings and paintings. —Charles Shannon, 1985*
The High Museum of Art is currently showing the exhibit Bill Traylor:Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit, a collaboration of the two museums, showcases over sixty works by the self-taught, Alabama artist Bill Traylor.
Born into slavery around 1854, Traylor grew up in rural Alabama. In 1928 he moved to Montgomery where he survived on the streets of Monroe Avenue, working and living in meager conditions. When he was eighty years old and physically unable to work, he started to draw. On the sidewalks of Montgomery, he used crayons, graphite pencils, and poster paint on pieces of old cardboard to create pictures of rural and urban life.
Charles Shannon, a Montgomery artist, befriended Traylor in 1939. He soon championed his work, buying and preserving most of Traylor’s drawings. For nearly forty years, Shannon protected Traylor’s art, convinced the drawings deserved to be in museums alongside works by mainstream artists. Finally, in the late 1970’s, the drawings were introduced to the public and are now regarded as important examples of American art.
The exhibition catalogue, produced by Marquand Books, allows the reader a close view of the textural, temporal qualities of Traylor’s work. Essays by Susan Mitchell Crawley and Leslie H. Paisely explore both the history of the artist’s life, as well as the history of preserving his works. The 111-page catalogue includes portraits of the artist and selected works from the collections of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and the High Museum of Art.
To learn more about the exhibition or to purchase the catalogue, visit the High Museum of Art online.
* Margaret Lynne Ausfeld, Susan Mitchell Crawley. Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. (New York: Prestel, 2012), 13.
The history of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is as interesting as its collections. Established in 1812, the Academy was the nation’s center for scientific thought and discovery. It funded expeditions into the western wilderness and its members classified and categorized the variety of specimens they found. Today, the Academy’s collections are important libraries of the biodiversity in flora and fauna.
The book A Glorious Enterprise chronicles events that have shaped the Academy’s history over the last 200 years, from its early beginnings as an epicenter for science to its present-day status as the United States’ oldest natural history museum.
Produced by Marquand Books and designed by Jeff Wincapaw, this 464-page book details the collections of the museum in more than 250 color illustrations. Essays by Robert McCracken Peck and Patricia Tyson Stroud and photographs by Rosamond Purcell illuminate the stories of past discoveries.
A lot of thought and creativity goes into the design of each book we create: What colors and typefaces best suit the art each book holds? What materials and textures complement the artwork on the pages? At its best, this design process creates books that have compelling object quality—the thing about a book that makes you take it off the shelf and look through every page. Books with object quality are as intriguing on the outside as they are on the inside.
The catalogue New Image Sculpture, which we produced for the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, is one example of object quality. The 2011 exhibition featured works by artists who re-created and reinterpreted items of everyday life using unusual materials: a wheelbarrow was sculpted from clay, a boom box was made out of cardboard.
To create the exhibition’s catalogue, we also used uncommon materials. The cover of the catalogue, made with gray board, was inspired by New York artist Tom Burkhardt’s installation Full Stop (2004-2005)and printed to look like Peg-Board, giving the book a “do-it-yourself” feel that reflected the style of the exhibition. Wood-free uncoated paper was used for the essay, while smooth art paper was used for the plate section. The variety of textures in the book echoed the diverse materials of the exhibition works.
Pulp Fashion is another example of a book whose object quality was inspired by its content. The book, published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and DelMonico Books/Prestel, features the intricate and textural paper gowns created by Belgian artist and sculptor Isabelle de Borchgrave.
De Borchgrave’s attention to pattern and print influenced our design of Pulp Fashion. We embossed the cover and end sheets with a motif from her piece Worth evening gown and shoe (1994), and the raised surfaces give the reader a taste of what her gowns might feel like. Incorporating the tactile with the visual enhances the reader’s experience: both of the art within the book and of the book as an object itself.
To get your hands on a copy of Pulp Fashion, visit the online bookstore at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
John Frame creates figurative wooden sculptures, each with individual character, motivations, and behaviors. He then constructs elaborate sets and uses his sculptures as actors in stop-action films inspired by classic Czech animators.
Frame is currently working on his final film, The Tale of the Crippled Boy. The project had its beginnings in a dream: Frame was jolted awake by what seemed like an unfolding story complete with cast and scenes. The film is now his next body of work and, he says, may carry him through the remainder of his lifetime.
Marquand Books produced this small book for the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, which showed the exhibition last spring. The book is edited by Kevin M. Murphy and Jessica Todd Smith, features an essay by David Pagel, and presents John Frame’s photography of his sets and sculptures.
Visit John Frame’s website for a rich preview of his astonishing work and be sure to attend the upcoming exhibition at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, OR, opening February 18.
Few art forms are as universally popular as Japanese samurai armor. Graphic, bold, refined, and theatrical, this exquisitely crafted material has inspired designers and artists for centuries. From Yoshitoshi, the father of modern Japanese manga style, to George Lucas’s iconic Star Wars costuming, its influence is thoroughly integrated into our cultural aesthetic.
Marquand Books produced English and French editions of Art of Armor: Samurai Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection. Published in association with Yale University Press, this 320-page book showcases more than 300 images. These illustrations allow readers to see the intricacies of samurai armor, and captions include the weight and measurements for each piece. Jeff Wincapaw of Marquand Books designed the book, and Brad Flowers photographed the work. Essays were written by John Anderson, Ian Bottomley, Sachiko Hori, Gregory Irvine, Eric Meulien, Morihiro Ogawa, John Stevenson, and Stephen Turnbull; Bernard Fournier-Bourdier authored the catalogue entries.
The Barbier-Mueller collection is currently on display at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris until the end of this month. The show then opens in April at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Quebec and will be on view until January 2013. In Dallas, the Barbier-Muellers renovated a former Catholic school into a handsome museum, where the collection will be permanently housed.
“Visit more museums.” That resolution is bound to be included on the 2012 lists of a lot of people. The experience of viewing art—especially in a culture of economic crisis and cultural change—can be engrossing, challenging, and even comforting. However, actually getting to some of the world’s best collections in Spain, Germany, or the Netherlands can be tricky.
Last year, Google developer Amid Soot introduced the Google Art Project, an 18-month undertaking that links a number of prestigious museums around the world in a central, web-based “museum of museums.” Work from institutions, including the Frick Collection in Manhattan, the National Gallery in London, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the Palace of Versailles in France are featured at www.googleartproject.com.
Recently, Soot presented at a TED: Ideas Worth Spreading conference, to talk about the technology and logic behind the Google Art Project.
Seattle-based Pantone colorist Leatrice Eiseman recently led a team in choosing the optimistic “Tangerine Tango” as the 2012 color of the year. The hue is sure to reach racks of sweaters at H&M in the next few months, but will graphic designers follow the trend?
An exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum honoring the life and work of American illustrator and author Howard Pyle is on display now until March of next year. The Wilmington native garnered recognition for his work before his death in 1911 at the age of 58. In fact, the Delaware Art Museum was first established in the 1910s in order to house and display Pyle’s work.
Pyle’s classic 1883 book “The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood” remains in print. His art was widely reproduced in periodicals, including Collier’s Weekly and Harper’s Monthly. In addition, Pyle illustrated the writing of classic authors, including works by Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain.
In case you missed it, there was an upbeat article in the New York Times yesterday reporting better-than-expected holiday sales this year at bookstores across the country:
Facing economic gloom and competition from cheap e-readers, brick-and-mortar booksellers entered this holiday season with the humblest of expectations. But the initial weeks of Christmas shopping, a boom time for the book business, have yielded surprisingly strong sales for many bookstores, which report that they have been lifted by an unusually vibrant selection…
Booksellers are noticing that photography and coffee table books are selling particularly well.
The staff of artisans at Paper Hammer in Tieton, WA, create personalized photo box albums perfect for storing and preserving family heirlooms and mementos. This Saturday, December 10, Ed Marquand will be taking custom orders at the Paper Hammer shop in downtown Seattle from 12:30 until 5 p.m. Customers can choose details, including paper and cloth color. Some examples of our personalized work are below. To secure an appointment this Saturday or next week, contact us at 206-682-3820.
Easel Books were originally designed for the Seattle Art Museum Store for SAM’s spectacular Luminous exhibition. These elegant, handmade objects allow you to curate, rotate, and admire single display items. We make them in a series of colorways without images, or they can be customized. Store and display up to three dozen postcards, snapshots, quotations, or mementos. Acid-free paper; constructed in our Tieton, WA bindery.
In addition, Paper Hammer offers handmade journals perfect for artists, writers, students, and professionals. Our online store and brick-and-mortar location near Pike Place Market are stocked with design objects including handmade jewelry, found antiques, and letterpress ephemera. Garland letters can make unique tree trimmings, gift tags, and holiday decorations. All domestic orders over $50 ship free.
Paper Hammer is located at 1400 Second Ave. at Union.
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.
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.
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.
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 celebrated exhibition “Pissarro’s People” showcases almost 100 works from throughout Camille Pissarro’s lauded impressionist career, including nearly 40 paintings and several works on paper. Closing Oct. 2 at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., the show travels west, opening Oct. 22 at the Legion of Honor at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
The New York Times has posted an online slideshow featuring exhibition highlights. Designed by Jeff Wincapaw and distributed by Prestel, Marquand Books produced the “Pissarro’s People” exhibition catalogue.
Full details and ticket information about the show’s San Francisco opening are available here.
Marquand Books and Paper Hammer are included in this year’s Seattle Design Festival. This Saturday, Sept. 17, 10 a.m. — 4 p.m., our downtown Seattle design studio, gallery, and retail space, Paper Hammer, will host an open house for festival attendees. At 2 p.m., Marquand Books founder and Creative Director Ed Marquand will speak about the work Marquand Books produces and discuss our book arts studio in Tieton, Washington:
In 2005, Ed Marquand started “Mighty Tieton,” an entrepreneurial venture of urban and rural designers, architects, artists, and creative individuals, working in the Central Washington town of Tieton, fifteen miles west of Yakima. Mighty Tieton’s goal is to help revitalize the economy of the town and region by combining creative and professional skills with local resources to build successful businesses involving art, design, hospitality, and recreation. Several artisan businesses have started under the Mighty Tieton banner.
Marquand Books designs and produces illustrated fine art books for museums, collectors, artists, and architects. There’s no studio quite like it — a hybrid of publisher, design firm, and book packager. Marquand also runs a book arts studio in Tieton, Washington, where they produce handmade books.
There are dozens of exciting events scheduled throughout the festival, including a presentation and moderated discussion, Beyond Boundaries: Three Transcendent Design Practices, on Monday, Sept. 19, at the FRED Wildlife Refuge on Capitol Hill. The panel consists of several professionals with architectural backgrounds from across the country that have formed conceptual projects, combining aspects of art and architecture. The following artists’ collectives will be featured at the event:
Humanities Washington is hosting its annual Bedtime Stories fundraiser on Sept. 30 at downtown Seattle’s Fairmont Olympic Hotel. The non-profit arts organization has hosted Bedtime Stories for more than a decade. This year, authors are invited to write on the theme “12:01 a.m.” Poet and MacArthur Fellow Heather McHugh and National Book Award Winner Charles Johnson will be in attendance along with these well-known novelists:
Garth Stein (“The Art of Racing in the Rain”)
Jamie Ford (“Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet”)
Stephanie Kallos (“Broken for You”)
Jim Lynch (“Highest Tide, Border Songs”)
Ed Marquand is sponsoring a table and has space available. Contact him for details at edm@maraquand.com. Click here for complete event details.
About nine months ago, Paper Hammer opened on the corner of Second and Union in downtown Seattle. Since its inception, the little shop connected to the Marquand Books Studio and design office has generated a lot of buzz, including profiles in local publications like Seattle Metropolitan, Seattle Magazine, and City Arts. This month, our simple wood type doorknob hangers are spotlighted in Seattle Magazine’s “Best Local Fashion Finds” issue.
Many products for sale at Paper Hammer are Tieton-made: designed, then produced by hand at Mighty Tieton in Central Washington. Each item’s concept, from the simplest to most ambitious, bring together well-considered design, creative uses of technology, and a hearty nod to printing traditions.
A few months back, the Paper Hammer team launched an online Web store to compliment our brick-and-mortar locations in Seattle and Tieton. The sale of each Tieton-made product benefits the economy of the small orchard town-turned-arts-incubator. In addition to handmade letterpress coasters, paper goods, and ephemera featured on the Paper Hammer Web site, a new line of products is currently being produced for autumn and will be launched in the coming weeks.
A few favorite picks, available at paper-hammer.com:
Inspired by her book, “The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography,” Seattle-based curator and author Katherine Harmon is presenting a new exhibition at Marquand Books Studio opening on Thursday, Oct. 6. The show will feature imaginative work inspired by urban landscape, terrain, disputed borders, and dreams from artists based around the United States, including:
“Dublin June 16 1904 2011” created using text from the novel “Ulysses” by James Joyce 64 x 49 in. photo credit: Rob Jaffe
More details will follow in the coming weeks.
Now on view at the studio:
“Hector Acebes: Portraits in Africa, 1948–1953,” featuring selections from the artist’s extensive travels throughout Africa in the 1940s and 50s. Open until Oct. 1 — Fridays, 2 – 6 p.m., Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., and by appointment.
Marking the end of festival season in Seattle every Labor Day is the Bumbershoot Music and Arts festival. More than 100,000 people gather at the Seattle Center for the 3-day spectacle of music, film, food, and art exhibitions. This year, 5 innovative shows curated and executed by several Northwest-based artists are on view in the Seattle Center Pavilion.
Bumber by Number
Re-imagining the hook “everybody can be an artist” that made paint-by-number kits a cultural phenomenon, Seattle artist Ryan Feddersen has executed a fully-interactive paint-by-number version of Édouard Manet’s “The Picnic” (“Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe”) to be filled in by audience contributions over the course of the weekend. Curated by Seattle artists Marlow Harris and Jodavid, the exhibition will also display oversized paint-by-number banners and vintage kits reworked by several local artists including Joey Bates, Aaron Huffman, Nancy Guppy, and Joey Veltkamp.
Expedition
Curator Leslie Lyons will collect and arrange words and images from participants throughout the festival. Bumbershoot attendees will be given 45 – 60 seconds to narrate themes including friendship, birth, and magic. A video, “Expedition,” will be produced from the footage.
Skaters Gauntlet
Lauded local artist W. Scott Trimble has assembled an impressive sculptural obstacle course featuring a 360-degree skate pipe, quarter pipe, ramps, and more. Unfortunately, the installation is for viewing, not riding, pleasure.
The Magic Show
Mysterious photography, video, and sculpture examining transformation, illusion, and levitation from artists based in the Pacific Northwest and across the country will be on display throughout Bumbershoot. An engaging multimedia concept from curator Kathy Lindenmayer.
Flatstock
More than 75 poster artists are included in “Flatstock 31,” the ninth consecutive Flatstock exhibit hosted at Bumbershoot. In addition, the limited-edition book “Rock Paper Show,” produced by the American Poster Institute, will be on display, as well as a Flatstock retrospective.
Marquand Books Studio is pleased to present a new exhibition featuring the work of lauded photographer Hector Acebes. Opening during September’s First Thursday Art Walk in downtown Seattle, Hector Acebes: Portraits in Africa, 1948–1953 features selections from the artist’s extensive travels throughout Africa in the 1940s and 50s. Acebes established a career as a lecturer and professional filmmaker; his work is included in museum collections and galleries in the United States, South America, and Europe.
Acebes was the subject of a traveling museum retrospective organized by Spelman College. His large-scale portraits of rural Africans are remarkably contemporary in feel. Bold, strong, and graphic, his photographs connect emotionally in ways that set his work apart from other explorer/photographers of that era.
Marquand Books produced Hector Acebes: Portraits in Africa, 1948–1953, a 144-page monograph with more than 90 duotone portraits, with text by Isolde Brielmaier and Ed Marquand. Copies will be available at the exhibition opening.
Born in Manhattan in 1921, Hector Acebes was educated in Spain and Columbia before returning to New York City for high school, where he began to study photography. Acebes refined his photographic skills throughout his time as a student at MIT, where he completed an engineering degree. Now 90, Acebes currently resides in Bogota, Colombia with two daughters.
Hector Acebes: Portraits in Africa, 1948–1953
Opening reception Thursday, September 1, 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 1.
Marquand Books Studio | Paper Hammer is at 1400 Second Avenue in downtown Seattle.
Opening September 1 in the Japantown area of Seattle’s International District south of downtown is Dirk Park’s Prole Drift gallery. With an established arts pedigree as co-director of Miami’s Art Aqua Art Fair and co-founder of Pioneer Square’s Platform Gallery, Japantown’s bargain rental prices and undeveloped empty storefronts presented Park with the opportunity to begin a new space to showcase art.
The gallery’s name is a shortened version of the term “proletarian drift,” coined in the early 1980s by cultural historian Paul Fussell. The phrase refers to incidents in which upper-class cultural trends and styles become common with working- or middle-class individuals (small-batch whisky, designer jeans) and can be applied in the reverse (punk, Mockney).
Congratulations to Chief Curator and Curator of Art after 1945 Rene Barilleaux and the McNay Art Museum staff on receiving the 2011 Mitchell A. Wilder Design Competition Best of Show Gold Award for the exhibition catalogue New Image Sculpture. Sponsored by the Texas Association of Museums, The 32nd annual competition received 40 entries from across the state of Texas.
On the lookout for fresh, creative content online? Below, find five useful, engaging, and well-crafted Web sites worth bookmarking.
1. The Selby is in your Place
The Selby is a Web site, a book, and a regular feature in T: The New York Times Style Magazine. NYC-based illustrator and photographer Todd Selby uninhibitedly and naturally documents artists, writers, designers, and Average Joes in their homes or businesses. Browse The Selby’s instinctive images of Grey Gardens filmmaker Albert Maysles and his wife Gillian Walker or of Eric Werner and Mya Henry, owners of Tulum, Mexico’s outdoor Hartwood restaurant.
2. Nancy Pearl
Quite possibly the world’s most recognized living librarian, local Seattle resident and NPR contributor Nancy Pearl adds a couple of witty new book reviews to her Web site on a monthly basis. The Booklust author’s picks, ranging from young adult literature to thrillers and cookbooks, are most always worth checking out.
3. Remodelista
Marquand Books’ retail space Paper Hammer was pleased to be a part of the 2011 Remodelista Local Market at Seattle’s Henrybuilt in Georgetown. Based in San Francisco, the Remodelista team seems to know what’s new in Seattle culture and design before most locals do. Sarah Lonsdale and crew have cultivated a successful blog and marketplace featuring useful and well-made objects for daily living.
4. Typography Daily
Quick design inspiration to add to morning news updates, toast, and coffee. Fontify your day with fresh ideas in letterpress, type, and all things design. Founded in 2009, Typography Daily is updated with a fresh dose of type every 24 hours.
5. Triple Canopy
Founded in 2007, the Brooklyn-based online art and culture magazine Triple Canopy is riding high on the Ferris wheel since their recent New York Timesfeature, a successful Kickstarter campaign, and a hearty Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts grant. The journal mixes video, images, and writing focused around compelling, if sometimes abstract, themes.
The 128-page exhibition catalogue, designed by Jeff Wincapaw, was produced by Marquand Books and features more than eighty color illustrations. Essays by Janet Koplos and Jeannine Falino illuminate Hu’s journey in metalwork and jewelry design.
The High Museum of Art is currently showing the exhibit Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit, a collaboration of the two museums, showcases over sixty works by the self-taught, Alabama artist Bill Traylor.
(Brew Books)
