Over the course of his life, Guston’s wide reading in literature and philosophy deepened his commitment to his art—from his early Abstract Expressionist paintings to his later gritty, intense figurative works. This collection, with many pieces appearing in print for the first time, lets us hear Guston’s voice—as the artist delivers a lecture on Renaissance painting, instructs students in a classroom setting, and discusses such artists and writers as Piero della Francesca, de Chirico, Picasso, Kafka, Beckett, and Gogol.

    Conclusions are perpetually delayed. Resolutions are continually postponed. The text is written for takeoff, not arrival. It is a first step for readers' explorations of current modes of art making and for their own future artistic achievements. The much-anticipated follow-up to Art on the Edge... and Over, Linda Weintraub's highly accessible introduction to contemporary art since the 1970s, In the Making: Creative Options for Contemporary Art explores essential but sometimes elusive facets of art making today. In her trademark writing style--straightforward and jargon-free--Weintraub sets out to itemize the conceptual and practical concerns that go into making contemporary art in all its endless permutations. In six clearly defined thematic sections---Scoping an Audience, - -Sourcing Inspiration, - -Crafting an Artistic 'Self', - -Expressing an Artistic Attitude, - -Choosing a Mission, - and -Measuring Success---Weintraub moves artist by artist, in 40 individual chapters, using each to explain a different aspect of art making. Isaac Julien makes work for a highly specific audience; Michal Rovner communicates through metaphor and symbol; Charles Ray disrupts the viewer's assumptions; Pipilotti Rist is inspired by female emotions; William Kentridge is moved by apartheid and redemption; Vanessa Beecroft epitomizes the biography of a smart, attractive, Caucasian woman; and Matthew Barney achieves success through resistance. Through a compelling combination of renowned and up-and-coming artists, Weintraub creates a complex understanding of how to make and look at contemporary art--but in a simple, easily digestible format and language.In addition to being a fine read for anyone who simply wants to understand how to look at contemporary art, In the Making is also an exceptional pedagogical tool, one that addresses what is fast becoming a huge gap in art education. Teaching artistic techniques no longer provides young artists with a sufficient education--a full range of conceptual issues needs to be considered in any well-rounded studio practice. Yet these very same conceptual issues are often those that are dealt with textually in art history and criticism classes. Weintraub persuasively offers a series of texts that fit squarely into this gap, addressing issues that concern anyone who is learning how to make art or how to understand it.In addition, In the Making includes a series of interviews in which many of the artists discuss the practical issues of their life's work. Conducted by Weintraub's students at Oberlin College, the interviews pose questions about the artists' schooling, their studio space, and how they support themselves if their main income doesn't come from their art--the kind of questions every art student has always wanted to ask the artists whose work they see on gallery walls.

    What does it mean to give shapelessness a form? How can a poem explore both the natural world and the inner world? Phillips demonstrates the restless qualities of the imagination by reading and examining poems by Ashbery, Bogan, Frost, Niedecker, Shakespeare, and others, and by considering other art forms, such as photography and the blues. The Art of Daring is a lyrical, persuasive argument for the many ways that writing and living are acts of risk. "I think it's largely the conundrum of being human that makes us keep making," Phillips writes. "I think it has something to do with revision—how, not only is the world in constant revision, but each of us is, as well."

    Examining visual art from 1980 to the present, it takes an intriguing and accessible approach that motivates students and other readers to think actively about and discuss contemporary art--what it means and how it means what it does. The opening chapter provides a concise overview of the period, analyzing how four key changes (the rise of new media, a growing awareness of diversity, the influence of theory, and interactions with everyday visual culture) have resulted in an art world with dramatically expanded boundaries. Reflecting the paradigm shift from a formalist way of teaching studio art to more varied and open-ended concepts, the remaining six chapters each deal with a key theme--time, place, the body, language, identity, and spirituality. Each chapter features an introduction to the thematic topic; a brief look at historical precedents and influences; a detailed analysis of how contemporary artists have responded to and embodied aspects of the theme in specific works; and an in-depth and fascinating profile of an artist who has extensively explored aspects of the theme in his or her work. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 shows how art can be interpreted from several different angles: techniques and materials, historical circumstances, aesthetic qualities, theoretical issues, and an artist's ideas and intentions. Writing in a lucid and engaging style, the authors skillfully reveal the multiple levels of meaning in artworks, drawing connections between contemporary art, art of the past, and everyday existence. The volume is enhanced by 87 illustrations--19 in full color--that demonstrate an immense variety of materials, subjects, and styles. These well-chosen examples will help readers learn to critically describe, interpret, and evaluate contemporary visual art. A bibliography and a timeline that situates contemporary art in the context of major events in world history, art, and popular culture are also included. An ideal core text for courses in contemporary art history, Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980 can also be used as a supplement in modern art, art appreciation, art criticism/theory, and studio art courses.

    North Morgan's third novel moves beyond the confines of fiction to examine how homosexuality's acceptance into society has created a new breed of demons for a generation of men born as outsiders yet living at the forefront of popular culture. Heartbreaking but never far from humour, Love Notes to Men Who Don't Read confirms Morgan's place as the leading interpreter of gay culture on either side of the Atlantic.

    61 pages of summaries and analysis on Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.

    "Why do I behave and think like this?"If you have asked this question of yourself, or have simply wondered where human behaviour springs from, you will find this short introduction to the Ego States an essential and empowering tool.In this short, jargon free introduction to the ego states of Transactional Analysis, the reader is invited to analyse where their behaviour springs from, and to consider how they can improve their life by deepening their self awareness.

    The city was a place of endless possibility, and he captured the pace and rhythms, the quandaries and exhilarations of city life. This selection of his work is edited by Mark Ford.

    All by women.When you were little, you had a nanny. A nanny only you could see.There are clumps of dark hair in the swimming pool. Curling around your toes, slowly tugging you down."The Love Simulator" shows your perfect life with 'The One'... which turns out to be your worst nightmare.DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS brings you 46 tales of terror from the depths of the female mind. Pull up a chair and listen to the horrors of murderous femme fatales, fiercely protective mothers, and daughters who realize their childhood isn't quite what it seemed.Hundreds of backers on Kickstarter brought this anthology to life, through a successful campaign that raised several thousand dollars. Our authors have won awards, written bestsellers, and gained international popularity on the 13 million subscriber forum NoSleep.Daughters of Darkness is guaranteed give you nightmares you'll never forget. Read... if you dare!

    So when Covid-19 and lockdown struck, it made little difference to life at La Grande Cour, the centuries-old Normandy farmhouse where Hockney set up a studio a year earlier, in time to paint the arrival of spring. In fact, he relished the enforced isolation as an opportunity for even greater devotion to his art.Spring Cannot Be Cancelled is an uplifting manifesto that affirms art’s capacity to divert and inspire. It is based on a wealth of new conversations and correspondence between Hockney and art critic Martin Gayford, his long-time friend and collaborator. Their exchanges are illustrated by a selection of Hockney’s new Normandy drawings and paintings alongside works by Van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel, and others. We see how Hockney is propelled ever forward by his infectious enthusiasms and sense of wonder. A lifelong contrarian, he has been in the public eye for sixty years, yet remains entirely unconcerned by the view of critics or even history. He is utterly absorbed by his four acres of northern France and by the themes that have fascinated him for decades: light, color, space, perception, water, trees. He has much to teach us, not only about how to see . . . but about how to live.

    Wassily Kandisnsky’s Sounds (Klänge), a volume of poems written and illustrated by the Russian artist and pioneer of abstract painting, was originally published in a limited edition in Munich in 1912.  Although it was highly regarded by such artists as Hugo Ball and Jean Arp and acclaimed by the Zurich Dadaists, it remains one of the least known of Kandinsky’s major writings.  This is the first complete English translation of Kandinsky’s text.  Sounds is one of the earliest, most beautiful examples of a twentieth-century livre d’artiste and a rare instance of a book in which text and illustrations are the work of a single artist.  The poems, alternately narrative and expressive in quality, are witty, simple in structure and vocabulary, and often startling in content.  They repeatedly treat questions of space, color, physical design, and the act of seeing in a world that offers multiple and often contradictory possibilities to the viewer.  The woodcuts range from early Jugendstil-inspired, representational designs to vignettes that are purely abstract in form.  Published in the same year as his Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Sounds sheds a different but equally significant light on Kandinsky’s movement toward abstraction—a movement that was to exercise a profound influence on future directions in art.  In addition to the 38 poems and 56 woodcuts, which are arranged as in the original edition, the volume includes an introduction, the German text of the poems, and the artist’s chronology.

    Bound or beaten, naked or painted, still or spasmodic: the artist lives his or her art publicly in performance or privately in video and photography; these records form the Works section. Amelia Jones's survey examines the most significant works in the context of social history and Tracey Warr's selection of documents combines writings by artists, critics and philosophers.

    Now her mature vision engages with the power of time itself: memory and its contradictions, the ebb and flow between parents and children, the deaths we all face sooner or later, the meaning of human responsibility in all this."Letters in the Family," for example, is written in the voices of three women—from the Spanish Civil War, from a Jewish rescue mission behind Nazi lines, and from present-day Southern Africa. Time's Power shows Rich writing with unprecedented range, complexity, and authority.

    No one has heard from him. He’s disconnected from his friends, from his family, and from the job he dedicated his life to—the job that cost him everything.Then a new, all too familiar murder occurs on his patch and Kidd has no choice but to throw himself back into the fold. A young woman has been found with a smile cut into her throat, eyes carved into her cheeks, the brutal signature of The Grinning Murders—one of the most ruthless serial killers the country has ever seen. A killer who lies behind bars.However things are not as they seem and not everything adds up. Only one thing is clear: Kidd may be the only one who can figure this out before this copycat killer strikes again.

    Blessed with an unerring eye, he tackles a myriad of subjects with wit, poetry, and perspicacity, examining and questioning the art before him while reveling in the power and beauty of language. His writing springs from a desire to be understood by all readers, and a determination to help them engage with art of every kind.Covering subjects drawn from a broad canvas of the history of art—from ancient Greece, Mexico, and Byzantium, through Raphael, Rubens, and Rembrandt, to Bruce Nauman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and John Currin—the writings collected here seek out with precision and economy the essence of the individual artist or work under discussion, but they never lose sight of the bigger picture: What is beauty? What does it mean to be an American artist? What can the art we produce and admire tell us about ourselves?With an imaginative introduction—twenty questions, each one posed to Schjeldahl by a different artist or writer—this collection will appeal to anyone who considers the experience of art, and of writing on art, an invitation to a voyage.Coverage includes:     • large-scale exhibitions at leading institutions around the world     • shows at private galleries     • profiles of prominent members of the art world     • personal accounts of time spent with artists     • the influences of museum spaces on our experience of art