Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

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magician_2_1

The Magician
an epic graphic novel by Chris Byrne
April 26 — May 17, 2014
reception on Thursday, May 1 from 7 to 9 pm
talk by publisher Ed Marquand at 7:30 pm

Please join us to celebrate the Dallas debut of Dallas Art Fair co-founder Chris Byrne’s The Magician (Marquand Books) on Thursday, May 1 from 7 to 9 pm at The Reading Room, 3715 Parry Avenue, Dallas.

The Magician is an epic graphic novel, a bookmaking tour de force, a mesmerizing art object, and the completion of over a decade-long obsession of Byrne. This enigmatic box of wonders houses a dozen separate publications, printed and hand bound using a variety of techniques.

The publisher Ed Marquand will talk about the making of the book at 7:30 pm. His interest in engaging new technologies and materials to push the limitations of book arts allowed this project to happen. The Magician is an edition of 20 with five artist’s proofs, designed by Chris Byrne and Scott Newton and produced by Paper Hammer Studios in Tieton, Washington.

Landscape & Gardening

Spring Color Combinations

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The Japanese Maple’s leaves have an interesting bluish undertone that complements the Chocolate Chip Ajuga’s blooms. To see these colors better, click on the photo for a much larger version.
The Japanese Maple’s leaves have an interesting bluish undertone that complements the Chocolate Chip Ajuga’s blooms. To see these colors better, click on the photo for a much larger version.

I get a kick out of looking at my Japanese Maple when the sunlight is at a level where the light passes through the leaves. At that moment their red is fiery, but when the leaves move into shadow a blue tone cools the color. The Chocolate Chip Ajuga’s purple blooms are the perfect foil to the maple’s quieter tones. After two years of seasonal setbacks, I am hoping the Ajuga will recover and spread. The latest reversal is the result of several long weeks this winter in which the foliage was smothered in a frozen snow mixture for extended periods of time that burned back the evergreen leaves. And now there’s a new layer of compost and mulch covering the foliage that did survive. Hopefully the blooms are a hint that the green creepers will soon follow, and the plants will be at least the same size if not larger than last year. But I won’t be holding my breath.

Landscape & Gardening

Dog Windows

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Since the neighbor’s dogs weren’t outside, I had to entice my dogs into posing with scattered treats at the base of the fence. Only Bertha showed me a profile, while the twins were inhaling mulch.
Since the neighbor’s dogs weren’t outside, I had to entice my dogs into posing with scattered treats at the base of the fence. Only Bertha showed me a profile, while the twins were inhaling mulch.

Something had to be done to stop the noise and destruction. While Brewster was working out his jaws on my custom interior and exterior painted woodwork, Beulah was busy ripping out the neighbor’s fence hoping for some face to face social exchange with the two dogs next door. Every time I or my neighbor blocked up a hole, Beulah would start afresh somewhere else along the fence. In the above photo you might notice the chewed up wood. After four large holes, many starter holes, and an entire length of fencing covered with jaw marks, I turned to my contractor Bert Watford to help me implement a plan for repairing the fence, creating three windows, and covering the lower third of the entire length with hardware cloth. The hardware cloth and windows were my idea, but I needed help working out the details. Thanks to Bert, in one long day the entire job was done. Now the dogs can see each other, and the noisy violence has subsided.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

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Nicholas G Miller, 'FilmSoundMacro,' 2013
Nicholas G Miller, ‘FilmSoundMacro,’ 2013

Common Sense
Nicolas G Miller
March 15 — April 13, 2014
opening reception 3/15 from 6 to 9 pm

The Reading Room will present Common Sense by Nicolas G Miller (Marfa,Texas) March 15 through April 13. Common Sense is an installation involving sound and sculpture that deals with ideas of communal, aesthetic experience and its relationship to moral judgment. The “soundtrack” for the exhibition is derived from Low Frequency Effects tracks of Stephen Spielberg films. LFE tracks manifest as low rumblings that give a bodily sensation and are used to “fill in” the sounds of thunder, explostions, crashes, etc.

Miller lives and works in Marfa, Texas. He received a BS in math and physics from the University of North Texas and studied music and art at CalArts. In 2013 he received a Dallas Museum of Art Kimbrough award. Miller is known for his musical compositions, including the opera APOTENTIALLYGOODEXPERIENCE, and his artist’s editions project Recondite Industries. His work has been shown at Marfa Book Company and The Locker Plant; and he was an artist-in-residence at Colpa Press where he produced a limited edition publication.

Landscape & Gardening

Pink Buds of Hope

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The sun may be out, but so was the wind, making focusing impossible.
The sun may be out, but so was the wind, making focusing impossible.

The Flowering Quince shrubs (Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Toyo-Nishiki’) are the first to show obvious signs of spring. For almost ten years, these two had been in a dark back corner of my front garden where the expanding tree canopies had completely blocked out the sun. Since their transplantation during my front garden’s makeover two years ago, they have recovered and are currently thriving in their new spot next to the sidewalk. Now anyone passing can easily see and enjoy these two showoffs.

Film: Design & Architecture

Auntie Mame (1958)

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Glamorous hints of what’s to come.

“Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” As one of the most, if not the only, influential design films ever created, Auntie Mame is long overdue for a spot on this blog. In a Wall Street Journal story a few years ago, Jonathan Adler was quoted as saying “Watching Auntie Mame is a right of passage for every aspiring interior decorator.” It’s a bona fide cult classic among us design aficionados.

Art director Malcolm Bert and set decorator George James Hopkins created six types of décor—Chinese, Twenties Modern, Postmodern Neoclassical, English, Danish Modern, and East Indian—to parallel the plot’s story lines. And every one of them is a feast for the eyes. Out of a total of 291 captured stills, I chose 115 to showcase here. To see them all, click on the link below. Once there, you have the option to click on any image and start a manual slideshow of the large scale versions of all 115 stills.

Contemporary Art

At The Reading Room

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Jessica Iannuzzi Garcia, 'Kookaburras sit in the old gum tree,' 2014
Jessica Iannuzzi Garcia, ‘Kookaburras sit in the old gum tree,’ 2014

never to be yourself and yet always — that is the problem
a project by (wo)manorial
February 8 — March 1

The Reading Room will host an exhibition presented by the collective (wo)manorial from February 8 through March 1, with an opening reception on Saturday, February 8 from 6 to 9 pm. The title never to be yourself and yet always — that is the problem is taken from Virginia Woolf’s The Modern Essay. The group exhibition addresses those endless doubts and beliefs, searches and frustrations, manipulations and attempts to be honest with art and with ourselves, questioning the freedom that gives pleasure but also uncertainty.

(wo)manorial, founded by Jessica Iannuzzi Garcia and Haley Kattner Allen, is an online platform that addresses issues of contemporary femininity. Since its inception, the collective has produced six exhibitions and featured the work of over 75 artists. Garcia and Allen are joined by guest curators Lilia Kudelia of The Dallas Contemporary and independent curator Daria Prydybailo as well as LauraLee Brott, Courtney Brown, Rebecca Carter, Gabriela Ochoa, Alison Starr, Tori Whitehead.

from their facebook page: “As a collective of artists, creatives, and thinkers who contemplate the ever-changing concept of the feminine, we identify with being human before any political group. As (wo)manorialists, of course we are feminist, but identify with that after our femininity. (wo)manorial provides a global space with which to create, communicate, and document an ever-shifting notion of femininity. Our work shares our experience.”

Film: Design & Architecture

God’s Gift to Women (1931)

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This glamorous group includes identical twins Eleanor and Karla Gutchrlein who were a dance act known as the Sisters G. Their dance number in the nightclub sequence was cut from the film. In fact all of the musical and dance numbers were cut from the American film version.
This glamorous group includes identical twins Eleanor and Karla Gutchrlein who were a dance act known as the Sisters G. Their dance number in the nightclub sequence was cut from the film. In fact all of the musical and dance numbers were cut from the American film version.

Another film where the bachelor pad plays a leading role. Directed by the legendary Michael Curtiz of Casablanca fame and starring Vaudville and stage star Frank Fay, this film is a Pre-Code bedroom farce set in Paris. Among the glamorous flappers in the film are the vivacious kewpie doll Joan Blondell, the femme fatale Louise Brooks, and the less-than-glamorous Laura LaPlante who plays the lead’s true love which is a real head scratcher for me. To see all 43 captured stills showcasing sets and costumes, click the link below.

Interior Design

A Clean Start

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Perhaps I overstyled this shot. It’s the soap I want you to focus on.
Perhaps I overstyled this shot. It’s the soap I want you to focus on.

A clean start can begin with soap, an especial soap made by the Texas Nuns of the Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel in San Antonio. I’ve been looking for an all-natural soap for my guest bathroom for the last couple of months. Most of the current natural soaps on the market were just too dang big for my vintage bathroom. I don’t care if they’ve been tripled milled and have crushed unicorn dust. If they don’t fit the original built-in ceramic soap holders, they’re useless to me. And what if a guest were to accidentally drop this massive soapy brick on his or her toes? I would have to make a 911 call and worry about a future law suit. Nope to big soap.

About every two weeks I check in with Communication Arts to see their latest web design picks. One of these picks took me to a super cool site for a design agency called STITCH. It’s funny how poking around on designer websites can lead to cool products, and that’s how I discovered the nuns’ soap Nonnavita. STITCH had recently updated their logo and packaging, which you can read about in their blog post.

Here’s how the nuns describe their product on facebook: Introducing Nonnavita! It’s super. It’s natural. It’s just darn good soap. What does Nonnavita mean? It’s a word we put together, from two Latin words: nonna, meaning nun, and vita, meaning life: A Nun’s Life. Our life. And that’s what you’ll support when you order a bar or two, (or maybe even five) of this great soap. Your $7 donation gets you one 4 oz bar of all natural soap made with certified organic ingredients. It cleans. It smells fantastic. It moisturizes – even here in San Antonio, where the water is hard as nails. Nonnavita. It’s super. It’s natural. It’s just darn good soap!

Just Because

Merry Christmas!

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This bowl of jolly lights up with the sun’s longest reach at four in the afternoon. Perhaps at that time, it’s evening for most of you, and Christmas Eve has quietly begun.
This bowl of jolly lights up with the sun’s longest reach at four in the afternoon. Perhaps at that time, it’s evening for most of you, and Christmas Eve has quietly begun.