Back at it

After a long hiatus, the Library Update blog is back!

On the road

The art librarians' conference in Toronto was great on a lot of levels - great city, people, sessions, and tours. Faves: Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art with a spectacular permanent collection and a brilliant special exhibition of the work of Greg Payce; Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art; The Royal Ontario Museum textile collection; and behind the scenes at the National Ballet of Canada ! To the left is a set design maquette from the ballet company's archives.

New stuff!

- The History of Beads: From 100,000 B.C to the Present by Lois Durbin - called "a feast for the eye" by The New York Times and "an absorbing work of scholarship by Newsweek, this unexpected gift from Peter Scotese is a stunning reference and just in time for And the Bead Goes On!

- And speaking of Mr. Scotese, many thanks to him for his incredible gift this year of over 80 titles on photography and fashion, including several privately-bound, personally inscribed, leather editions of exhibition catalogs from John Szarkowski, Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art from 1962-1991. Fabulous additions to the library's special collections!

- A gorgeous 4-volume set on modern Chinese painting courtesy of Michael Gallis - on display now in the library.

- Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary Ceramics: the Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio Collection from MFA, Houston - see it and drool. But not on the book please! And a shout-out to Rebecca who worked on the book before she came here!

- Don't forget to check the New Books listing in MARCO to see what's new.

Big thanks!

A huge thank-you to Leah, William and Kurt for wrassling the giant NEH-funded special collections cabinet into the Delhom-Gambrell Library! It was a bear but it means that oversized rare books can now be stored properly and securely. Bravo! and many many thanks.

By the numbers so far in FY12

620 titles cataloged

476 items circulated

332 books received as gifts or exchange

120 books purchased

1500 dollars donated for the purchase of library books

1000 dollars awarded for travel to library conference

102 artist files received from North Carolina Arts Council

59 print magazine subscriptions managed

204 external reference questions answered

118 outside visitors to the library

18,900 pageviews of the Mint Wiki from around the world

More next time!

and a little Toronto street art to close . . .

It's Back

After a long hiatus, the library update is back!

New titles:

Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty

More Bearden

The Cult of Beauty - an exhibition on the Aesthetic Movement from the V&A

Good stuff:
Wiki to share design, food and ideas to help living in diaster areas https://sites.google.com/site/oliveinenglish/

The Art Attack Podcasts: http://theartattack.wordpress.com/

Join the Sarahs as they "help visitors build museum viewing skills."

Road trip to NYC
Visits to a donor on the Upper East Side, to an artist in Brooklyn, and to a library on Central Park West- love the contrast!

Above left: Apartment near the United Nations

Above right: Near Varick and Johnson
Left:Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture

Cold outside

and feeling warm and fuzzy inside . . . (it's a nesting thing)
Big news! Just got word that the library's latest NEH grant application has been approved. Yippee! The grant award will be used to purchase a large (and I do mean large), locking, glass-front storage cabinet for special collections. Thank you NEH!

Favorite reference question of the week: Local author called to find out what exhibitions the museum had in 1990. Her novel-in-progress covers that period in Charlotte and she wanted to be accurate. You never know what folks are going to ask about.

Congratulations to Michael Sherill for being named a 2010 USA Windgate Fellow. Every year, 50 artists across a range of disciplines are selected to receive $50,000 unrestricted funds to further their work and career. Well deserved!

Wiki interactive: British ceramist Bethan Lloyd Worthington updated her Mint wiki page! Bethan's work is featured in Contemporary British Studio Ceramics: The Grainer Collection and she is, naturally, featured on the exhibition's wiki page. Bethan provided links to her own web page and the site for her studio group. Thank you Bethan!

New titles in the house!
- Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture - yes, the companion volume to the exhibition of the same name at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Brilliant. Truly.
- Sally Mann: the Flesh and the Spirit - from the exhibition now on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
- The Art of Dining: a History of Cooking and Eating - From Elizabethan tableware to Edwardian service á la russe
- New Deal Art in North Carolina: the Murals, Sculptures, Reliefs, Paintings, Oils and Frescoes and Their Creators - the only record of all of the North Carolina art created under the public art program
- The Global Africa Project - MAD's exhibition that "displays the . . . nature of being African, or African-descended, in the context of contemporary arts and design."

- Romare Bearden: In the Modernist Tradition - a collection of essays from the Bearden Foundation

- Society Matrons, Working Girls, Fair Maidens, and New Women: Frances Benjamin Johnston and the Construction of Gender - Doctoral dissertation by . . . hmmmm . . . oh, just take stab at it.

If you happen to be at MMR, any day of the week, stop into the library and say hello to one of the new interns. They will be working hard this semester. Megan, Catherine and Sarah, welcome! and thank you!

Other NGS (new good stuff)

- Blog: Green Thing - check out the stuff made from left-over corrugated cardboard

- Makes me want an iPad more than ever (aka the future of publishing): http://ipaddracula.com/

- the "yes, this kind of thing really does happen, and how cool is that?" stuff (btw the stuff is brilliant)- http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/

- Continuing Education stuff: http://www.vcu.edu/arts/craft/dept/

- And just because there is a new episode (Yes!)and it is the dark of winter: Here they are, Strindberg and Helium! (It actually is better if you start with the first one and work your way through) http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/index.html

Goal for FY12: Let's get the Wikipedia entry for Romare Bearden squared away with up-to-date, correct infromation. More people than we like to think about use Wikipedia as a primary resource for information, so let's give it to them and make it right.

Recommended reading: A collection of short articles in Dwell "An Introduction to Art Collecting." An abbreviated version of the articles can be read online; or read the full version in the library!

And more good news: The folks at FAMSI are willing to host the digital versions of the Michael Kampen drawings the sculptures of El Tajin that were donated to the library several years ago. More to come on this exciting project!

Happy Friday

Hot time . . .

MMCD Library is moved!

On Monday, August 9, the library at MMCD was moved into the Delhom-Gambrell Library at Mint Museum Randolph. Many thanks to the folks at Charlotte Public Library for the shelving swap and for assembling shelving in the D-G Library; to the great crew from Armstrong Relocations who were careful and considerate maneuvering large metal pieces and unwieldy book carts through MMR and who successfully moved everything in one day; to volunteers Kelley Grogan and Martha McPhail who cleaned all the new shelving once it was in place in the D-G Library; (and another thanks to Martha who came back the next day to shelf-read and arrange); and last but not least, thank you to Brian Gallagher and Martha Mayberry for preping the galleries in the right of way and helping keep watch as all the stuff went through the building. Woo-hoo!

From the (online) newstand:

Let's Have a Discussion: Sustainability in the Ceramics Studio : From Ceramics Arts Daily, a timely article about how glaze waste, rinse water, etc - the by-products of the ceramic studio - can be handled in environmentally-sound ways.

The Internet: Everything You Need to Know : A lengthy, spot-on article about the internet from The Guardian (UK) and our dependence upon it combined with our general lack of knowledge about how it operates and where it is going. We use it every day constantly, so really, what is it? A GREAT read.

New titles!
- Why Design Now? National Design Triennial from Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum - THE coolest stuff on the planet - everything from radios to architecture, from lamps to water purifiers, from bicycles to textiles, and from typefaces to tableware - with an emphasis on sustainability and "design for good." Presented by the Friends of the Mint in honor of outgoing president Helen Katz. Thank you Friends!

- Grayson Perry by Jacky Klein - a great big monograph on the ceramic artist who accepted the prestigious Turner Prize wearing "a lilac babydoll dress and red pumps." Don't let the cute outfits fool you - his work can be hard-hitting social commentary; witty and profound. His work is represented in the upcoming Contemporary British Studio Ceramics show.

- Tanguy, Calder: Between Surrealism and Abstraction - stunning exhibition catalog - fascinating exhibition and beautifully designed publication. Check it out (if you can pry it out of Jon's hands).

- The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art - documents a "significant cross section" of an impressive collection of over two hundred works created from 1848 to 1997.

Asian Library Visit

What an amazing place! Over 130,000 Asian language publications - the largest in the country (YES - the country!) and its right across the street from Trader Joe's! And its founder, Dr. Ki-Hyun Chun, is remarkable. This was his dream, funded himself, as a tribute to his father and to fill a real need. He told us that when he realized that most Asians coming to this country could not bring books with them, ("How terrible! To have no books!") he decided to create the library. Dr. Chun and his wife and the staff of his business (housed in the same building) could not have been more gracious. Our donation of books was just one part of the experience. It was a present to us as well.

Now a little something for you cubeworlders uptown! (best DJ voice when reading)

Some of you have already taken advantage of online radio - direct ear bud to computer link-up - such as Pandora and LastFm where you can create your own "radio" station of artists and/or styles. Now you can listen based on your mood! Check out StereoMood! It provides music based on how you are feeling or on your activities. Personal fave so far: It's raining .

And for all of us: check out Songza! and give a listen to WMMU - the tunes that will take us to the next level station :o) Then, join for free and add songs to the mix, vote others up or down, but most of all, have fun!

And there's more . . .

Great gift
Many thanks to Elizabeth Apple for her promised gift to the library of the 1983 limited edition book Hiroshima (885/1500)with silkscreens by Jacob Lawrence; signed by Lawrence, John Hersey and Robert Penn Warren. Brilliant. Just one of the silkscreen images is to the left. Select the image for a larger view.

Great news!
designinform.co.uk and MintWiki: The folks at designinform - a UK based subscription database of information on design and crafts - got in touch about using our wiki (yep, good ole MintWiki) as a source of information. SWEET! We will likely be included in this link: The Research Guides as they are free resources of information. Isn't that fantastic? Also, the Research Guides themselves are wonderful. Suggestion: Add it to your favorites!

New titles!
- Albert Paley: In the 21st Century - an oversized catalogue for monumental sculpture! Created to accompany the exhibition running this year at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester.
- Also from the Memorial Art Gallery: Breaking Ground: a Century of Craft Art in Western New York featuring Paley along with Wendell Castle, Wayne Higby and Michael Taylor among others.
- Thorough and well-illustrated - Textile Conservation: Advances in Practice by Frances Lennard and Patricia Ewer.
- From the exhibition of the same name at the Hermitage Rooms at Somerset House, London, The Triumph of Eros: Art and Seduction in 18th-century France. (Ooh la la!) Many thanks to Peter and Mary White and Helen Espir for this lovely gift!
- And thank you to the Friends for three excellent titles in honor of Annie Carlano: Glenn Adamson's The Craft Reader, Contemporary Ceramics by Emmanuel Cooper, and Contemporary Design: 1900 to Today by Catherine McDermott. Fabulous!


On the road!
Thanks to book sale money, a set of rare books from the Delhom Library is now at the conservator for restoration and custom boxes! DuHalde's 4 volume The History of China (1736) contains the first explanation of the porcelain-making process to a European audience. Pretty special!!

What goes around . . .
The following link was sent to us by a student who enjoyed the Mint Wiki page on Platform Shoes and it's an excellent collection of online resources. Check out The History and Fashion of Shoes

Companion pieces
1) Exhibition at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art - NASA Art : 50 years of Exploration
2) From NASA, a video explaining one of the mysteries of space that underscores the importance of good design EVERYWHERE!

Still absolutely remarkable after all these years
The Running Fence (1976) - Documentation of the entire project is on display for the first time - Smithsonian American Art Museum - now through September 26. Watch Christo discuss the project.

Good stuff
Art History Newsletter Blog

On the Newstand
Anne Lemanski's Fennec Fox (Dog Star) on the cover of Fiberarts summer issue! A great feature article is in the magazine, which is going to MMCD for a bit and there is more online. (You may remember her work from our Possibilities exhibition)

Online, see the latest issue of ArtSyNC - the free online guide to arts in NC!

Food for thought
Watch "Towards a New Mainstream?" - the lecture by Gregory Rodriguez on "demographic change in the Americas, cultural transformation, and the future of museums." You can also view the webcast and download the discussion guide & resource list.

Treasures from the stacks!
How about this for different? They look like bookmarks - long flat silk ribbons with designs and German text. Thanks to Brian, Terry Prince did the translation and solved the riddle.
They are World War I Commemorative Ribbons, called "vivat-bänder," issued to commemorate significant events of the war and to raise money - in one case, for the Red Cross. In March of last year, the Lilly Library at Indiana University had an exhibition of these! To see them and the information about them, come to the library! Thank you Terry!

Video pick
We know that art can change people - here's how ceramics changed an entire town and how one person with an idea and effort made it happen. Watch this clip from The Mata Ortiza Pottery Phenomenon courtesy of Ceramic Arts Daily.

May May Cray Cray

Grant deadline, moving schedule, weeding, uptown resource centers, wiki updates, summer intern prep, lions and tigers and bears - oh my!

Online newstand
- Latest issue of the Research and Scholar's Center Newsletter from the Smithsonian American Art Museum!
- American Craft features among lots of other things, an article on Michael Sherril and an Arline Fisch exhibition review!
- CharlotteViewpoint article on Richard Saul Wurman - who I posted about last time and who Leslie and I heard speak at the Aunt Stella Center last month. See why he is actually interesting.

Around town dept. Super! The Fine Art of Comics a new exhibition at Twenty-Two that opened on May 1 is an exhibition of Shelton Drum's collection of comic art. Shelton is the owner of the store Heroes Aren't Hard to Find and the founder of HeroesCon. And of course, former library assistant Shawn Reynolds is the manager of Heroes! Can't wait to check it out!

New titles dept.
- The Participatory Museum by Nina Simon - Answers the question: How can your institution encourage and develop visitor participation and do it well? Thank you Cheryl for donating this timely book.
- Imagination First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility by Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon - a nice companion (although accidental) piece about creative problem-solving and innovation, and the cultivation of imagination that enables the first two to happen! Brilliant! (Thanks Joel for the request!)
- Inventing Marcel Duchamp: the Dynamics of Portraiture from the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. With fore-edge decoration - something you don't run into too often. (No, I'm not going to tell you - look it up!)*
- Claude Raguet Hirst: Transforming the American Still Life by Martha M. Evans - Acclaimed for her mastery of trompe l-oeil, this is the catalog of her first retrospective exhibition. The image at the top of this post is her Book of Letters (1897).

Worth a watch!
Top notch person as well as an incredibly gifted potter - From the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke, Mark Hewitt - Falling into Place Great combination of interviews, action and visuals - like the installation accompanied by music - even though the audio is uneven.

Glad it's there but hope don't have to use dept.
http://www.workinthearts.net/

Cool local news that got little attention dept.
Local students take the top prize! CPCC students won the grand prize in game design in Microsoft's U.S. Imagine Cup Competition beating out Yale, Tufts and the University of California among others for top honors. The competition is for the design of video games which provide solutions to real-world problems. CPCC's winning entry is called "Sixth," a reference to the fact that a sixth of the world's population lives in poverty. The game "involves a series of quest challenges related to ending poverty around the world, including simulating a poor child in India who has to overcome challenges to bring water back to his family." Film director James Cameron who was one of the judges (yes, that film director) said the game "triggers a compassionate response and a call for action." Here's more! And best of all, this is the second year in a row that they have won! How cool is that.

Favorite new product dept.
Check out OrangePiel.com where you can upload your favorite photo (summer vacation?) or image (Mae or Helena's latest masterpiece?) or select from their library of graphic images and create custom window treatments or wallpaper. How fun is this!

And last but not least
Treasures from the stacks!
In honor of our visit to the North Carolina Dance Theater's new facility, here are two spreads from a souvenir program dated 1913 for Serge Diaghilev's Ballet Russe! (In the special collections of the library of course)















*Ok, well here's a video but the Duchamp book is not that elaborate! (Isn't this cool though?)

Springing into the future

Best news I've had all day department: TED is coming to Charlotte! Check out Tedx Charlotte and be sure to check out the organizing committee - a familiar cast of characters! (It would be cool if MMU could be its home - not this year, maybe next????)

And to cement it all apparently: TED founder Richard Paul Wurman will be in Charlotte THIS WEEK (April 5-9)! Catch him on Wednesday at the Ritz Carlton or on Thursday at the Great Aunt Stella Center. Details at http://www.sirconferences.com/!

Because I can't help myself department: Here's a TED talk from last year by Margaret Wertheim and her efforts crocheting a coral reef (not kidding!) and why it is important. As she put it: "an intersection of mathematics, marine biology, feminine handicrafts and environmental activism." This is also featured on Crafts magazine's YouTube channel along with alot of other great vids about craft.

And here is the website of the Community Crocheted Coral Reef created at Scarsdale Middle School: http://shs-20.scarsdaleschools.k12.ny.us/~coralreef inspired by Margaret Wertheim's work.

A little solidarity goes a long way department: Besides being an integral part of our community, The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has long been a partner of the Mint and many of the librarians there have worked and continue to work side by side with Mint staff. Be supportive of our public library friends and colleagues and of the libraries in our community in any way that you can.

More librarians department: Here is an article from the NY Times about the collaborative efforts of the art libraries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art and their combined database nyarc.org which just went live last month. Crazy good.

NOTE: The article above is part of the Museums Special Section in the Thursday, March 18 2010 issue of the NY Times. A hard copy is available in the library. (Thanks Phil!) This section also includes articles on using smartphones for tours, successful online fundraising, a program for teens at the Studio Museum of Harlem, and much much more.

More news you can use department: Latest issue of American Craft (April/May 2010) features a cover story on Michael Sherrill with some gorgeous photography of his work.

New titles department:

- From Process to Print: Graphic Works by Romare Bearden with many thanks to the Melberg Gallery for an additional copy for the Resource Lounge at MMU!

- Recommended by Dorie, The Indian Craze: Primitivism, Modernism, and Transculturation in American Art, 1890-1915 by Elizabeth Hutchinson "transforms our understanding of the role of Native Americans in modernist culture."

- Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History featuring the Mint piece which will be on display at MMU!

Did you notice? dept: MARCO has a new look! Thank you Elyse!

And for fun and a candidate for the "never would have thought" dept:

Keith Richards as a librarian? Seriously!