The great American playwright Edward Albee is celebrating his 80th birthday next month, and numerous Albee plays are being mounted in distinguished Off Broadway theaters in New York. The playwright himself is directing two of his one-acts, The American Dream and The Sandbox, at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, where they were originally produced in 1961 and 1962. Both plays are included in the new paperback edition of The Collected Plays of Edward Albee 1958-1965, available from Overlook.
M is for Masterpiece: an art alphabet book by David Domeniconi and illustrated by Will Bullas, Sleeping Bear Press, 2006
Sleeping Bear Press is known for their alphabet books on various themes. This book shares the framework of the other books with handsome color and good layout.
Will Bullas's illustrations evoke the artist at work as many of the illustrations feature the "artist's" hand creating the picture. "V is for Van Gogh" is a close up of an artist's paint smeared hands painting a swirling sky. Closeups of paint tubes, colored pencils and brushes bring the tools to life.
The book includes the art of many cultures from Native Americans to Easter Island to African masks.
Q is for Quillwork
J is for Japanese Print
Domeniconi's text rides in a column to the side of each spread. His information is excellent. In addition to the traditional explanations for the subject he includes related stories. For example, in "L is for Landscape" he describes the enormous impact the
landscape paintings of Albert Bierstadt had on our country as they communicated the grandeur of the West to Easteners. I thought this was an inspired subject choice to illustrate the concept.
My only criticism is that this very interesting text was somewhat difficult to read because of the size of the type. It is an art to balance all the page elements with the amount of text but this was a shade too small for easy reading.
All in all, this is a nice survey of artists, media, techniques and art forms
A side note: I've been interested by Albert Bierstadt ever since the time I saw one of his paintings in an art gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was having fun looking at all the art but I kept going back to one painting on the wall. It was very small, maybe 12 inches long at the most. It showed a campfire with a few cowboys sitting nearby. The only light in the painting came came from the glow of the fire. I remember thinking it was a very intimate scene even though the great outdoors loomed in the darkness beyond the fire. When I asked someone how much it was, I learned it cost more money than the price of my house. The gallery person looked at my slack jaw and said, "Well, it is a Bierstadt." Used to his colossal works, I had not realized he was the artist of this small piece.
I sure can pick'em.
3-D ABC: a sculptural alphabet by Bob Raczka. Millbrook Press, 2007
Bob Raczka writes terrific books about art for children. His excellent Here's Looking at Me: How Artists See Themselves should be in every art teacher's collection. In 3-D he explores sculpture. Using an ABC book format, he presents a wide range of concepts and media.
His subjects are well chosen to engage young imaginations. Each work is presented with full attribution which includes the title, the artist, the date and the location of the piece. A page at the back gives full credit for the photography in the book too. The importance of properly citing resources and giving credit to the work of others should be and must be continually emphasized to students.
Everything works in this book from the clear typography to the clean layout. The art is beautifully photographed and tagged with a letter of the alphabet.
Concert for Anarchy by Rebecca Horn at the Tate Gallery in London is an inverted grand piano, hanging in midair with the keys spilling downward. It illustrates "U is for Upside Down."
A sculpture can make you look at things differently,
My favorite piece in the book is
Spoonbridge & Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN which is also the cover image. It is tagged with "S is for Spoon"
A Sculpture can make you Smile
This books will certainly make you smile and think about sculpture in a whole new way.
It was also nominated for the Cybil Non-fiction Picture Book award.
Bob Raczka's
website
