November? Really?

Some random goodies

On the shelf
The Magazine Antiques highlights the Identity Theft! exhibition in their "Current and Coming" column of the November issue. Great short write-up including an image of our Gifford painting!

As usual, the latest issue of CRAFTS: the magazine of contemporary craft is one to read from cover to cover. Highlights for me? Tim Parson's excellent essay Value Judgment on the value of the hand-made; and the bonus Christmas Gift Guide! (Favorite item? Ornament with text: "i am hoping for world peace but would like something shiny as well")

Gift goodies
It may be Christmas already! The last few weeks have seen a bonanaza of gifts to the library. Many thanks to Nelson Grice, the Ceramic Circle of Charlotte, Beth Coleman, Mark Leach, Gail Brinn Wilkins and Francie Parrack! Wow! And a very special thank you to the Delhom Service League for providing funds for book purchases for the Delhom-Gambrell Library for the next year! Your support of the library is invaluable and we couldn't do it without you!

From the stacks
75 years ago: This cover artist should look familiar. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

On the web
Art book reviews from art librarians - Back 13 years and more being added! Go librarians.

On the shelf
In The Art Newspaper a review of John Singer Sargent: Venetian Figures and Landscapes, 1898-1913 by Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray - the sixth volume in Sargent's catalogue raisonne - featuring the Mint's own watercolor, "At Chioggia"(2000.36.23), and, of course, available in the Mint library.

In the mountains
While checking out the leaves, check out the Studio Art Quilt Associates exhibition at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at App State called SAQA: 12 Voices. One of the exhibitors is fiber artist Linda Colsh, featured in the Fiberarts International exhibition at MMCD in 2007

From the stacks (part 2)
10 years ago: The wonderful now-defunct NEST magazine . . . with an article about George and a rather familiar print

NEW and on the shelf
Check out our first issue of The International Review of African American Art! From Hampton University (Rubie's alma mater!) This quarterly journal is a needed addition to our library resources. This issue includes an interview with collector Juliette Bethea and a great article called The Art of Social Design.

Wow! factor: The giant 3 volume boxed set Fired by Passion: Vienna Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier purchased with funds from The Delhom Service League is magnificent not only for its incredible content: beautiful photography and outstanding scholarship, but also for the quality of the publication itself - absolutely gorgeous!! The book that generated the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Du Paquier porcelain. Thank you DSL! Sneak a peek at the book if you have a chance and check out this video lecture by Meredith Chilton, the book's chief editor.

You know it as a source for information on special exhibitions, now you can use MintWiki for resources on the reinstallations of permanent collections at MMA Randolph Road! The page on the Chinese Court Robes is up and ones on "The Golden Age of English Art" and African art are on the way

Couldn't make it to Minneapolis for the American Craft Conference "Creating a New Craft Culture"? Access the presentations online! ACC has made (most of) them available as podcasts. Includes Faythe Levine, creator of the film and book Handmade Nation!

If it's FALL, why does everything pick UP?

New titles in the library:
- Lightning Gods and Feathered Serpents: the Public Sculpture of El Tajín by Rex Koontz - Wonderful scholarship; based on the work of Michael Kampen O'Riley whose drawings are featured in the book. (And we have the original drawings!) Click here for an excerpt.

- Fragiles: Porcelain, Glass & Ceramics - a great glorious book chockful of gorgeous photos of extraordinary objects. Thanks to the Friends of the Mint in honor of Annie

- Night/Shift by Lynn Saville - More of Lynn's striking night photography. My favorite? A magical shot of Central Park with the skyline in the background. Her work is in the Mint collection.

- The 1931 Catalogue of Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Robert Henri. A compact but important record of this exhibition. Guess who requested this one?

- Slipware in the Collection of the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery by David Barker and Steve Crompton. A resource for and complement to the Mint's collection of English slipware. Folksy and appealing.

- Just in time for the 5th Annual Potters Market Invitational! Thank you to HAT Thompson for her gift of The Living Tradition: North Carolina Potters Speak from the North Carolina Pottery Center. A wonderful collection of interviews with some of the finest potters in the state. And HAT of course got most of them to sign the book!

The new guy
Check out this interview from Charlotte Business Journal with Scott Provancher, new ASC president.

The new guy in the library
If you stop by the library on Monday, say hello to Justin Herman from the UNCG School of Library and Information Studies. He is doing his graduate practicum, or internship here at the Mint library. His first task was doing research in the Mint scrapbooks on Gladys Lavitan, a Charlotte actress who performed in a number of Mint Museum Drama Guild productions in the Golden Circle Theatre - now know as the Van Every Forum. (Ah ha, did you know there was a Mint Museum Drama Guild?)

From the library newstand
- In the latest issue of Dwell, the work of Pratt industrial design students is featured from their Design for a Dollar installation at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Innovative, clever and costs only a dollar! What is not to like!

- Since it is all about the shoes: Featured in the September issue of ARTNews, Christian Louboutin commissioned photographer Peter Lippman for the latest ad campaign and the results are stunning images in the style of 17th century vanitas paintings. See them on his web site and roll the mouse over the thumbnails on the right for more!

Trying to keep up
Here are a few blogs, web sites, etc. that are good for keeping up with what is going on in the (and our) artworld. Give them a spin!
- Godcity - These local artists stay active, activist and postive - it's all good.
- Newsgrist - a little NY-centric but good brief newsy posts
- ArtBabble - more great artist videos are added and more museums partner up everyday. Videos from Halston to Heffernan!
- ReadyMade weekly forecast - a great magazine - great online presence to check before your road trip

And in other library news

- Right off the bat, we got an upgrade to Polaris, the library software behind MARCO. Now it is just getting all our customizations back online! So it goes . . .

- And while it is true we have had to cut back on a few subscriptions, core art and craft publications remain. If you want to be sure to see the latest issue of any of our subscribed publications, you can ask that the latest issue be routed to you every time!

Just call me or send me an email and I can set it up for you! It's a breeze! So, if you want to read Sculpture or Art in America or Ceramics Monthly or Vogue as soon as it comes in, let me know!

And if you are not sure what magazines we subscribe to, search MARCO by selecting "serial" under "limit by " and place an asterisk (*) in the keyword field.

And welcome our newest staff member Lola! She's small but she makes an impact! (Thank you again Sandy!) Her friends can be found in the Mint Museum Shops!

So, till next time!

Who said the livin' was easy?

(EVERYBODY is busy)
Hello summer time!

In the news:
Annie - from Collect 2009: the international art fair for contemporary objects, held this year, May 15-19 in the UK.

Arthur and Jane Mason - from the Summer 2009 issue of American Woodturner: the Journal of the Association of American Woodturners, the Masons received the Collectors of Wood Art Lifetime Achievement Award. Previous winners include Robyn Horn. Congratulations to the Masons! They describe one of the three "magic moments" of their lives as "when our gift of 120 pieces was opened at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design . . . We could have flown home from Charlotte without an airplane."


Ted Noten - one of the 10 - is featured in the latest issue of CRAFTS out of the UK. Wonderful examples of his work. Read the article online or see with images in the actual magazine in the library (soon to be at MMCD!). And of course we have his monograph in the library!

And also new in the library, courtesy of Seattle Art Museum publication exchange, the catalog from the exhibition S'abadb The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists, a gorgeous and informative volume with an extensive dialogue with Susan Point - another one of the 10! This catalog is soon to be available on your library shelf!

Upcoming library news: An upgrade to our library software Polaris (MARCO to you) is being scheduled for later this summer. Should be pretty transparent to everyone, and will likely just require MARCO to be down for a day. More on this later.
AND we're making a book! It's a special project for a special person and you all will be the first (or at least the second) to see! Hush hush, more on this later too.

A summertime list
- Favorite thing 1:
Getting excited about Passionate Journey: The Grice Collection of Native American Art exhibition! Love those COLORS! Baskets, textiles, ceramics and masks! Yummy. And the exhibition catalog is due out soon!

Favorite thing 2: DOCENTS! As if they weren't already spectacular, many thanks to Verna (here's one of her teapots) and Frank Witt for hosting a get-together for Education staff and docents pool-side at their house/studio/woodland oasis, and to Bruce Kelley for starting to pull together what hopefully will become the Michael Kampen O'Riley Drawings digitization project!

- Favorite thing 3: Little movies! Great animation (and audio) Thanks Design Sponge!

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

- Favorite thing 4: Treasures from the stacks!
- like Art and Handicraft in the Woman's Building of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 from a summer 116 years ago! I love the cover of this guide! And below is a picture of the building itself


- Favorite thing 5: Unexpected Mint artist news/summertime love story!
and best of all
- Favorite thing period: New Mint family additions: welcome to the world baby Wade - pix to come!
Cheers all and happy summer.

Book sale's a wrap

Many thanks to all the staff and volunteers who made the 2nd ever Mint Library Book Sale a HUGE (and I do mean HUGE) success!
From the top: Emily for the flyer and poster design; Kurt for the sidewalk sign; Karen, Martha, Jon, Andrea, Hank and Robert for help moving all those boxes(!); and on the day of the sale, Cheryl, Eric, Katherine (along with her mom Jan and her boyfriend Troy), Blair, Ryann and Kimberly for all their help and Carol for cashiering most of the day!
And it wasn't just staff - members helped too, including Doris Anne Bradley moving boxes and on Saturday, Karen Wolff, Shaunda Bailey, Verna Witt, Judith Toman, Mona Radiloff and of course the dynamic duo - Mary Lou and Donald Freund!
And then the real diehards: Shawn Reynolds and Doris Anne Bradley (back to help more!) who worked virtually non-stop all day on Saturday! And last but not least, Anna Goslen who did so much prep beforehand and helped out during the sale too.
THANK YOU ALL! We raised over $2500.(!) for the conservation of the library's special collections and gained some much needed space! And we all had fun! I mean it was wild! I just can't thank you enough.

On the tube
Great clip from NPR: Sam Maloof, the gifted studio furniture artist, is still working at 93! Listen to the audio segment from NPR's All Things Considered aired April 22: "Carved Success: Sam Maloof's Handmade Life" Maloof's gorgeous pedestal table pictured here is in the Mint collection.

New stuff!
- Thank you to Daisy Bridges for her gift of the Lerner's Encyclopedia of US Marks on Pottery, Porcelain & Clay - a whopping great reference for marks from manufacturers AND studio potters - Indispensable!
- Remember writing letters? Well, maybe not . . . but 2 new books in the library contain artists' correspondences that provide an intimacy other sorts of writing can just not match. Revolutionaries of Realism: The Letters of John Sloan and Robert Henri reveals the remarkable thirty-year friendship of these two American artists and insights into their circle. The second book of letters provides a glimpse into the art world of an earlier America. Letters & Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham 1739-1776 "throws valuable light upon Copley and his early paintings."

Movie night anyone?
- Is this a trend? Two films coming out in May are set in museums: The Maiden Heist starring William H. Macy, Morgan Freeman and Christopher Walken; and Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian with Ben Stiller. The setting for Maiden was based on the Worcester Art Museum; and some shooting of Night was actually done at the Smithsonian. Both are comedies that feature museum guards in the lead roles. Melvin? Tell Mr. DeMille you are ready for your close-up! :o)
- Which got me thinking about one of my all-time favorite movies - also centered around an art museum - the wonderful How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. Ahh . . . better put it on the queue!

The power of art
- The first visual artist to be named United Nations Goodwill Ambassador is painter Ross Bleckner who recently worked with 25 Ugandan children - all either former abductees or ex-soldiers of the region's rebel forces - to create over 200 paintings to be sold at a benefit in May. Read the NY Times article and view a slide show of the children's art here.

Nick in the news
Last month I noted Nick Cave's write-up in the NY Times. This month his work is the cover story of the latest issue of Art Papers! Read all about it!

We'll miss you!
Volunteers Anna Goslen and Rebecca Stockin are both moving on! Hate to see them go - they have both contributed so much to the library. Rebecca took over the MintWiki once Joe left and has done a fabulous job. She got an opportunity to move to DC and is jumping on it.
Anna has been focusing on organizing and weeding our periodicals as well as handling much of the book sale preparation. She is going on to grad school at Chapel Hill for (yes!) library studies. Know you'll do great!
Thank you both for all the great work you've done!

Only 5 more weeks to go . . .

till the book sale that is! Yikes! Don't forget: Saturday, May 16 in the Ivey from 12 untill 5 pm. And noon to 1 is for members only! If anyone would like to help, please let me know - if you haven't already. Many thanks to those you who have already said you would pitch in. Tell your friends!

New titles in:
- Albedo by Marek Ranis - a gorgeous collection of images from Ranis' multi-media, multi-year work of the same name. And a killer example of a self-published book from blurb.com. And congratulations in order to Ranis - he was just named Assistant Professor of Sculpture at UNCC.

- Ceramics at Vauxhall: 18th Century Pottery and Porcelain from The English Ceramic Circle - Thank you Delhom Service League!

- Gretchen Bender: Work 1981-1991 - This one was actually found in the shelves of uncataloged books! The catalog from her retrospective at the Everson in 1991. Bender died in 2004. The Mint received a large body of her work last year as a gift from her family.





- The Family Business: 175 Years of Pottery by the Owen/Owens Families - Harriet Anne Thompson, aka HAT donated this exhibition catalog from the NC Pottery Center. But she went above and beyond as well - getting all (or almost all) of the living potters to sign it! Wow - thank you HAT!


News from out there
- Great heavily illustrated article in NY Times (Sunday, April 5) on Nick Cave called "I Dream the Clothing Electric" on his soundsuits. There are several videos of the soundsuits in action - here is one called Nick Cave - Art in Motion.

- Bart Trotman (yes, Bart - son of Bob) was featured in the Raleigh News and Observer recently when the band he is in Invisible performed at Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill. The centerpiece of the group's sound is a machine they call, Rhythm 1001 - " a percussion sequencer that works not unlike a lot of old music boxes from hundreds of years ago." Bart sent this video to Carla back in the fall of the band and you can see and hear Rhythm 1001 for yourself.

- artbabble.org - the Indianapolis Museum of Art's video site has been launched. Michelle sent around word about this web site a few weeks ago, but it has now been launched officially. The site features videos from LOTS of museums - in fact, that is the whole point - for the site to be THE place to get videos of/about art and artists! Somebody at IMA had a REALLy great idea! (And I think Cheryl knows her!) Check out the site - more videos are added all the time. You can also be a fan on Facebook! (And of course you can be a fan of the Mint on Facebook!)

Charlotte in Top 25 Cities for Art:
-one more time! In the latest issue of American Style, Charlotte is one of the top 25 Big Cities for Art - the top 3 are New York, Chicago and DC. We fall in after Portland and Austin and higher than San Diego, Dallas and Houston!

Celebrate National Library Week (April 12-18)
- by visiting your local library - including this one!
- celebrate your freedom to read and read a banned book!
- listen to why libraries are so important!
- check out the most beautiful libraries in the world!
- play with your library action figures
- and of course, bring your librarian a cupcake*!

*my favorite cupcake story
cheers!

Kicking up our heels . . .

or is it "We ARE still kicking!"
Serious spring fever; daffodils in the snow; spring cleaning; belt-tightening; and holy moly, Matisse in the house!! (And he brought ALL his friends!)

Latest issues
American Woodturner (Spring 2009, v.24, no.1)
- Article by Terry Martin features photo of Allie with artist Binh Pho with his piece, Realm of Dreams, now part of The Mint Museum collection.

Crafts: the magazine for contemporary craft (January/February 2009) - Ceramics historian Garth Clark on "The Death of Crafts" - an excerpt from a recent lecture. Provocative, yes? Listen to the entire lecture "How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement" from KBOO radio in Portland, sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Craft & Pacific Northwest College of Art. You can listen online or download the audio file.

Shout out to Tilleke Schwarz in The Netherlands! Tilleke was a featured artist in the Fiberart International 2007 exhibition and we have a link to her website on the exhibition wiki page. She just emailed to update the link as she has a new URL for her website. It is a nice reminder that even when an exhibition is over and the wiki page is relegated to the "Previous exhibitons" link, they are still being accessed and used! Thanks Tilleke! (And so you know, her new URL is www.tillekeschwarz.com)

Arts and the economy
- Check out this NPR broadcast on the stimulus package and the arts. Select the "Listen" link.
- This Arts in Crisis podcast from WBUR Boston's "Here and Now" program features Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center, who has started a FREE and confidential consulting service for arts organizations in trouble (and which aren't??) It is called Arts In Crisis: a Kennedy Center Initiative.
We are all in this together after all.

New stuff

Had to step up (ahem) the titles we had on shoes, and got some great ones! New titles include: Platform Shoes: A Big Step in Fashion, and The Seductive Shoe: Four Centuries of Fashion Footwear. Some other new goodies include:
- Artist's Estates: Reputations in Trust - a collection of interviews with heirs to artist's estates and their frustrations, emotional and financial strains as well as discussions with lawyers, gallery dealers and foundaton directors.
- Degas and New Orleans: a French Impressionist in America - thank you Charles for this timely donation!
- Act/React: Interactive Installation Art - from the Milwaukee Art Museum, which "explores a new and growing body of interactive installaton art that calls on viewers to use their bodies in an intuitive and nontechnical way." Includes a 60 min. DVD.

Last but not least
Check out the Mint Wiki's new look! I'm still playing with colors and I haven't yet figured out how to change the background from white, but . . . Please let me know if you spot anything out of kilter or missing or anything strange!

Coming out of the cold

Slowly but surely we make our way to the spring
and some sunny news from the library . . .


Great gifts dept:
- Fabulous gifts to the library from Loyd Dillon included a limited edition of Poems of the Caribbean by Derek Walcott with illustrations by Romare Bearden, signed by the author and the artist! This image of the cover does not do it justice - absolutely gorgeous volume! Loyd also donated a charming and quite rare copy of Ma Chance's French Caribbean Creole Cooking, with illustrations by Bearden and signed by him as well! Conch stew and Bearden too! Does it get any better?
- Tom & Kitty Storrs donated a lovely collection of art books, including books on Edward Hopper, Grandma Moses and several on photography and decorative arts. We appreciate these additions to the library immensely!
- And it is with sadness and deep gratitude that the library acknowledges the donations to the library from the family of Dorothy Jones Smith who passed away last month. It is because of her that the J.A. Jones Library at the Mint Museum of Art exists. Enough thanks cannot be given for her commitment to the museum and her generous spirit.

Shout out to the new dept:
Hoorah for the new library volunteers! In addition to Doris Anne Bradley, and Ellen Show, please say hello and thank you to Rebecca Stockin, Anna Goslen and Rachel Ferrell, three new volunteers in the library. Rebecca is focusing on keeping the Mint Wiki up-to-date, Anna is working on weeding and preparation for the book sale and Rachel is tracking down missing books to match with errant bar code labels. Thank you to all the library volunteers - you all make it happen!!

New tools dept:
The Epson scanner is getting so much use, the library has purchased THREE 2GB Flash drives for patron use. This means folks can scan images and load them directly onto the flash drive instead of trying to burn to CD or send via email. They can "check out" the flash drive to load the images at home and then return the drive to the library. Easy!

A sample of new titles dept:
Some wonderful additions to the stacks include: Detour Art: Outsider, Folk Art, and Visionary Environments Coast to Coast - photographs of and from the collection of Kelly Ludwig documents the wide range of visionary art in the country complements of one of the featured artists, Bill LaCivita.
The World of John Sloan exhibition catalog from the Menneleo Museum of American Art features the Mint's "Road in Arroyo" loaned to the Mennello for this exhibition.
And on the way: Manuf®actured: the Conspicuous Transformation of Everyday Objects by Stephen Holt from the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. Also, one of the best examples of an exhibiton website I've seen - really well done!
and Artist's Estates: Reputations in Trust by Magda Salveson - a glimpse though interviews of a complex and at times contentious realm in the art world.

"Why don't you have a library card?" dept:
NC Live , the state supported collection of online databases - accessible with your public library card number - has made some revisions to their offerings and some of their new resources include: CAMIO, or OCLC's Catalog of Art Museum Images Online, which is a database of art images able to be used for educational purposes and PBS Video which enables you to download and VIEW (yes, VIEW) videos distributed by PBS, including Andy Warhol and the entire Art21 series. Lots more too! These databases are available by subscription only and you can access them for FREE through NC Live and your public library! Get your public library card now!

And last but not least dept:
Mint Wiki numbers keep growing! At last count, the site has been visited over 1,700 times just since the beginning of this year! And since we started tracking this information last April, the Mint Wiki has been visited over 7,500 times!! Wow!
Top five individual pages for number of visits: Andy Warhol - 1,948; Art of Affluence - 1,492; Scene in America - 1,425; Brilliant Period/American Cut Glass - 1,306; and Ornament as Art - 1,110!