The Art of …

The Art of Book Design is changing. I’ve become bored with just books, and there are lots of other things I’d like to explore and share with you. So, I’ve decided to turn the basic concept into a daily surprise. The title is being shortened to simply The Art of …, and I’ll post a daily something art-related. If you want to know what that something is, then you’ll have to tune us in. There will still be books, but also posters, fine art, folk art, sculpture, architecture, museums, and anything else that piques my interest. I’m starting the series with an Indigenous artist whose work I enjoy.

So today it’s The Art of… Tony Abeyta

Stormy River Bend by Tony Abeyta. Image courtesy of tonyabeyta.com

 

 

Card Weaving

kestrel is graciously sharing her woven artwork with us, and she’s taken the time to teach us about how this type of weaving is done. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s fascinating.

 

Card weaving (or tablet weaving as it’s also called) is a very ancient craft going back quite a ways. A very wonderful find was the Oseberg ship with two women buried in it. Among the many textiles found, there was also a loom with the warp still attached to the weaving cards. However historians believe card weaving is much older than this 9th century find. Card weaving was a technique people used to create very strong and sturdy as well as ornamental bands. Some of the very ornamental bands seen in religious textiles were created this way. 

 

Although I used to weave quite a lot, for whatever reason, I had never tried card weaving. I’d had to give up weaving (there was no room for my very large loom and I had to sell it) but recently I decided I wanted to weave again. My big loom was gone, but you don’t need much to do card weaving. 

©kestrel, all rights reserved

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Fly me to the Moon

And let me play among the stars. (Bart Howard, 1954) The moon fascinates all of us and Avalus is no exception. He’s taken some wonderful moon shots and is sharing them with us.

With these it is hard to not simply say: Look what my toy can do!

Because I kinda just pointed my camera at the moon and, very unexpectedly, got beautiful shots. The advance of photo-technology is pretty amazing, as I remember trying the same thing about a decade ago with my dad’s professional camera and failing to get any more than a washed out disk of light. And nothing for daylight-moon. These were taken by hand or the camera rested on my balcony railing.

 Now I need go and play some more Kerbal Space Program.

To the Mün!

©Avalus, all rights reserved

©Avalus, all rights reserved

©Avalus, all rights reserved

©Avalus, all rights reserved

Hello, Hairy

Kestrel has had another close-up encounter of the bird kind, and this guy cracks me up.

 

So there I was, minding my own business, when I heard this odd noise, a sort of squeak or chirp. I looked at the window and what did I see:

©kestrel, all rights reserved

Something looking back at me! 

©kestrel, all rights reserved

He was pretty interested in what I was doing. Maybe he wants to learn how to weave! 

©kestrel, all rights reserved

Or maybe he was just hunting for bugs. This is a Hairy Woodpecker and they are fairly common here. There is another type called a Downy Woodpecker that is virtually identical but much smaller than this guy. He could not see me through the window; he never would have tolerated me holding my phone up to him to take his picture if he had seen me. 

The Art of Book Design: The Last Leaf

Oliver Wendall Holmes. Illustrated by George Wharton Edwards and F. Hopkinson Smith. The Last Leaf. Cambridge, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1895.

This book contains a single poem – Holmes’ The Last Leaf’.  This edition also includes a series of moody sketches that add to the sentimentality and poignancy. It’s a lovely old book. If you’re interested, I’ve included a few illustrations below the fold.

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