Video and Books The Book as Art: Artists' Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts Embroidery Italian Fashion Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946 Free Spirit: The New Native American Potter James Carpenter: Environmental Refractions Destination Art The Surface Designer's Handbook: Dyeing, Printing, Painting, and Creating Resists on Fabric Archive
	The Book as Art: Artists’ Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts by Krystyna Wasserman, 2007, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 212-995-9620. 192 pages, essays by Audrey Niffenegger and Johanna Drucker, illustrated. $55. Since its founding 20 years ago, the National Museum of Women has steadily acquired a collection of more than 800 artists’ books by women under the stewardship of Krystyna Wasserman, the museum’s curator of book arts. This well-designed catalog of an exhibition marking the museum’s 20th-anniversary (through February 4) presents 108 unique and limited-edition examples from the collection by 87 artists, accompanied by their statements. The essay by Audrey Niffenegger deals with the meaning of making a book; Wasserman emphasizes the variety and inventiveness of these works and the scholar Johanna Drucker discusses the space of a book as “intimate and public at the same time.” TOP
	Embroidery Italian Fashion by Federico Rocca, 2006, Damiani Editori, Bologna, Italy. D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, New York, NY, 800-338-2665. 280 pages, texts by Giorgia Rapezzi et al., illustrated. $99. This elegant book examines a potent direction in Italian fashion design over the past 10 years—a turn to embellishment, expressed in embroidery. Italian designers—both grand masters and young practitioners—have found inspiration for their clothes, whatever their themes, either in ethnic embroidery, especially from India, or in vintage haute-couture garments. The works of 19 leading figures in Italian fashion are illustrated, accompanied by their words, and also by the embroidery that inspired them. The most informative text is an interview with Giorgia Rapezzi, the creative head of Jato, a leading European embroidery factory that offers consultancy and production services to many prominent designers internationally—the vintage garments shown are almost exclusively from the Jato archives. Of these designers’ affinity for embroidery, Rapezzi writes, “European taste is constitutionally, but also historically, baroque taste: decoration, embellishment, opulence, abundance and splendour. . . . With embroidery you can obtain effects that are unachievable with just fabrics, cuts or anything else.” TOP
	Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory edited by Ariel Zeitlin Cooke and Marsha MacDowell, 2005, Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, 517-355-2373. 101 pages, illustrated seven contributors. $19.95 paperback. While the works in this catalog of a traveling exhibition (at the University Galleries, Florida Atlantic University School of the Arts, Boca Raton, February 9-April 7) represent distinct textile traditions, they have the common purpose of communicating the experience of war or political violence. Embroidered story cloths by Hmong refugees, Zulu “memory” cloths from South Africa, appliquéd Arpilleras from Peru, woven rugs from Afghanistan—all mostly made by women—eloquently depict the impact of military conflict on individuals and communities. The essays demonstrate what these narrative textiles have to teach us about the artistic adaptability of traditional cultures, the role they play in dealing with trauma and their value as documentation of historical events. The second half of the book comprises profiles of eight artists. The exhibition was a collaboration among City Lore, Inc., New York City, the Michigan State University Museum/Michigan Traditional Arts Program and the Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury. TOP
	The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946 by Delphine Hirasuna, 2005, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA, 510-559-1600. 128 pages, designed by Kit Hinrichs, photography by Terry Heffernan. $35. The more than 150 objects presented in this book accompanying an exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco (through February 25), were created by Japanese Americans removed to internment camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor. By fashioning furniture from scrap lumber, baskets from unraveled string, wood sandals, whimsical pipe cleaner figures, carved teapots from slate, painted carved bird pins, shell jewelry and tools from scrap metal, the internees were practicing gaman (gah-mon), a Japanese word for enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity. The text, by a third-generation Japanese American whose family was interned, provides a history of the camps, informative captions on the art and an account of the difficult years after. TOP
	Free Spirit: The New Native American Potter by Garth Clark, 2006, Stedelijk Museum ’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. Garth Clark Gallery, New York, NY, 212-246-2205. 128 pages, foreword Yvònne G. J. M. Joris, illustrated. $30. In this catalog of an exhibition last year at the Stedelijk Museum ’s-Herteogenbosch for which he and Yvònne G. J. M. Joris, the museum’s director, made the selection, the ceramics historian Garth Clark uses the term Free Spirit to describe a group of Native American potters—Nathan Begaye (Navajo/Hopi), Susan Folwell (Santa Clara pueblo), Christine McHorse (Navajo), Virgil Ortiz and Diego Romero (both Cochiti pueblo)—whom he sees as “pathfinders” seeking a new role “that will allow them to speak with greater authenticity and independence.” What these five potters have in common, Clark writes, “is that they do not want to be hyphenate artists trapped in a quasi-tourist and ethnic market.” Their works simultaneously show their rootedness in the past and keen awareness of 21st-century American visual culture. Clark’s preamble is followed by profiles of the artists. TOP
	James Carpenter: Environmental Refractions by Sandro Marpillero, 2006, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, NY, 212-995-9620. 176 pages, introduction by Jörg Schlaich, essay by Kenneth Frampton, illustrated. $55. The work of the artist James Carpenter is primarily concerned with the transparency, reflectivity and compressive strength of glass and the development of new glass technologies for architecture. Through his New York City-based practice, James Carpenter Design Associates, founded in 1978, he has worked collaboratively with architects and engineers in the United States and abroad on projects that present a notion of environment that, writes Sandro Marpillero, “points towards the establishment of new ecological paradigms focused on dynamic transformations, rather than the preservation of an idealized nature.” In this lavishly illustrated monograph, Marpillero, an architect and associate professor at Columbia University, explores nearly 20 of Carpenter’s projects and the interaction between the “visual and bodily dimensions” of his work. TOP
	Destination Art by Amy Dempsey, 2006, University of California Press, Berkeley, 800-777-4726. 272 pages, illustrated. $39.95. For travelers seeking art on a grand scale, the 200 modern and contemporary site-specific works in this survey more than “merit the detour,” as the Michelin guide would say. Located around the world, but with special emphasis on the United States and Europe, these sites encompass sculpture parks, visionary environments, architectural follies, monumental land and environmental works, and installations. The author, who has worked for the Tate Modern Museum in London, provides the history and descriptions of 50 sites. Essential visitor information—hours, contact details, etc.—is given for the 150 others. TOP
	The Surface Designer’s Handbook: Dyeing, Printing, Painting, and Creating Resists on Fabric by Holly Brackmann, 2006, Interweave Press, Loveland, CO, 800-272-2193. 138 pages, foreword by Jason Pollen, illustrated. $29.95. Indian Aimed at skilled surface designers, educators and highly motivated beginners, this comprehensive guide by Holly Brackmann, professor of textiles and art history at Mendocino College in Ukiah, California, provides detailed instruction in the many techniques of dyeing and embellishing cloth. Profusely illustrated with vivid process shots and the works of accomplished artists, this spiral-bound book also offers appendices on such matters as preparing fabric dyeing, calculating stock solutions, dye quantities and color mixing, and converting weights, measures and water temperatures, as well as a glossary, bibliography and resource list. TOP
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