Fran Meneley

Some Inspiration

As the first days of 2012 roll by, I thought I'd share a bit of inpsiration that has come my way.

I was really delighted to find a new magazine! As a lifelong magazine-a-holic, and former magazine adveriting director, I am always thrilled to find a new magazine to tuck into. And it is a sad state of affairs these day, at the newsstand. We used to have a really good shop in town that carried dozens of great titles and many, many foreign publications. Inspiration abounded and the gratification was immediate. Now, not so much. It's slim pickings and I think the expense for shops to carry a breadth of national and foreign titles has just gotten beyond the reach of most indie shop owners. So when I saw that there was a new magazine of "style and substance" available, I instantly subscribed.

I'm a paper girl, through and through, so I will eagerly await it's arrival in my post box. If however, you  just can't wait...they have a digital version! Anthology is both a blog and a magazine - how great is that!! The brainchild of two very acoomplished publishing mavens, Anh-Minh Le and Meg Mateo Ilasco (read their bios here) had a vision to create a publication that was a "shelter and lifestyle magazine that takes a narrative approach to its coverage of home decor, travel, design, entertaining, and culture." I think they have succeeded beautifully. Check them out and be inspired.

 

For the design geeks in all of us, watch this trailer for a film I caught on PBS about a week ago.  This documentary delves into the private world that Charles and Ray Eames created in their Renaissance-style, Venice Beach, California studio, where design history was born.Very inspirational and you get to see inside both their design studio and their home! Eames: The Architect and The Painter is available through Netflix here or check your local PBS listings.

If you're like me and like to peek into other people's studios, you'll love Where They Create - a blog and a book! No shiny coffee table tome, this one gets in before the creatives have time to clean up for company. A fun and voyeuristic skip into the spaces of our tribe. Find the blog here and you can order the book from here.

Hope this jump starts some homegrown inspiration in your creative workspaces!!

Studio Listening

 

I mentioned in my recent New York City post that I had a chance to hear Josh Ritter talk about his new book, Bright's Passage and well as hear him sing a few tunes. Here's the interview that I heard at the Barnes & Noble at Untion Sqaure. If you've got an hour to listen while doing something like organizing your sock drawer or getting in some studio time, it's a really lovely view into the mind of an extremely talented and sweet man. Anytime I can listen to an artist talk about what they do, I'm hooked. 

Let Them Eat Their Books...

Following on the heels of our Cake Lab, last Sunday I wandered over to the International Edible Book Show and Tea sponsored by the The Book Arts League of Boulder.

The Eat Your Words press release explains their mission this way - "The International Edible Book Festival began in 1999 as a Thanksgiving Day joke among a group of artists, and it has become an international event in over 23 countries and 18 states nationally, including Boulder. This ephemeral global banquet, also shared on the internet, allows everyone to discover unique bookish nourishments. It is a celebration of the ingestion of culture and a way to concretely share a book; it is also a deeper reflection on our attachment to food."

You can see an album of other participants here and learn more about participating communities here.

Boulder's was held in the lofty upstairs studio space of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art - the tables laid out with both amateur and professional entries.

Dirt Boy, based on the book by the same name, was created with Cocoa Krispies, Tootsie Rolls, Gummi worms, frosting and dark chocolate bars. 

Mr. Malice In Wonderland's political statement was made with white cake, fondant, white chocolate and food coloring. What's hard to see in this photo is how the cake lifts off the "page" in a very deep 3D way.

I really like this simple and whimsical entry - made with chocolate, butter, sugar, vanilla and frosting. Really, what else do you need?

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In the savory category, Fish made a nice aquarium like showing.

And this entry is titled, The Red Sea Scrolls, was made with whole wheat flour, whole wheat tortillas, pasta and red vegetable dye. Maybe not quite as edibley attractive as some of the others, but I liked the concept.

Where The Red Fern Grows made a nice showing with Chinese red fern, artichokes, spinach, mayo, sour cream, cheese and garlic. 

And you guessed it, Green Eggs and Ham - eggs, bacon, spinach, sour cream, cheese, onions, oregano and parsley.

There were two professional entries this year, this one a depiction of the Eric Carle book, The Very Hungry Catepillar, by Indulge Bakery. Yum! I probably read the book to my son about 10,987,998 times.

And this tome is by the new Boulder chocolate shop, Piece, Love and Chocolate. I could sit down with one those charming chocolate tea cups right this minute. Double yum!

 I think this was my favorite entry. A conceptual art homage to the writer Marcel Proust, entitled the Repository of Memory. The artist sat at this little victorian desk and sampled Madeline's (the little cookies on the tiered stand) apparently a favorite of Proust's. She had copied pages of some of the old books you see here onto edible paper (you can do this at a grocery store with a bakery department that does realistic cakes) and you could literally eat the writer's words.

I love this Proust quote she had on the little desk,

"But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."

I know whenever I have a slice of lemon meringue pie, I am instantly transported back to my grandmother's kitchen, now some 40 years ago and she is alive for me again.

 

Several of the Book Arts League artists were there with little presses. I fell in love with Vivian Jean's charming little pie cards. 

Indeed a motto for life if ever I heard one - Eat to Live and Live to Read.

Recommendations

Happy New Year! Looking for some new inspiration? Here are a few things that I have come across that float my boat. These new journals from Strathmore are great. My students are always asking for a recommendation on what journal to bring to class. It's such a personal choice I've been reluctant to recommend any. But this one does the trick. For $7.50 you get a nice big size - 9" X 12" - with 34 pages of 90 lb. mixed-media paper. Alot like the smooth Fabriano Artistico paper I put in my custom journals. Heavy enough to take water media, but smooth for writing and drawing. An excellent choice if you are looking for a new journal. Dick Blick has them and so does Amazon, but be aware that you'll have to pay for shipping. I'm working on getting my local art supply store to carry them for my classes - see if yours will carry them as well -  and save the postage.  

These journals come with several different paper choices. I test drove the one with mixed-media paper, the one with watercolor paper and the one with bristol paper and I liked the mixed media paper the best. It comes in other sizes too in case you are a wee bit intimidated by the 9" X 12" - but I say, go big or stay home. Try something new! Click here to have a look. The colorful graphic "Visual Journal" page peels away to reveal a shiny brown cover that is just waiting for some collage to make it yours. Or keep it spare and bare and leave it all on the page.

I'm really enjoying this new watercolor book. I've been wanting to experiment with something new and this book has great photographs and lots of good instruction, examples and projects. Watercolor has always been a watery mystery to me. I look at those hard, dry little cakes of color and go, huh? The beginning of the book has lots of discussion and photos of the different kinds of watercolor paints you can choose to work with and as well as techniques to get those fabulous watery, saturated color effects.

Not that the world needs another book on visual journaling, but this one is authored by two guys...less scrapbooking, more grit. I dig it. Lots of description and great photography - just a glance through was inspiring. A new perspective is always appreciated. 

 The recent Colorado cold spell, coupled with rehab from December, has had me curled up with my lap top and headphones - I have to say a completely anti-social, but absorbing way to catch a flick. So far this winter I have enjoyed these movies from Netflix Instant Play - The Extra Man, Greenfingers, Partition, Stone of Destiny, Cheri, The Year of Living Dangerously, M Butterfly, La Mission, Soul Kitchen and Sweet Land. For a fabulous, fabulous list of documentaries take a stroll over to LIsa's blog here.

What's new with you? Got any great recommendations? Let me know.

Good Stories, Well Told...

It seems like everywhere I look everybody's suggesting Summer Reading. And while some of the books look good, I can't help but wonder if it's just PR department spin to sell books. Can they really be as good as the dust jacket suggests? So I thought I'd tell you about several stories that have captured my attention and my heart this summer.

The first is a book that I really loved, one that lives up to it's beautiful cover and dust jacket jargon - Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese. Deep and beautifully written, the story swept me along and I was enchanted along the way. Set in India, Africa and the United States, it tells the story of twin brothers who grow up to become surgeons, following in their famous, but absent, father's footsteps. It's about medicine and healing. Family, love and betrayal. The immigrant experience and how geography is destiny, and finding your own country. I highly recommend it. If you are like me and like hearing writers talk about their work, you can hear an excellent interview with the author here.

  The intense image above is from a new photography show in San Francisco by the talented fine art photographer, Jennifer Karaday. The central question she addresses is, how do you photograph memory? Which is an intriguing idea. In her new show at Sf Camera Work, "Soldiers' Stories of Iraq and Afghanistan," she is interested in "staged narrative tableau paintings". As one soldier put it, "This allowed me to tell my story without telling the story." You can see some of the photos and read about the exhibit and Jennifer at the NPR Picture Show Blog. Dreamlike, arresting, beautiful. A chance for war stories to be told and heard in a different way.

Ok, it's not a story, but it’s my favorite art magazine of all time. And it's been my favorite since I got the first issue in 2005, Selvedge always delivers inspiration for the mind and soul.  It’s a British publication, independently published (bless them and keep the ad pounds and dollars rolling in), with the tagline: The Fabric of Your Life: Textiles in Fashion, Fine Art, Interiors, Travel and Shopping. It covers so much more than just textiles, please, please don’t be put off by that. So many of their textile spreads are like fine paintings and drawings. They report on art from all over the world. And I promise that if you splurge on a single issue (a steep $25) or a 6 issue subscription ($115.00) you WILL be inspired and informed and a better artist for the investment. And it is an investment. I keep all my issues safely tucked away and turn to them again and again for reference and inspiration. Save your pennies, buy a copy (I see it at Borders and at Barnes and Noble now - or urge your local library to get it) make a pot of tea and be prepared to be taken away to a place of sublime inspiration. www.selvedge.org. 

Good Books Lately

If you are like me, when the weather begins to turn I start looking for new books to settle in with. It happens to me in the spring too, summer reading begins to whisper to me and I'm itching for some new print and plots and characters to take me away. And so it was last month when I happened upon Eliot Pattison's "The Skull Mantra." It's the first in a series of four mystery novels that feature Han Chinese detective, Shan Tao Yun. Set in the high Himalayas of Tibet, it's as much about a people and a place as it is a mystery thriller. It's a page turner with a historical back story and Tibetan back ground that I found intriguing and informative. I can't wait to pick up the second in the series, "Water Touching Stone". You can find it  here or at your favorite independent bookseller.

 

An Echo In The Bone is patiently waiting for me on my bedside table. I am a HUGE!!!! Diana Gabaldon fan and this is her 7th book in the Outlander series. If you like historical fiction and a story to be swept away in, this is your series. The story of Scottish Highlander Jamie Fraser and time traveling Claire Beauchamp will have you lugging these tomes everywhere you go for weeks. History, characters to fall in love with, adventure, science and science fiction - it's all woven into a fantastic story told by a master storyteller. Really, you should run to the book store to get started on this series. I came to this series late and was able to read the first six back to back. What a luxury! And now the long awaited 7th is here! I'm just rereading "The Breath of Snow and Ashes" (the 6th), so I'm up to speed when I turn the first crisp page of "An Echo In The Bone."

Time Suckage Alert: Time will stop, laundry will pile up, dishes will grow mold- you will want to do nothing but read for weeks. And if you are like me, you will don your sound canceling headphones, click your click wheel over to Yo Yo Ma's Cello Suites, settle in....and you won't hear them calling your name...

 

And this little gem is actually a newly minted magazine, hot off the presses. Afar's tagline is, "Where Travel Can Take You," and it certainly delivers. Independently published, it is "for readers who are curious about everything the planet and it's people have to offer. That's what the magazine delivers: fascinating individuals, intriguing neighboorhoods, cultural discoveries, unusual and local places to stay and eat, and reports on the world's arts, languages, products and music." Ambitious to be sure, but they are off to a great start. I get really tired of the glossy travel magazines who feature long paragraphs about their groovy travel writers and 10 page advertising sections to well worn destinations and feature stories on hotels that cost $500/night. This indie magazine seems to really get it - it's TOC (Table of Contents) is divided into See - Connect - Go - a nice way to approach and think about travel journalism. Although I'm sure they'd like the ad revenue, so far no "advertorials" about the latest spa vacation. Thank god. Instead sink your teeth into "Everybody Into The Bog" a quirky and informative story about the World Bog Snorkeling Championship in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales...who knew? Or journey into Morocco's Berber territory to discover storied artisans working a very old fiber tradition in a modern world. Click here to go to their website, or you can pick up a copy at Barnes and Noble or Borders.

 

I loved this spread out of Afar's maiden issue and put it on my bulletin board. What a great way to see the world. I think I'll be pointing my lense down to where the soles meet the street, the next time I hit the road.

So find a cozy spot and enjoy the shifting fall breezes. And leave me a comment if you've read a good book lately. I'm always on the lookout for a new one.

"Loopy Compilations of Personal Matter"

I am home with a sick little boy today. Poor guy. Fever, sore throat - strep? - Having been up early with my little patient, I've kept him company by leafing through a couple of new books that I thought I'd share. This little gem, Scrapbooks - An American History, is a look at journalers of yesteryear. What I call "visual journaling" is just a modern take on a cultural art form that people have been doing for a very long time. Our need to chronicle and write and draw what our experiences and lives are is somehow written on our collective DNA as human beings. I was here. Whatever I have done, in whatever small a measure, has meaning. It means something, even if only to me. I love to look through other people's journals and scrapbooks. This book allowed me a chance to look at a number of people's memory books and be a voyeur into the past. If you keep a journal or just like to hitchhike through history, I highly recommend taking a peek at this book. Authored by graphic designer and senior critic at Yale University School of Art, Jessica Helfand's, Scrapbooks has a very interesting historical narrative as well as lots of great (and big) photos. If you check in at Amazon, you can watch the author talk about and turn the pages on several journals in a little video here.

Danny Gregory's new book is a gem also. It's the book he said he's always been looking for. More drawing, less ephemera, we still get to peek inside the lives and hearts and minds of some very creative and generous souls. Eye candy with heart, this is one any journaler would love to have in their collection. You can find it at Amazon here.

I think I'll grab my journal, pens and glue stick and check in on my patient.

Frida's Wardrobe

Sorry I've been a little off-line lately....hayfever's getting the best of me and I'm trying to get all my goodies completed for the Studio Tour. However....I did want to take a moment to share this wonderful book with you. Like many of you I'm a Frida fan. Even though she's become such a recognized icon and a tad over-exposed, in my opinion, as an artist and as a woman I still draw inspiration. 

One of the things that I have always been intrigued and inspired by was her bold choice for individual expression - her clothes and jewelry. This wonderful book  does a great job of literally letting us inside her closet. When she died Diego Rivera stipulated that her clothes, dressing room and all personal effects be locked up for a period of 50 years, to be seen by no one. In 2004 the doors of her bedroom at Casa Azul swung open and two very lucky restoration experts, Denise and Magdalena Rosenzwig, were allowed in for the first time. Their vivid descriptions of that first day made me feel like I was in the room with them. What follows are numerous amazing photographs and stories of the restored clothing set against the Casa Azul background. What really intrigued me was the way the editor paired a restored outfit on one page with a photo of Frida wearing the same clothes on the other. 

I think this is a very wonderful addition to any artist's library. It's a fiber lover's treasure trove and look into Frida's private world without being a creeper stalker wanna be. I highly recommend it. 

p.s. If you live in the Bay area (lucky you) there is a really great exhibit at SFMOMA on Frida Kahlo. It has a very interesting on-line feature which has several small video clips of Frida and Deigo at Casa Azul. I loved seeing her in her house - no dis to Salma Hayek who was fabulous in the movie - but it's even better seeing the real Frida. Click on the "Faces of Frida" and then on the video icon "Kahlo at Home" to see the film clip.

A Perfect Red

I picked this book up when I was in San Francisco and just finished it. It is surprisingly a page turner. The history of a color? I have to say I was hooked by the cover. That incredible turban from "Portrait of a Man" by Jan van Eyck. It's gorgeous redness just leaps off the page. The book tells the story of the treasured and legendary red dye known as cochineal, which comes from a small insect that lives on the nopal cactus, primarily in Oaxaca Mexico. Before you nod off thinking this is some "how to" tome about red dye, consider that red was the color of kings, nobility and the papacy. It symbolized and bestowed power and was prized for centuries above all others. Countries fought over it, pirates got involved, spies were hired and died and in search of it and several obsessive souls were literally driven mad by it. It's all told here in an entertaining and lively voice.

Cochineal first appeared on my personal radar screen when I was in Oaxaca last November. I am not a painter, but I use paint and like most artists, I am passionate about color. When we visited both the wonderful weavers of Teotitlan del Valle and the carvers of San Martin Tilcajete, we learned of their passion for natural dyes and the colors they create from them. One of them is cochineal.

Yarns from the weaver we visited at Teotitlan del Valle. Sumptuous colors, all from natural dyes.

A collection of the weaver's natural dyes. There is a little basket of cochineal on the left, the one that looks like purple grains.

The weaver grinding color.

The carver showing us some of his fantastic dye colors.

Gorgeous, gorgeous colors!

When I watch the film, The Girl With The Pearl Earring (if you haven't seen it get thee to a video store. Today.), I always pause it and rewind to the scene where Vermeer is teaching young Grete to mix his colors. The alchemical table that holds his treasured colors is magic to me. Take a look here, if you are interested. O.K. it's kind of a dorky homemade pairing of a great movie with a song out of context, but you get to see the color mixing table.

Just as becoming more conscious of where our food comes from is a good thing, so too our colors. We open the tubes and viscous, lovely color pours out. But where does it come from? Where in nature does is appear? How is it transformed into the paint and dyes and watercolors we all love so much? It's food for thought. And if this post piques your interest at all, add A Perfect Red to your bedside book stack.