No comments about Moorcroft : Winds of Change (Moorcroft trilogy, volume two).

2 comments about Picasso: Erotic Sketchs / Erotische Skizzen (Prestel's Erotic Sketchbook).

1. Nice copy of rarely published Picasso sketches. However they are much smaller than the originals and the colors not very clear.



2. Beautifully printed and presented, a book that says "gift" for an art-loving friend who appreciates mainstream erotic art.

1 comments about Erwin Wurm: I Love My Time, I Don't Like My Time.

1. Perhpas one of the most important sculptors currently working. Great volume, excellently produced and printed. Wurm has a special talent for coming up with quick, interesting ideas and pieces that not only test the boundaries of texture and form, but simultaneously question an object's social utility and significance (and usually implicate the viewer in a greater questioning of our daily rituals). Highly recommended to those seeking out unqiue contemporary artists.

No comments about Lynn Paula Russell's the Young Governess.

1 comments about Handpainting Porcelain.

1. I can't say enough good things about this delightful book. I love it. It is brimming with a wide variety of beautiful designs. From delicate roses to Christmas holly and alpine motifs to charming little mirrors, this book has something for everyone.

   The book is made up mostly of projects. The instructions are excellent, including step-by-step directions accompanied by large clear illustrations. Full-size templates for design transfer are included for all the designs in the book. There is also a small section in the back that gives details on color, materials and techniques.

   I especially liked the Arabian nights theme with wonderful images of people and architecture to be painted on plates, candlesticks and tea cups. Fanciful gourds with insects painted inside hors d'oeuvres dishes are another favorite. I also loved projects featuring an array of feathers and a large selection of seashells.

   Before I bought this book I didn't realize it used paints that required a special porcelain firing oven. I have only used the newer ones that work in a regular oven. However, I am certainly not sorry I bought it. The wonderful motifs can easily be painted on anything using the appropriate medium in similar colors. I know these lovely designs will make it into the many other crafts I do.

No comments about Sexcitement.

3 comments about Black Book: Miniature Edition.

1. I will buy this book soon as a private tribute to a dear friend of mine, Jeff Gray, who is one of the models in the book. I remember him showing me the photos which Robert Mapplethorpe had taken of him. At the time, he doubted that they would ever be published. I did see the book later, but didn't purchase, but I was impressed.
   
   When Jeff was lying in bed in a hospital in San Francisco, I called to inform him that the book had indeed been published. He was thrilled to know that he had been immortalized, for he was dying of AIDS. Jeff never saw the book and didn't have anything negative to say about Robert, whom I never met. I still own a pair of leather pants and a vest Jeffrey designed and made for me.



2. Published in 1986, Robert Mapplethorpe's BLACK BOOK remains one of my favorite books of photography. Nothing had been published like it previously; nothing comparable has been published since. The book is devoted entirely to shots of black men, some of them naked, some of them not. There are portraits included here as well-- one of my favorites is the stunning portrait of Roedel Middleton on page 70. Some of the images are outrageously beautiful. Many of the models' bodies take on the quality of polished ebony. The four nude photographs of someone named Ajitto in a classical pose-- as are many of the images-- at the beginning of the book are as beautiful as any you will ever see.
   
   It is common knowledge of course now that some of these photographs have been declared obscene (by the likes of Jesse Helms et al.) and racist by some African Americans.(Some of the black men making these allegations, to paraphrase the black poet Don Lee, talk black but sleep white.) According to a less-than-scientific survey by this Caucasian male, there are about 94 photographs included here, only six of them are of body parts-- and I'm not talking here of feet and hands or even behinds here-- 27 are of male nudes with their genitalia exposed, and only in five of them is the model unnamed. Mapplethorpe may well have been a racist, but I fear his critics may have to look elsewhere for proof. An observation or two: his models appear to be willing subjects as no one is tied up or seems to be shot unawares. Secondly, the nature of the male animal of all colors being what it is, there's a good possibility that people having little to offer may have been unwilling to make the sacrifice of giving the viewer the full monty. The artist obviously loved black men and had many black friends as well as lovers. Finally the poet Ntozake Shange has written a beautiful poem as an introduction to this book. Apparently she had no problem with Mapplethorpe's creative vision.
   
   Many of these photographs will last.



3. Mapplethorpe, with his great photographic potenial produced a riviting book that dignifies the male, black body to the next zenith. He was able to capture the very essence of what it is to be a male and to be viewed as "God's" art or creation and not a male "pig." This book demonstrates the power of the camera when the beholder knows what he/she is doing. The images in this book do not apal me, afend me nor do they disgust me. I enjoyed reading and flipping through this book as a ligitimate art reviewer and as a academic scholar.

1 comments about Private Skin.

1. This is a wonderful collection of sensitive, and beautiful nudes. Women acting so natural in front of the camera that it sometimes creates a vivifying intimacy that is pure joy. If you're interested in amateur nude photography, this book is a must have.

No comments about Historical Staffordshire: American Patriots & Views : With Price Guide (A Schiffer Book for Collectors).

5 comments about flatnessisgod.

1. I'm familiar with Ryans' "art" work, and it truley is inspiring. So I bought this book and got a bunch of his logo and design stuff...which is cool...just not exactly what I was looking for.



2. well, where to start. i'm glad i didn't buy this book, it's a complete sham, which may very well be the point - but it's completely superficial, and insulting to real graphic designers and design students to pass these exercises off as a touchstone of modern design principle. the dadaist overtones are not lost on me, but the straight forward design solutions are just that - straightforward, highly derivative (IF NOT TRITE), and quite frankly, boring. if this is the present and future of design, we're in serious trouble. i'm the biggest proponent of thumbing my nose at established design, but you have to know who you're thumbing it towards. breaking from the past requires a knowledge of that past, i see no evidence of such hind- and/or fore-sight in this book. it's been reiterated ad nauseum that picasso was probably the finest draftman of his day, if not history. point being he didn't simply begin with cubism or collage. i fear that the computer has caused such a horrible deterioration of the design process, that this book is what the masses will consider 'good' design. unfortunately those masses include potential clients and students who are our future designers. for those students i recommend beale, lustig, hoffman, rand, lissitzky, malevich, mondrian. go to the source, otherwise you've resigned yourself to a future of luke warm, rehashed gruel. eat up kiddies, hope you choke. this doesn't deserve any stars in my opinion, but as a matter of default i must give it 1. designers are not rock stars, but this guy is the equivalent of britney spears - all filler, literally and figuratively.



3. i wish he had used red on the cover..



4. Just three words...WOW! The paragon of graphic design. I just wish it would have come out three years ago...I could have saved a fortune on graduate school.



5. McGuiness tells the designers of the world to stop for a few brief seconds and consider the melange of visual stimuli that we wade through every day. He both shows us how and asks us why we so easily idendify with the vernacular. The ideas in this book are simply and effectively illustrated and serve as a modern suplement the other great graphic design references such as Gregg Barryman's Notes on Graphic Design.