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?)