Video and Books Nancy Crow Just How I Picture It in My Mind: Contemporary African American Quilts from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Indian Baskets of Central California: Art, Culture, and History By Native Hands:Woven Treasures from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art Baubles, Bangles, and Beads: American Jewelry from Yale University, 1700-2005 Classic Hopi and Zuni Kachina Figures Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table 1500-2005 Cool Tools: Cooking Utensils from the Japanese Kitchen Inspired Design: Japan’s Traditional Arts Human Form in Clay: The Mind’s Eye Vallien Archive
	Nancy Crow by Nancy Crow, 2006, Breckling Press, Elmhurst, IL, 800-951-7836. 312 pages, foreword by Jean Robertson, illustrated. $65. By 1990, the Ohio artist Nancy Crow, a leading figure in the art quilt movement, was known for her graphic, bright-colored quilts that for all their complexity retained the grid of traditional quilt patterns. In a marked turn of direction, she went from “reconfiguring historical patterns to redefining what a quilt pattern can be and how it can be constructed,” writes Jean Robertson, associate professor of art history at Indiana University, in this chronicle of Crow’s work after 1988. “She liberated her surface design and construction processes from template-controlled patterning to an improvisational approach based on free-hand cutting of shapes and unmeasured piecing.” These quilts, many shown in progress pinned to her studio wall, are hand-dyed and machine-pieced by the artist. (The quilting is by Marla Hattabaugh.) The text consists primarily of Crow’s statements about her work, methods and influences and her sketchbook notes. Excerpts from Robertson’s interview with Crow conducted for the Archives of American Art are included. TOP
	Just How I Picture It in My Mind: Contemporary African American Quilts from the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts by Joey Brackner and Mary Elizabeth Johnson Huff, 2006, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama, and River City Publishing, Montgomery, 877-408-7078. 110 pages, essay by Kempf Hogan, foreword by Mark M. Johnson, illustrated. $29.95. This book presents a collection of 50 African American quilts dated from 1945 to 2001, acquired from the Michigan collector Kempf Hogan by the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and exhibited there March 4-September 10. The quilts, which were assembled by Hogan with the guidance of the folk art specialist Robert Cargo, were made by a diverse group of quilters working in Alabama and are categorized as “geometric” or “illustrative.” In her introduction, Joey Brackner, director of the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, calls these quilters “an impressive group of all-stars,” whose designs represent “a broad region” (as opposed to one community) and a range of work. The quilt scholar Elizabeth Johnson Huff emphasizes that the quilts here are individual works of art resisting easy classification. But she also maintains that they “comply” with what scholars have offered as “checkpoints for recognizing an African American quilt: strips, bright colors, large designs, asymmetry, multiple patterns, symbolic forms, and improvisation.” Among the makers are two National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship honorees. TOP
	Indian Baskets of Central California: Art, Culture, and History by Ralph Shanks, edited by Lisa Woo Shanks, 2006, Costaño Books, Novato, CA, with Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin (MAPOM). University of Washington Press, Seattle, 800-441-4115. 176 pages, illustrated. $45. More than just exceptional local art, “California Indian basketry ranks as one of the great art forms in the world. It greets the eye, mind and heart with the same unforgettable beauty as European, Chinese and Japanese paintings or Mayan, Aztec, Greek and Egyptian sculptures or African woodcarvings or the featherwork of Polynesia,” writes the scholar Ralph Shanks in this volume inaugurating the “Indian Baskets of California and Oregon Series,” co-published by MAPOM and Costaño Books. Made by either twining or coiling, baskets were more important than pottery in the daily lives of the cultural groups represented in the book, who inhabited the area from San Francisco Bay and Monterey Bay North to Mendocino and East to the Sierras. Honored elder basket makers of today are pictured at work. Drawing on two decades of research, Shanks has brought basketry studies, cultural anthropology, linguistics, archaeology and plant identification to bear in his descriptions and analyses of nearly 200 baskets from museums and private collections in the United States and Europe. TOP
	By Native Hands:Woven Treasures from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art edited by Jill R. Chancey, 2005, Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, MS. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 800-441-4115. 280 pages, essays by Stephen W. Cook, Betty J. Duggan, Dawn Glinsmann, William Ashley Harris, Joyce Herold, foreword by Chief Phillip Martin, illustrated. $60. The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art houses an exceptional collection of Native American baskets representing tribal traditions from across the country. The core of the collection, nearly 500 baskets, was donated in 1923 by Catherine Marshall Gardiner, a distinguished citizen of Laurel who began collecting them at the turn of the 20th century. Other baskets, subsequently acquired, round out the collection. This book documenting the collection begins with a biographical portrait of Gardiner. The baskets, grouped by geography, are discussed as both a reflection of the cultural history of the tribe of origin and as an expression of the individual weaver’s artistry. Maps and archival images complement the fine photographs. An extensive bibliography is provided by each author. TOP
	Baubles, Bangles, and Beads: American Jewelry from Yale University, 1700-2005 by Erin E. Eisenbarth, 2005, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, 203-432-7421. 24 pages, 16-page checklist, illustrated. $12.50 paperback. The role of jewelry as personal adornment, a physical symbol of its wearer’s taste, social status and sentiments, is emphasized in this catalog documenting an exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery (February 7-July 23). The 100 works in the show highlighted the university’s extensive jewelry collection. Among the 20th-century pieces illustrated are examples by Alexander Calder, Mary Ann Scherr and Elsa Freund. TOP
	Classic Hopi and Zuni Kachina Figures by Andrea Portago, 2006, Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, 505-476-1155. 188 pages, essay by Barton Wright, photographs by Andrea Portago. $55. Dramatic photographs are the raison d’etre for this presentation of 85 rare, classic-era (1880s-1940s) Hopi and Zuni carved kachina dolls from private and public collections.Suggesting the qualities she tried to convey in her photographs, Andrea Portago writes, “The old-style carvers imparted not only beauty to their handiwork, but also through their artistry spoke of their culture and illustrated a sense of the inherent pride, dignity, humor, and distinct individual character of each kachina.” Portago has included 30 black-and-white landscape photos to give context to the figures. The essay by Baron Wright, an authority on Pueblo culture, illuminates its cosmology and the role of the kachina figures in representing the forces of nature and supernatural beings. TOP
	Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table 1500-2005 2006, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York, NY. Assouline Publishing, New York, NY, 212-989-6810. 288 pages, essays by Sarah D. Coffin, Ellen Lupton, Darra Goldstein, Barbara Bloemink, Suzanne von Drachenfels, Philippa Glanville, Jennifer Goldsborough, Carolin C. Young, illustrated. $65. The companion to an exhibition at Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (May 5 – October 29), this lavish book explores the evolution, physical forms and social meanings of eating utensils from the Renaissance to the present. It celebrates the museum’s collection of flatware and cutlery, comprising more than 1,550 examples, with a concentration on 18th- and 19th-century European works and international modern design. Providing a historical survey and analysis, the scholarly essays touch on manufacturing and marketing in Europe, the sexual politics of cutlery, the design of table tools and the effect of form on etiquette and table setting, among other topics. “Modern Flatware and the Design of Lifestyle,” by Ellen Lupton, one of three co-curators, extends from masters of the past century to contemporary makers, and also discusses plastic utensils for picnic and prison use, airline cutlery and ergonomic forms. Of the objects in the book, Lupton concludes, “We have seen works of exceptional beauty, outrageous excess, and ingenious functionality. We have seen objects that are extensions of the human body and complements to the organic world, as well as objects whose severe geometry sets them apart from nature and tradition.” The exhibition tours to COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts, Napa, California, (January 26-April 30, 2007). TOP
	Cool Tools: Cooking Utensils from the Japanese Kitchen by Kate Klippensteen, 2006, Kodansha International/Kodansha America, New York, NY, 917-322-6200. 112 pages, photographs by Yasuo Konishi. $28. That Japanese food and tabletop objects can please the eye as well as the palate is no surprise. A similar elegant simplicity applies to Japanese cooking utensils, as this book proves. The deba-bocho, a sturdy, wood-handled knife for filleting fish, the suribachi (mortar) and pepper wood kogi (pestle) for grinding seeds or beans, the tin-coated copper oroshigane (grater) are among the practical, well-designed kitchen tools beautifully photographed by Yasuo Konishi. In addition to detailing their use, the text by Kate Klippensteen, a cultural writer living in Japan, has much to teach about Japanese food. TOP
	Inspired Design: Japan’s Traditional Arts by Michael Dunn, 2005, 5 Continents Editions, Milan, Italy. Antique Collectors’ Club, Easthampton, MA, 800-252-5231. 316 pages, illustrated. $85. In this exploration of the Japanese traditional arts, Michael Dunn, a British writer long settled in Japan, attributes its uniqueness to the natural beauty of the land, with its seasonal changes, and the influence of Zen Buddhism. The deep affinity for nature, he writes, “is reflected in many Japanese arts, where the glaze of a pot seems to resemble the surface of a wet stone, or the decorative design on a kimono draws inspiration from a cluster of autumn grasses.” He points out that “Zen came to have a widespread effect on Japanese culture . . . and particularly in the tea ceremony known as cha-no-yu.” The objects shown—all functional—from private collections and Japanese museums, are organized according to materials—fauna (imported ivory, turtle shell, deer horn, stag antler, leather and silk), flora (wood, bamboo, lacquer, plant fibers), and mineral (clay and metal). For the Japanese, Dunn notes, “the beauty of an object lies in not just what can be seen, but also what is suggested—a nexus to other senses, other emotions, other layers of meaning that so intensify the aesthetic experience.” TOP
	Human Form in Clay: The Mind’s Eye 2006, Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Japan, fax, 81-3-5930-3311, e-mail, maya@hus-10.com.. 128 pages, text in English and Japanese by Kiriko Nishida, Makiko Sakamoto and Hiroki Miura, illustrated. $20 paperback. This catalog accompanied a touring exhibition in Japan of 26 leading ceramic artists from the United States, Europe and Asia whose province is the human figure. Generally, the work shown by the American participants—Robert Arneson, Peter VandenBerge, Robert Brady, Richard Shaw, Tony Natsoulas, Viola Frey, Patti Warashina, Mark Burns and Akio Takamori—is notable for references to popular culture and for the fusion of painting and sculpture. Opened at the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park (March 18-June 25), the show is at the Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo (November 3, 2006-January 8, 2007). TOP
	Vallien by Gunnar Lindqvist, 2006, Carlsson Bokforlag, Stockholm, Sweden, 46-8-657-95-00, e-mail, order@forlagssystem.se. 272 pages, in English and Swedish, translation by Angela Adegren, preface by Hans Henrik Brummer, illustrated. $85.05. Since the 1980s the Swedish artist Bertil Vallien has been recognized internationally for sand-cast glass sculptures that often evoke mysterious metaphorical journeys. In Sweden he is a prominent figure in the glass industry, associated since 1963 with the Afors factory, where he has combined the roles of designer and artist. In this fifth edition of a monograph on the artist, coinciding with a retrospective at Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde in Stockholm, Gunnar Lindqvist covers all aspects of Vallien’s oeuvre and career. One learns about his beginnings in ceramics, his sojourn in the United States and Mexico (1961-1963) and his encounters with Peter Voulkos and other American ceramists in California. Lindqvist surveys Vallien’s work for Afors, his teaching career, his development of the sand-casting technique and the evolution of his sculpture to the present. Abundant images complete the portrait. TOP
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