Today's works of art may have no obvious focal point. Traditional artistic media no longer do what we expect of them. The styles and movements that characterized art production prior to the twenty-first century no longer exist.This book provides a straightforward guide to understanding contemporary art based on the concept of the tabula rasa – a clean slate and a fresh mind. Ossian Ward presents a six-step program that gives readers new ways of looking at some of the most challenging art being produced today. Since artists increasingly work across traditional media and genres, Ward has developed an alternative classification system for contemporary practice such as 'Art as Entertainment', 'Art as Confrontation', 'Art as Joke' -- categories that help to make sense of otherwise obscure-seeming works. There are also 20 'Spotlight' features which guide readers through encounters with key works.Ultimately, the message is that any encounter with a challenging work of contemporary art need not be intimidating or alienating but rather a dramatic, sensually rewarding, and thought-provoking experience.

    By the time he was ten years old he knew he wanted to be an artist, and after leaving school he went on to study at Bradford Art College and later at the Royal College of Art in London. Bursting onto the scene at the Young Contemporaries exhibition, Hockney was quickly heralded as the golden boy of postwar British art and a leading proponent of pop art. It was during the swinging 60s in London that he befriended many of the seminal cultural figures of the generation and throughout these years Hockney's career grew. Always absorbed in his work, he drew, painted and etched for long hours each day, but it was a scholarship that led him to California, where he painted his iconic series of swimming pools. Since then, the most prestigious galleries across the world have devoted countless shows to his extraordinary work.In the seventies he expanded his range of projects, including set and costume design for operas and experiments with photography, lithography, and even photocopying. Most recently he has been at the forefront the art world's digital revolution, producing incredible sketches on his iPhone and iPad, and it is this progressive thinking which has highlighted his genius, vigor and versatility as an artist approaching his 75th birthday.In this, the first volume of Hockney’s biography, detailing his life and work from 1937 - 1975, Sykes explores the fascinating world of the beloved and controversial artist whose career has spanned and epitomized the art movements of the last five decades."The timing couldn't be better for this enjoyable and well-sourced book, which — like Hockney's own work — is both conversational and perceptive." —Los Angeles Times"To read Christopher Simon Sykes' David Hockney is to marvel at the artistic gifts of the eccentric Yorkshireman who rose from a sometimes pinched childhood to hobnob with poet Stephen Spender and novelist Christopher Isherwood, to party with Mick Jagger and Manolo Blahnik." —The Plain Dealer"Prodigiously entertaining." —Financial Times“A chatty, knowledgeable, insider's biography, full of anecdotes.” —The Guardian

    They will learn how to prepare wood surfaces before burning, how to transfer a design or pattern, and how to select materials for burning, coloring, and finishing a project. Methods for burning onto wood, leather, paper, bark, and antlers are detailed alongside ample pictures of pyrography on the various materials that will inspire novice woodburners. Numerous techniques are also discussed, including solar, negative, relief, engraving, torch, and hot wire. The most difficult area for burners--how to realistically create animal fur, feathers, and eyes--is addressed.

    Charles Faudree's Country French Living features his newest room designs. From the entryway to the dressing room to walls, dining rooms, and outdoor spaces, Charles teaches principles of design that make a house a Country French home:The importance of the bedroom and how to make it a soothing sanctuary, deserving as much attention to beauty and detail as the rest of the home.How to identify a pivotal fabric, a dominant color, or one magnificent antique that will dictate the style and design for a whole room.How books can create an inviting atmosphere and add a warmth all their own.How a valance is the ultimate decorating deceit, and how window treatments express the personality of a room and add a proper finish.How to use walls as they are meant--as a stage on which to display one's favorite collections.How to use symmetrical groupings that provide a sense if balance and order in a roomCharles Faudree's Country French Living also shows how to make the most of accessories like lamps, pillows, baskets, paintings, and more to finish a room and provide the charm and character so important in a well-designed French Country setting. Country French Living reveals that the true test of a beautiful room is in the details.Charles Faudree's clients are found throughout America as well as in Spain and Jamaica. Five individual homes designed by Charles, including his own, have been featured on HGTV. During his twenty-five-year career as an interior designer, his work has appeared in many design magazines and decorating books. Six of his own homes have been featured in Traditional Home magazine, where he was a Design Award Winner in 1995. He has also been featured in Better Homes & Gardens Special Interest Publications, Renovation Style, Veranda, Southern Accents, and House Beautiful. In 2002 he was named one of America's top 100 interior designers.

    Yet no full colour collection of her work has been available until now. This comprehensive volume consists of 108 colour plates accompanied by text written by the artist.

    The Pandava brother, Bheema, was lucky to have him as a son, for he saved his life more than once. And if it were not for this brave young rakshasa, the Kauravas may well have been the victors of the famous battle of Mahabharata.

    Auguste Rodin spoke candidly to his protégé, Paul Gsell, who recorded the master's thoughts not only about the technical secrets of his craft, but also about its aesthetic and philosophical underpinnings.Here is the real Rodin—relaxed, intimate, open, and charming—offering a wealth of observations on the relationship of sculpture to poetry, painting, theater, and music. He also makes perceptive comments on Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, and other great artists, and he shares revealing anecdotes about Hugo, Balzac, and others who posed for him. Seventy-six superb illustrations of the sculptor's works complement the text, including St John the Baptist Preaching, The Burghers of Calais, The Thinker, and many others, along with a selection of exuberant drawings and prints.

    Back in print for the first time in nearly thirty years, here is Yoko Ono's whimsical, delightful, subversive, startling book of instructions for art and for life."A dream you dream alone may be a dream, but a dream two people dream together is a reality.""Burn this book after you've read it." -- Yoko Ono"This is the greatest book I've ever burned." -- John Lennon

    Exquisitely designed and produced, Patti Smith: Camera Solo accompanies the first museum exhibition of the artist's photography in the United States.Using either a vintage Land 100 or a Land 250 Polaroid camera, Smith photographs subjects inspired by her connections to poetry and literature as well as pictures that honor the personal effects of those she admires or loves. In the catalogue's interview, conducted by Susan Lubowsky Talbott, the artist talks about her "respect for the inanimate object" as well as the talismanic qualities of things in her life. We see, for instance, a picture of Mapplethorpe's slippers or a porcelain cup that belonged to her father, and are drawn into their intimacy and quiet power. Moreover, these images reveal how the camera has proven to be a means for Smith to retreat—undisturbed—to "a room of my own."From her explorations as a visual artist in the 1960s and 70s and her profound influence on the nascent punk rock scene in the late 1970s and 80s, to Just Kids, her National Book Award-winning memoir of life with her beloved friend Robert Mapplethorpe, Smith continues to make an indelible mark on the American cultural landscape.

    This collection presents fifty large-scale artworks from the American master's color field period (1949–1970) alongside essays by Rothko's son, Christopher Rothko, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art curator of painting and sculpture Janet Bishop. Featuring illuminating details about Rothko's life, influences, and legacy, and brimming with the emotional power and expressive color of his groundbreaking canvases, this essential volume brings the renowned artist's luminous work to light for both longtime Rothko fans and those discovering his work for the very first time. A textured case and large-scale tip-on on the front cover round out this sumptious package.

    

    Her instantly recognizable work draws extensively on her life and her extraordinarily personal reflections upon it.   On Kahlo’s death, her husband, Diego Rivera (1886–1957), ordered that her most private possessions be locked away until 15 years after his death. The bathroom in which her belongings were stored in fact remained unopened until 2004. Through this incredible archive, Frida Kahlo’s Wardrobe gives readers a unique window into Kahlo’s life. It will focus on the personal, combining her prosthetics, jewelry, and clothes with self-portraits, diary entries, and letters to build an intimate portrait of the artist through her possessions, setting this in the context of her political and social beliefs.

    But despite his lack of recognition, Mr. Hennen...has simply gone about his calling with humility and gratitude in a culture whose primary crop has become fame. He just watches, waits and then strikes, delivering heart-buckling lines.” —Dana Jennings, The New York Times"As with Ted Kooser, Tom Hennen is a genius of the common touch. . . . They are amazingly modest men who early accepted poetry as a calling in ancient terms and never let up despite being ignored early on. They return to the readers a thousandfold for their attentions."—Jim Harrison, from the introduction"Many readers will appreciate this evocation of a life not as commonly portrayed in contemporary verse."—Library Journal"There is something of the ancient Chinese poets in Hennen, of Clare and Thoreau, although he is very much a contemporary poet."—Willow Springs"One of the most charming things about Tom Hennen's poems is his strange ability to bring immense amounts of space, often uninhabited space, into his mind and so into the whole poem."—Robert Bly"America is a country that loves its advertising. That loves its boxes we can put people and places into. We love 'Heartland' as opposed to 'Dustbowl.' We also love to be surprised. Rural Minnesota, as written by Tom Hennen in Darkness Sticks to Everything, is a world of realistic loneliness and lessons. It’s a collection of sincere poems about man and the land."—The Rumpus"Hennen is a master of the prose poem [who] can take little details, tiny details and make them universal."—River Falls Journal"What separates Hennen from many of his contemporaries is his willingness to identify with the natural world in a way that feels neither possessive nor self-serving, but simply (once again) sincere."—Basalt Magazine"There is something strong in all Tom Hennen's poems, an awareness and a clear, sure voice... I don't usually want to end by saying 'Buy this book,' but I'm going to say it this time: 'You should buy this book.'"—Fleda Brown, Interlochen Public Radio, "Michigan Writers on the Air"Tom Hennen gives voice to the prairie and to rural communities, celebrating—with sadness, praise, and astute observations—the land, weather, and inhabitants. In short lyrics and prose poems, he reveals the detailed strangeness of ordinary things. Gathered from six chapbooks that were regionally distributed, this volume is Hennen's long-overdue introduction to a national audience. Includes an introduction by Jim Harrison and an afterword by Thomas R. Smith."In Falling Snow at a Farm Auction"Straight pine chairComfortableIn anyone's company,Older than grandmotherIt enters the presentIts arms wide openWanting to hold another young wife.Tom Hennen, author of six books of poetry, was born and raised in rural Minnesota. After abandoning college, he married and began work as a letterpress and offset printer. He helped found the Minnesota Writer's Publishing House, then worked for the Department of Natural Resources wildlife section, and later at the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge in South Dakota. Now retired, he lives in Minnesota.

    His iconic paintings stretch out with the generosity and scale of America's Western landscape where the artist grew up. Pollock said that he painted "out of his conscious": the cathartic dribbled paint reflected his troubled mind.This book traces Pollock's career and discusses how his loose, individual style was used as a political weapon in the Cold War, representing America as the free, democratic nation. Illustrations simplify the theory and reveal the hidden meaning behind the mesh of painted lines.This title is appropriate for ages 14 and up