Just saw some exhibitions at the Blanton Museum:

• Imperial Augsburg: Renaissance Prints and Drawings, 1475-1540
  October 5, 2013 - January 5, 2014
• The Nearest Air: A Survey of Works by Waltercio Caldas
  October 27, 2013 - January 12, 2014

There was also a family day event Friday and Saturday (December 27/28, 2013)  - printmaking to learn the very basics alongside the Augsburg exhibition - which had a few excellent pieces from Albrecht Duerer and others. 

The little museum school, staffed with very friendly helpers, offered everyone to make an 'etching' into a small plastic card, then print with it on a folded card raw. Etching was actually not that easy and finer details not possible. But it was a lot of fun - like the potato stamping I sometimes do to make cover papers.

I very much liked the Waltercio Caldas exposition as well, a rather lighthearted, playful art I think. 

Finally art again

How to get adventure loving kids to go and look at some fine art? Well, for me it worked father's day. After a wonderful breakfast prepared by Aly, we headed towards the Austin Museum of Art at the Laguna Gloria. (AMOA, One of the very few places like this in Austin open before noon. )

And how lovely a place! A wonderful old building placed at the Laguna Gloria and the Colorado. Some nice art in there and a landscape to dream about. Built on a slope of a small hill it gives a wonderful view on these waters, endless greens with sculptures and small pathways.

The bronze from Beverly Penn is spectacular, I did not know you can cast bronze this filigree. Pond stones from Liz Ward are similar in a way - decent from afar, delicate from close up. The 'sabine cache' by Faith Gay is a wonderful piece as well as the dark palm tree in the main room. And these gardens!

The Smithsonian Book of Books

Just a few minutes ago I finished reading the 300 page letter sized The Smithsonian Book of Books by Michael Olmert. Awesome.

As you can guess, this book is about books, and it covers many aspects:

• From Scrolls and Scribes
• People of the book (about readers and writers)
• Illuminating the Dark Ages
• The Gutenberg Revolution
• Yes we now have bananas (about Typography with Zapf and Gills)
• The bookman’s craft (about printers and printing)
• The infinite Library. Timeless and Incorruptible ( about Science and revival of medieval book craft)
• A Picture’s worth… (about illustrations, woodcuts and artists)
• Every Word for Everyman (about the book business)

When I first saw this book in the library I was mainly attracted by the topic (about books!) and the many pictures. There are pictures of books, book making, printing, illustrations, and what pictures! Olmert shows many treasures of the Smithsonian and other institutions and museums, and Oh! so beautiful.

Fortunately the text proves to be interesting and easy to read. Olmert succeeds in writing entertaining enough to keep me reading 300 large pages. The book is stuffed with facts, but wrapped in little anecdotes. Out comes, what could be named a travel report through time and books, a book lover’s diary, a narrative written by a master of the language and still light and easy.

Some of my favorite pictures are the Arabic Initial on page 50, the girdle bible on page 70, to be wrapped and hung from the belt, the page of the ‘Book of Kells’ on page 93, the colored etching by William Blake and Catherine Sophia Boucher on page 242, Rockwell Kent’s Moby Dick on page 253 and many more.

I do a little bookbinding myself, and have enjoyed this wealth of information on all these topics related to books and book making.

And I it gave me the next topic I am going to read about: Typography. Sure, I have read a book or two on this, and having done some print jobs I learned a little about it, but this chapter made me curious.

Book binding and book arts

Book binding and book making is fun, and I am glad I started doing this again.

First I joined the Austin Book Arts Meetup. I actually took my daughter to it as Jerome, the organizer recommeded. And it was fun. We learned a bit about Zines. How to make them, what they are and how they started. And then we actually made a zine on our own.
Great fun, and I have some pictures of mine. It really helped that we had a little starter kit from the artist of that session.

Highly recommended for book lovers, book binding and book arts lovers!








P.S. This online editor from Google is .... Integrating pictures I have to go into html mode to be able to sort.