Video and Books California Design: The Legacy of West Coast Craft and Style Dish: Internatioanl Design for the Home New Directions in Jewllery Fine Art of the West Small Spirits: Native American Dolls from the National Museum of the American Indian Wired: Contemporary Zulu Telephone Wire Baskets Pacific Pattern 5000 Years of Textiles Archive
	California Design: The Legacy of West Coast Craft and Style by Jo Lauria and Suzanne Baizerman, 2005, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA, 800-722-6657. 228 pages, foreword by Eudorah M. Moore, introduction by Donald Albrecht, essay by Toni Greenbaum, illustrated, $29.95 paperback. As California grew in population and prospered after World War II, a distinct West Coast aesthetic—outdoorsy, funky, organic, eclectic—took hold. Nowhere were the new developments more reflected, defined and celebrated than in the popular California Design shows, a series of 13 exhibitions presented primarily at the Pasadena Art Museum between 1954 and 1976. Beginning in 1962, what had been annual shows with modest brochures became triennials and, under the direction of Eudorah M. Moore, expanded, filling the museum with hundreds of handmade and manufactured objects. In addition to instituting such changes as a jury selection, Moore was responsible for increasingly large and lavish catalogs, notable for the photographs of objects placed outdoors in dramatic natural settings. This survey, illustrated entirely with photographs from those catalogs, gives a history of the shows by Donald Albrecht, while Suzanne Baizerman and Jo Lauria write on production and studio furniture, ceramics, sculpture and functional objects in glass, metal and wood, the fiber revolution and the California lifestyle. Toni Greenbaum contributed the chapter “Body Sculpture: California Jewelry.” TOP
	Dish: International Design for the Home edited by Julie Müller Stahl, 2005, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 212-995-9620. 200 pages, foreword by Susan Yelavich, five contributors, illustrated. $34.95. Playing on the multiple meanings of “dish,” especially as slang for dirt, gossip and storytelling, this book, which grew out of a 2003 exhibition called “Transformation” at the Parsons School of Design, presents 43 female designers from more than 15 countries whose innovative work for the home—furniture, ceramics, glass, lighting and textiles—often contains narrative. Examples of each designer’s work are accompanied by biographical information and a personal statement. The essays, by decorative arts specialists, offer insights into the conceptual, aesthetic, functional and political nature of the work. In her foreword, Susan Yelavich, a juror and consultant for the project, states: “Beauty does not flow from a focus group, nor does invention. It comes from the confidence and craft of the designer. Likewise, the satisfaction we find in these pieces comes from discernment, not comparison-shopping. That the home should be the arena for these forays into personal narratives should not be surprising. This is the place where objects are rescued from commodity by dint of possession. Once possessed, a plate becomes the platform for Dish.” TOP
	New Directions in Jewellery edited by Catherine Grant, 2005, Black Dog Publishing, London, England, www.bdpworld.com. 216 pages, essays by Jivan Astfalck, Caroline Broadhead and Paul Derrez, illustrated. $39.95 paperback. This survey encompasses jewelry that crosses the disciplines of fine art, performance, sculpture, textiles and fashion design. The more than 80 makers from Europe, Asia and North and South America—though the majority live in the UK—are organized into broad categories: “organic forms,” “small statements,” “fashion forward,” “tactile sculpture,” “new geometries,” “telling stories,” “colour and light” and “decorative elements.” The essay by Paul Derrez, a jeweler and owner of Galerie Ra in the Netherlands, reviews “art jewellery” over the last 30 years and suggests that there should be ways of going beyond the gallery to bring innovative work to a broader audience. The British artist Caroline Broadhead explores the work of artists who use the direct experience of wearing or placing something on the body, in particular noting those who use “hair, nails and human particles, the materials that declare their previous state of being a part of the body.” The critic Jivan Astfalck discusses jewelry as a “fine art practice.” TOP
	Fine Art of the West by B. Byron Price, 2004, Abbeville Press, New York, NY, 800-278-2665. 276 pages, illustrated. $75. The cowboy has been an iconic figure in American culture, depicted in literature, art, rodeos and, of course, the movies, wearing and using the specialized gear long recognized and increasingly appreciated for its utilitarian and aesthetic qualities. In this lavishly illustrated history, B. Byron Price, the director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma, explains how these objects took form in the Old West as a legacy of Spanish and Mexican craftsmen and as the everyday gear of cowboys and how they attracted innovative designers who have created a new, vigorous tradition. Among the works examined—in plain and fancy versions—are saddles, chaps, cuffs, gauntlets and gun leather, bits, bridles and spurs, jewelry and, of course, hats and boots, many of them from the collection of Mort and Donna Fleischer of Scottsdale, Arizona. An extensive bibliography is included. TOP
	Small Spirits: Native American Dolls from the National Museum of the American Indian by Mary Jane Lenz, 2004 (first published 1986), National Museum of the American Indian. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 206-543-4050. 175 pages, illustrated. $24.95 paperback. An Inuit kayak with a man, an Ojibwe doll in a cradleboard, Plains powwow dance figures, Hopi Katsinas and Seminole dolls in patchwork clothing are a few examples in this book documenting the diverse collection of the National Museum of the American Indian. Mary Jane Lenz, a curator at the museum, discusses the various roles these forms have played in the indigenous cultures of the Americas from ancient times to the present: as toys and learning tools for children, sacred and magical figurines, props in performances and ceremonies, souvenirs for sale to tourists, and in recent times, as artworks intended for collectors. The excellent photographs of the dolls are supplemented with archival images documenting their cultural significance. TOP
	Wired: Contemporary Zulu Telephone Wire Baskets by David Arment and Marisa Fick-Jordaan, 2005, S/C Editions, Santa Fe, NM. Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, 505-476-1155. 212 pages, introduction by Paul Mikula, photographs by Andrew Cerino. $50. Among the Zulu people of South Africa in the second half of the 20th century, a contemporary art form developed with roots in the ancient practice of making wire and using it for decorative objects. In the 1960s, with the availability of multi-colored plastic-coated copper telephone wire, Zulu night watchmen began to weave this new material around their traditional wood sticks and also used it to make beer pot covers. As the craft developed many types of objects were made. Such work attracted collectors and others who saw that it could provide sustenance for working people. One advocate, Marisa Fick-Jordaan, a designer and craft development consultant, in the 1990s founded the Bartel Arts Trust (BAT) in Durban, which operates a shop and arts center with the purpose of encouraging the Zulu weavers and exhibiting and marketing their work. This book presents more than 200 examples of telephone-wire baskets, profiles 14 master weavers and describes the institutions bringing international attention to the form. TOP
	Pacific Pattern by Susanne Küchler and Graeme Were, 2005, Thames & Hudson, New York, NY, 212-354-3763. 208 pages, photographs by Glenn Jowitt. $50. With contemporary photographs, archival images and thoughtful text, this book offers a colorful journey through the arts of the island cultures of the South Pacific, including those of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia—one that illuminates the role of pattern in the fabric and fiber work of these diverse societies. Susanne Küchler, an anthropologist, and Graeme Were, a lecturer in art, explore the many facets of their subject from a historical and current perspective. The final chapter, “Patterns of the Mind,” begins with the oversized barkcloth communally produced for ritual use in Tonga from the mulberry tree, and ends with the brilliantly colored tivaivai, quilts typical of Tahiti and the Cook Islands, in which patterns are created through patchwork, appliqué or hand-painting with stencils. TOP
	5,000 Years of Textiles edited by Jennifer Harris, 2004 (first published 1993), Smithsonian Books, Washington, DC, 202-275-2300. W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 212-354-5500. 320 pages, 24 contributors, illustrated. $32.50 paperback. This survey of textile art and production around the world, from 3000 B.C. to the present, begins with a guide to techniques in nine categories—weaving; tapestry; rug weaving; embroidery; lace; dyeing and printing; knitting; netting, knotting and crochet; and felt and bark cloth—clearly explained and illustrated with line drawings and fabric details. Geography takes over as textile history is explored in the Near and Middle East, India and Pakistan, the Far East, Western Europe, the Americas and Africa. The more than 400 illustrations, drawn from museum collections, include costumes, period interiors, archival photographs and an immense variety of fabric from the simple to the sumptuous.
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