The Mint Museum Library

Cold outside

2011-01-21T15:07:00.000-05:00

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 wi ki 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 . . .

2010-08-17T17:17:00.003-04:00

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 . . .

2010-06-02T15:31:00.003-04:00

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

2010-05-14T11:09:00.025-04:00

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

2010-04-05T17:24:00.000-04:00

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!

"Something wonderful is about to happen"*

2010-02-26T16:33:00.003-05:00

*Let's start off with a pop culture quiz! What film does this tag line come from? And why is it appropriate? More at the end of this post!

First book published by the library! With donated funds from The Ceramic Circle of Charlotte in memory of Leo Kohn, The Mint Museum Library has created and published Ceramic Notes: a Facsimilie Reproduction of class notes from lectures by Professor Edward Orton, Jr. with a Table of Contents by Leo Kohn. Many thanks to interns Rebecca Stockin and Maisie McParland for scanning the notebooks that were part of a gift from the American Ceramic Society! Come by the library and check it out!

Selected new titles:
Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History - a great big wonderful book about Tim Rollins collaborative work with his Kids of Survival - making art and making history - featuring the Mint's painting on page 55!
American Modernism at The Art Institute of Chicago - Thank you to Friends of the Mint for this title in honor of Jonathan Stuhlman! - a gorgeous collection presented thoroughly.
Studio Pottery in Britain 1900-2005 by Jeffrey Jones - Just in time for our upcoming exhibition of the Grainer Collection in October!

Help Create the Future!
Participate in Upnext: The Future of Museums and Libraries Wiki from the IMLS. It's free to register. You, us, we are all invited to collaborate and share our ideas and expertise. The wiki will be open as of March 3 - go to http://imlsupnext.wikispaces.com/ to register. To get started, check out The Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide. The Upnext wiki project will last until May 12. If you would like more information, just see me in the library.

Jan/Feb issue of Antiques features an excellent article on Edward Middleton Manigault - whose work the museum is trying to acquire and is part of the Collections Campaign - on view now in the Dalton Gallery!
Crafts: the Magazine of Contemporary Craft reviews a fiber art exhibition in London featuring one of our FCAs (Favorite Craft Artists) - Tilleke Schwarz! The exhibition entitled "Beware of Embroidery" contains work by Tilleke as well as four other international fiber artists.

Christmas comes REALLY early: the library is fortunate to have received an incredible gift of books and journals from Daisy and Henry Bridges. Over two hundred items - a wealth of materials. Thank you so much!

Are we famous yet? MintWiki, our online exhibition resource, is featured in the book Handbook on Developing Curriculum Materials for Teachers: Lessons from Museum Education Partnerships Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2010) Woo-hoo!

FYI!
Top 50 Social Media Resources - Website Magazine

Though on this topic, a friend of mine just got back from the TED conference(the stinker) and said that Twitter was on the way out. So there's that. (PS: TED speakers this year included Jamie Oliver, Bill Gates, a wonderful artist Raghava KK who I'd never heard of before, and for some real ooohh-ahhh, Blaise Aguera y Arca and his demonstration of augmented reality maps - available now - online - bing.com maps. But the absolute best one: Temple Grandin - just watch it!

Some fun - Mint artists on film!
Nick Cave
Wayne Thiebaud

*2010, of course. And the "something wonderful" may not be the creation of a new planet, but the opening of MMU will definitely rock our world!

November? Really?

2009-11-13T15:11:00.017-05:00

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?

2009-09-10T17:17:00.000-04:00

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?

2009-07-14T16:45:00.002-04:00

(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

2009-05-18T16:15:00.000-04:00

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 Leigh Bumgardner and 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 . . .

2009-04-14T17:22:00.000-04:00

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 . . .

2009-03-06T14:55:00.001-05:00

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

2009-02-09T17:05:00.002-05:00

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, Ellen Show and Leigh Bumgardner, 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!

Transitions

2008-11-19T15:50:00.001-05:00

The tardy poster strikes again! So much to do, so little time.

Hate to see you go department:
Joe Eshleman, library assistant supreme, is going on to greener ($$ - yeah!) pastures. Starting Dec. 1, he will be the Instructional Librarian at Johnson & Wales University Library. It is a well-deserved full-time position that will enable Joe to use all his talents. Joe was really instrumental in getting MARCO up and running and training staff in its use as well as being the major wiki page creator. We couldn't have done it without you, Joe! We will miss you!!

The hits just keep on coming department:
Many thanks to the Ceramic Circle of Charlotte and to the Delhom Service League for contributing funds for library purchases! These funds will enable Brian Gallagher to select needed resources for the library to obtain in order to support his work with the ceramics collection. Thank you!

New titles department:
- Two new books on Copley - Carrie Rebora Barratt's John Copley in America, and Emily Neff's John Copley in England; both essential reference on the artist.
- Informal Learning and Field Trips: Engaging Students in Standards-Based Experiences Across the K-5 Curriculum by Leah Melber provides ideas, rubrics, websites and activities.
- Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting from the Museum of Arts & Design - For someone who just dabbles in this discipline on a really elementary level (that would be me), WOW! For someone well-versed in textile craft, WOW! Talk about cool stuff! If you loved the Fiberart show, you'll love this exhibition catalog! Here is a slide show of just some of the work in the exhibition. The image at the top of this page is a Cat Mazza piece from the exhibition.
- And some must reads: Possibilities artist Vivian Beer's work adorns the cover of Furniture Studio 5: The Meaning of Craft and includes her work along with a brilliant essays by Bruce Metcalf and many others. And speaking of brilliant essays, the massive SOFA Chicago catalog includes Annie Carlano's illustrated essay "Transition and Transformation: The Mint Museum of Craft + Design Anew."

Mark your calendars!

It seems like a long way off right now, but before you know it. . . The 2nd Mint Museum Library Book Sale is scheduled for Saturday, May 16, 2009. As with the first time around, all proceeds will go toward library conservation needs.

All Facebook, all the time!
It seems lately that the entire staff has a Facebook page, and I admit to being overwhelmed by all the sea creatures, kidnaps, beers, Pathwords challenges and covered dishes I haven't been able to respond to. But I did have a great experience with a Facebook application that we might use here in some way. I did some online mentoring through the Discussion Board of the Facebook group, UNCG Library and Information Studies. Very interesting!

It's about space . . .
We're doing some serious shifting around as we plan for bringing all the materials from the library at MMCD into the Randolph Road building. (As well as making space to store items to go into the Book Sale!) And trying to figure out some potential floor plans for re-configured library space. So if you see me muttering to myself while wielding an 1/8" scale ruler, you'll know what's going on!

Where are they now department:
Joe's imminent departure has gotten me thinking about the assistants and interns that have been a part of the library and moved on just since I've been here. The cool thing is, it seems that everyone has gone on to bigger and better things. To name a few:
- Shawn Reynolds - Shawn just got promoted at Heroes and is now Operations Manager so she is not only in charge of the store, she is also doing all the buying. Stop in and say hi when you get by Heroes Aren't Hard to Find on Seventh St. And let her know how you like her new look on the web site! (evil laugh)
- Archimedez Thomas - Just recently got a postcard from Archimedez and he and Dorinda and Yukon (the schnauzer!) have moved to Baltimore and he is attending graduate school at Morgan State University studying landscape architecture. Not bad for a (self-described) recovering dilettante! Hope you can come back to NC and visit soon!
- Emily Boone, long-time intern and recent Davidson grad, is teaching English in France! (tough break kiddo)
- Jenny France, intern from USC, got her library degree and is now working as a librarian for PLCMC.
- Allison Tyous, intern from UNC, got her undergraduate degree as planned in art history, decided to pursue graduate studies in librarianship and got an internship at the Library of Congress. If you are coming home for the holidays Allison, you have to stop by and let us know how it is going!
- Jessica Sedgwick, completed her masters in library studies at Chapel Hill and immediately got a full-time job in their library.

And last but not least - some great freaking numbers!
Per Google Analytics, in the last MONTH:
- MARCO has had 233 visitors (internal and external); spending an average of over 9 minutes on the site; an over 15% increase from the previous month;
- AND the Mint Wiki has had 1,239 visitors (internal and external); spending an average of over 2 minutes on the site; an over 40% increase from the previous month!
That is just in one month!!

And who's the fairest of them all? Why ANDY of course! 341 visitors just for him!

Till next time!

Lucky us!

2008-09-05T10:45:00.014-04:00

August went by quickly but not without an impact!

In the "define irony" department: A disaster preparedness workshop for library and registration staff scheduled here for August 27, had to be re-scheduled on account of . . . you guessed it! . . . a DISASTER!!

Here is a shot from inside the museum at the lake that fortunately is once again the front lawn. We were lucky though - some water in the building, but no harm to collections. Check out this link for some video footage of the flooding around the museum from local news:
http://www.wcnc.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=276533 Thanks for sending this Leslie!

In the "survey sez" dept:I know I'm dating myself with that heading but anyway many thanks to all our friends who completed the survey about MARCO and gave us some excellent feedback. We will be tweaking MARCO based on the feedback we received so look forward to some improvements (IMHO) to come.

In the great gifts department, Robert and Daisy Rieke have bestowed a lovely collection of books and exhibition catalogs on Käthe Kollwitz that complements their gift of Kollwitz prints to the museum. Thank you so much! Also a big thank you to Jean Thomas and her tremendous gift of books on art and antiques - we are still counting but it looks to be over 200 titles! WOW!

New titles to look for include:

- Carrie Rebora Barratt's Gilbert Stuart, a (dare we say?) definitive monograph on this important artist from the Met.

- Edward Tufte's Envisioning Information to get our brains thinking in different ways.

- China Design Now from the V& A - a stunning visual followup for those of us who didn't get enough from the Bejing Olympics.

- Richard Powell's To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities - a complex project; an important exhibition; and an overdue thank-you to the academic institutions that preserve and celebrate these collections.

- And for our fashionistas: Surfers, Soulies, Skinheads and Skaters: Subcultural Style from the Forties to the Nineties - "an audacious panorama of street style from Beatnik to Hippie to Cyberpunk, and its influence on high fashion" from those wacky folks at the V&A.

In the volunteer recognition department: A shout-out to our dedicated band of library volunteers!

Leigh Bumgardner, who diligently keeps our artist files up to date;

Ellen Show, who aids with barcoding and with issues in the Delhom Library;

and Allison Tyous, who is also helping out with barcoding and will be working on a scanning project. Thank you all!

And a very special shout-out to Doris Anne Bradley, volunteer extraordinaire, who is recovering from surgery - Thank you and get well soon!!

And in the crunching numbers dept: As you may know, Joe got the Mint Wiki site and MARCO set up with Google Analytics so we can track visits to both and see what folks are looking at, how much time they are spending on what and where they are "visiting" from; you know, good geeky number stuff. Anyway, just to give you an idea, here is just a little bit of the info gathered:

- Even though MARCO is just out, we've had over 285 visits from outside and the average time spent is over 8 minutes!

- The exhibition page that the most people have looked at on the Mint Wiki is . . . (drumroll, please) The Brilliant Period of American Cut Glass (!) with 224 visits! The rest of the top five, in order of popularity are: The Art of Affluence, Scene in America, Possibilities, and American Scene. Interesting, huh?

- The Mint Wiki has had visitors from 36 countries! The top five are: U.S. (of course), UK, Canada, Australia and India!

- Mint Wiki has averaged 17 visitors a day over the last month! Does this mean I get to add these to library stats?

And in the last but not least dept: If you are out and about tonight - especially if you are already downtown at the OAA opening, "crawl" on down to Hodges Taylor and see Lynn Saville's photography exhibition! Lynn was featured in an exhibition here in 2007!

On the road and back again

2008-07-07T14:52:00.002-04:00

Road trip!

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) annual conference was in Seattle, WA this year and a great time was had by all. Great sessions - more about those later -, wonderful tours of the Seattle Art Museum Library, the Experience Music Project and the Paramount Theater, lots of wonderful sightseeing and more salmon than any one person should eat. Oh yeah - and the coffee! Even the hotel room coffee pot has good coffee!

Some exceptional formal conference sessions included Using Controlled Vocabularies to Enhance Access to Cultural Information; "I Don't Know Art, but I Know What I Like": Critical Visual Literacy and Distributed Digital Preservation: the MetaArchive Approach. To view these presentations (and more), go to http://www.slideshare.com/ and search "sla 2008." So, while the sightseeing was grand and the food divine, the real reason to go to these things is truly to learn. And learn I did. Also, a very special thanks to Traci Timmons, librarian of the Seattle Art Museum for her time and suggestions.

Good News Department: Our IMLS Grant got extended for another year so that Nancy Mosley can continue doing what she does best - making our catalog truly reliable and authoritative! Thank you Nancy and looking forward to another great year!

New Titles Department:

Courtesy of the Barnett Newman Foundation, we just received a copy of the hefty Barnett Newman: A Catalogue Raisonne. Fabulous resource.
Nine to Nineteen: Youth in Museums and Libraries: A Practioner's Guide - Just in from IMLS, a slim volume chock-full of resources, case studies, and practical information from their "Engaging America's Youth" initiative.
Elizabeth Currid's The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art & Music Drive New York City which is, as the author describes, "about how creativity - particularly artistic and cultural creativity - happens and why it happens in some places . . . more than others." This book "explains how the cultural economy works - and why it is vital to all great cities." Required reading for fall?
Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels and Graphic Witness: Four Wordless Graphic Novels - Long unavailable reprinting of wordless novels using woodcuts to tell their stories. Thank you Joel for requesting these sensational and powerful books!

From the Newstand Department: Quiet Spirit, Skillful Hand: the Graphic Work of Clare Leighton is featured in the latest issue of Journal of the Print World (Vol 31, No. 3 Summer 2008). (And cool! It evens mentions the MintWiki!)

Just around the corner I swear Department: We are so close to getting MARCO live we can almost taste it. Stay tuned.

We reach more than we know . . .

2008-05-23T15:39:00.003-04:00

Welcome new interns!

Two new interns will be helping us out in the library this summer. Katie Griffin is a graduate student in the Library and Information Science program at USC with a concentration in archives. Lauren DeReese is an undergraduate at Queens Unversity. Please be sure to say hello when you see them in the library. Welcome to Katie and Lauren and hope you enjoy your summer here at the Mint!

Mint Wiki goes global!

Remember Helene Blowers at PLCMC's Learning 2.0? As she hoped, her program has been picked up and adapted and is in use all over the place. One place is the State Library of New South Wales (Australia) and one of the wikis they point to as an example is ours! How cool is that!

AND Joe is using Google Analytics on the Mint Wiki to see who views the page and from where. Just in the last month, the Mint Wiki has been visited by folks from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, (of course) North Carolina, but also Australia, the UK and Russia!! Plus, from the analytics, we can see that folks are actually looking at the site - not just clicking through - by the amount of time they spend there. This is so neat!

AND a professor at Kansas State University just wrote to ask permission to use a screen shot of the Mint Wiki in her new book! The screenshot will be used "in a guide for professionals at small museums who want to create an "eMuseum" . . . and would be presented as an example of a museum using a Wiki to communicate with the public." (Yeah!) The book is Developing Curriculum Materials for Teachers: Lessons from the Negro Leagues Baseball eMuseum. Proceeds from its sales will be donated to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO. We will get a copy when it gets published! All the way cool!

New titles/articles department:

Each year, the Friends of the Mint donate a book in honor of the past president. This year, the book Queen Victoria and Thomas Sully, by Carrie Rebora Barratt has been donated in honor of Donald Freund. The Mint's painting The Student, Sully's lovely portrait of his daughter Rosalie, is one of Donald's favorite paintings, so this was a perfect gift in his name. Thank you Friends! and thank you Donald!
Ripped from his still warm hands: The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-1957 from the V&A's exhibition. Thank you Charles!! It is absolutely to drool over. (and actually, the ripped from his hands part is not true - it was offered very graciously, but I just had to say it)
The latest entire issue of Fiberarts is devoted to "Our Fiber Heritage". Subjects include Andean tapestries inspiring new forms, guidelines for the care of textiles, and a review of the Met's exhibition of ancient Peruvian featherwork called Radiance from the Rain Forest.
New book - The Furniture of Sam Maloof - a great big volume with tons of pictures of his gorgeous furniture. But you'll have to get it from Allie 'cause she had first dibs!
Latest issue of Charlotte magazine has a big feature article about what South Tryon will be like in 2010 - very different and very exciting! Great composite "what it will look like" photo.

Only a matter of time department: Artist's tees from the Gap! They are celebrating the 2008 Whitney Biennial by issuing artist designed t-shirts by former Whitney Biennial artists.http://www.gap.com/browse/category.do?cid=40760 There is also a full multi-page spread of ads for these in the latest issue of W - on the shelf in your library! Take a peek. (I especially like the Kenny Scharf and the Kiki Smith) Speaking of Kiki Smith, she's now doing a line with Steuben Glass - a collection of designs inspired by tatoos!

Favorite design ideas department: Metropolitan Home's annual top 100 designs issue is always fascinating but I didn't get to see it until I was at the eye doctor last week. I scribbled down some of my favorites while my eyes were dilating!(Don't you love this "you are there" aspect of the blog? I am kidding.) Anyway, a few I thought were particularly noteworthy (but in no particular order):

Charles + Ray Eames postage stamps - Classic design for 42 cents!
Jasper Conran's designs for Wedgwood - He's the son of . . . and the designs are gorgeous
The Encyclopedia of Life - http://www.eol.org/ . Just check it out - it's just one of those things the Internet was made for.
GreenForAll.org - Good work, good sense, for good.
LocalHarvest.org - Like the web site says, "real food, real farmers, real community."
And for fun, the Eiffel Tower Lego! Build your own in the comfort and safety of your own home.
And last but not least, BIKES! Or pedal power with some really gorgeous examples from Puma. Of course, there is always my personal favorite - the Townie!

By the way, are we going to have bike racks uptown outside of our new building?? I'm trying to up my own personal pedaling percentage and know others are doing it too. So, I'm thinkin' it could be a really good idea.

A farewell and more

2008-05-08T13:45:00.002-04:00

Thank you Emily!

We wish a fond farewell to Davidson intern Emily Boone who has been with us for three semesters! Her special project has been documenting the extent of our huge collection of back-issues of periodicals. The Mint Museum Library holds art magazines and journals going back to the turn of the century - the 20th century that is! Emily's efforts mean that we can begin cataloging these periodicals and make them more accessible for research. Emily also contributed to the Contemporary, Cool and Collected exhibition catalog, writing several artist entries under Carla's supervision. An art history major, Emily is graduating this month and plans to travel to France to work teaching English. Way to go Emily!! We will miss you!

Great new books and articles in the library (in no particular order

How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness by Darby English - Called "groundbreaking" and a work that "expands the social and intellectual context for recent African-American art."
A review of Scene in America: a Contemporary Look at the Black Male Image in the May 1 issue of The Charlotte Post - it is in the exhibition file!
Do you like the "goose bowl?" Check out Art & Reform: Sara Galner, the Saturday Evening Girls, and the Paul Revere Pottery - the catalog by Nonie Gadsen for the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
She's not here quite yet, but you can familiarize yourself with some of her work! Review Annie Carlano's Sleeping Around: the Bed from Antiquity to Now.
From the North Carolina Arts Council, check out Creative Economy: the Arts Industry in North Carolina which documents the "economic impact of the arts as a significant industry" in NC.
A collection to dream over! The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation Collection is a nice big lucious look at an exemplary contemporary collection in an estate setting. Let's see . . . there's the Jean Arp in the TV room and the Jasper Johns and David Hockney in the library and the Alexander Calder in the garden and the Mark Rothko and the Anselm Kiefer in the living room. . . you get the idea!
A mention of the Clayman show in the latest issue (May) of Sculpture magazine

And online . . .

Art21's new blog Teaching with Contemporary Art which "will focus on why contemporary art in the classroom is important, the kinds of things that happen when it’s part of the curriculum, and ideas for approaching contemporary art from a variety of angles." Cool
Thanks to Very Short List, my new favorite music video Happiness from Goldfrapp. Get happy (or is it hoppy?) (and thanks Em for sending)

Great visit from Curator's Circle! On Wednesday, May 7, members of the Curator's Circle (who support Dorie and the ancient American art collection) visited the library as part of their regular meeting. After refreshments, the main focus of the meeting was a "behind the scenes" with Katherine and everyone got to check out the pottery storage areas. Then, everyone came into the library for a viewing of some very significant resources we have including the Mayan and Aztec codex facsimiles, the 1877 first edition of Squier's Peru: Travels and Exploration of the Land of the Incas, and original printings of the 1908, 1910 and 1911 issues of Memoirs of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University describing explorations in Peten, Guatemala. These journals are especially significant because of the high-quality of the photographs they contain. The photographs of stela, architectural elements and buildings at various archaeological sites are in many cases the only survivng record of the inscriptions and sculpture. Dorie provided recent photographs of many of these same ruins for comparison and the ravages of time, acid rain and poor (or nonexistent) conservation are evident. It highlighted the constant struggle between the need for conservation and the difficulty in obtaining funds and attention towards it. A great evening! Many thanks to Dorie, Katherine, Kimberly and all the members of the Curator's Circle who attended.

The things you find in books

2008-04-23T09:59:00.005-04:00

While barcoding books in the Delhom-Gambrell library these last few weeks, I came across a few letters from bygone days . The first one was found in The Old Furniture Book and is a typed letter from the author, N. Hudson Moore dated March 4, 1904. Note the vernacular of the times.
(you can click on the pictures for a larger view of the letters)

The second letter is hand written and a bit tougher to read. It was found in Tulip ware of the Pennsylvania-German potters; an historical sketch of the art of slip-decoration in the United States by Edwin Atlee Barber and was written in 1914.

There is a fair amount of barcoding left, so I will share any other interesting finds.

On another note, I attended a Polaris (the software behind MARCO) user meeting last Friday at the Chapin Library in Myrtle Beach. There were 30 librarians and a few (including a Polaris representative) gave presentions about the software. It was a great way to meet fellow users of the software and hear about the current issues and future direction. I enjoyed fielding questions about our unique design due to the fact that everyone else was from a public library.

Very truly yours (I'm just trying to stay consistent with the letters),

Joe

WOW!

2008-04-07T16:06:00.004-04:00

SPECTACULAR!

On Tuesday, March 18 at the celebratory tea in honor of Miss Delhom's 100th birthday, the Delhom Service League presented the library with two spectacular rare books: Johan Nieuhoff's An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, Emperor of China . . . , London, 1673, and the Montanus Atlas Chinensis, London, 1671. Both are significant primary sources of decorative art design and the Nieuhoff has been referred to as “one of the earliest and most influential documents in the history of Europe’s growing awareness of the Far East.” A truly fabulous gift! Thank you Delhom Service League!

IMLS Connecting to Collections Bookshelf
The Mint Museum Library was one of 851 libraries and museums nationwide to receive a collections of books, DVDs and online resources pertaining to conservation of collections from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The award is part of the IMLS's Connecting to Collections initiative. For more information, check out the website. A Guide to Online Resources is also available.

New stuff

In the latest issue of Ceramics: Art and Perception, a profile of Ben Owen II by Charlotte Vestal Brown of the Gregg Museum of Art & Design. A copy is in his artist file!
From the Portland Art Museum, The Dancer: Degas, Forain, and Toulouse-Lautrec - a great big scrumptious look at the work of these "fascinated observers" of the dance.
A timely exchange publication from the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis: I Remember Heaven: Jim Hodges and Andy Warhol which "explores affinities" between the two artists' works.
And these are just a few of the new titles!

A little shift

Nancy Mosely, cataloger extraordinaire, will be moving over to MMA within the next week. She will be working out of the Delhom Library. I will block out her schedule on the MMA calendar so folks know when she will be in there. Staff is welcome to use the library for research but will need to schedule meetings for times when she is not there. More particulars to come!

MARCO

We've gotten just a few entries so far in the "Give MARCO a face" contest and would love to get some more. Our first entries are really good. Don't miss out on the opportunity to "Give MARCO a face!"

Very special guest

2008-03-17T10:31:00.003-04:00

An update to the update!

From Leslie Strauss:

Wanted to share this picture from a recent visit with artist and photographer Bobby Hansson. This photo shows Wayne Werner, Maryland jewelry artist and good friend of Bobby's, Bobby in center and Allie in our conference room poring over old magazines. Wayne is holding a Craft Horizons magazine from our archives featuring cover photography by Bobbie. As you can see, Bobby is a colorful character! He is an artist and author of The Art of the Tin Can, but also was very involved as a supporter and photographer of the craft movement. Wayne and Bobby were traveling through town to go to SNAG in Savannah, where Bobby was a featured speaker, and decided to visit us to see the museum collection and go to lunch with Allie and me. Wayne did an Extreme Craft demo for us a few years back, and also exhibits at ACC.
When I mentioned at lunch that we had the Craft Horizons magazines in our archives, Wayne insisted on pulling Bobby up to take a look. Though Bobby at first joked that he'd "just wait in the car," he actually really got into it and enjoyed finding his work, and sharing lots of great stories about working with some of the folks who are now 'art stars'. He told us that he was paid $5 each for many of the photographs we saw in the magazines!
Below is an excerpt from an email from Wayne after the visit, FYI. Just wanted to share with you how much all the museum's hard work in keeping archives available meant to someone. Thank you!!
Les
From Wayne:
Words can not describe how much Bob enjoyed coming to the museum and meeting you both, it is all he talked about for two days. I think that he decided that he finally got the payment he deserved for his photography work. He made the comment that he was proud to be a part of preserving what was going on in the Craft movement. He said that at the time the Art world could have done without it, that it was more a Hippie idea. .... So I just wanted to thank you both and let you know how much it meant to Bob.

Spring blows in

2008-03-09T08:44:00.013-04:00

and all kinds of wonderful things happen!

Especially some wonderful donations! To name but a few . . .
From Sara H. Bissell: a wealth of extraordinary reference books on antiques and ceramics, including some very scarce titles;
From our own Joanna Rice: a slew of books on photography - much needed!
From Davidson's Dr. Gill Holland: His translation of Chinese poetry in honor of Joe Eshleman (yes, our Joe!)
From Dr. Francis & Lilly Robicsek: A great collection of recent auction catalogs as well as some ancient American art titles;
And from the Delhom Service League and the Ceramic Circle of Charlotte: Four excellent titles selected in memory of the inimitable and much missed Pat Bursley.
And a very special donation to be unveiled on Tuesday, March 18th! We are truly fortunate to have such generous benefactors to the library!

More on MARCO
Entries have been a little (!) slow in coming in the "Give MARCO a face!" contest so here is some more idea fodder . . .
Did you know that it is to Marco Polo that the use of the term porcellana to describe what we now know as porcelain is attributed?
And don't forget that the person who comes up with the best "face" or logo, gets their choice of THESE FABULOUS PRIZES! Select one of these unique book bags or apron for your very own!

Here are some close-ups of the fabulous designs!

WAY Cool Dept.
In the latest issue of Fiberarts, check out a short article about an upcoming exhibition/conference at The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design in Hendersonville and one of the featured presenters, a woman who is doing some of the coolest stuff around: Rachel Wingfield of Loop.pH Design.
She creates "environmentally responsive textiles" like "the light-reactive window blind that glows brighter the darker the space becomes." How many ways can I say "I WANT ONE!!"
The exhibition Inspired Design: Creative Entrepreneurial Textiles is May 20-August 22 and the conference is in January. Road trip??

Look What I found Dept. While checkin out YouTube, did a quick "mint museum" search and found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYZtt9oiKjY Hear Carolyn describe the "cultural campus"as you "travel" through the scale model!

February love notes

2008-02-04T09:51:00.005-05:00

Say Hello to MARCO!

Yes, as introduced at the staff meeting on Monday, the Mint Art Research Catalog Online is up and running and available to staff. Everyone with a network login should have a shortcut to MARCO on their desktop. Please give us feedback - any problems, suggestions, questions - just let us know!

MARCO has a name - but no face!
As a way to make MARCO more memorable, the Library is sponsoring a contest to give MARCO a face! MARCO's "face" could be a logo, a character, a cartoon . . . you pick! Actually, we pick . . . you create. So, sharpen your pencils and give MARCO a face! Entries should be submitted via email to joyce.weaver@mintmuseum.org or placed in the library mailbox. Prize to be announced soon!

Score!

Back in the day, The Red Clay Reader was an "ahead of its time" journal that featured excellent writing by such folk as Fred Chappell, Doris Betts, Jack Kerouac, etc. but also art by then UNCC prof Maud Gatewood among others. This seminal journal lasted from 1964 to 1970 and the Mint Library now has the complete set of seven issues. Stuff in here just isn't anywhere else. Oh, and it was published right here in Charlotte.

Off the rack . . .
the magazine rack that is.

Latest issue of School Arts (Vol. 107, No. 6, Feb 2008) features a page of links for resources on contemporary art for art educators. Links include ArtThink (www.sfmoma.org/artthink ) and Art Today (http://schools.walkerart.org:8083:arttoday/ ) - Good stuff!

Great article on Jun Kaneko in Arts and Activities (Vol. 143, N. 1, Feb 2008) - I'm sending a copy down to MMCD! - with a link to more information and to obtain resources for teachers.
Here's the link: http://artsandactivities.com/

Arthur C. Danto chimes in on the whole art v. craft thing in his lengthy article "Visionary Ceramics" in the latest issue of American Ceramics (15/2). Yes, a new issue of American Ceramics has actually arrived! I've made a copy of the article for the Jones Library; the journal goes to MMCD.

New Titles

Danko-McGhee, Kathy. The Impact of Early Art Experiences on Literacy Development. Provides specific example activities and relates them to specific literacy development skills. Brilliant.
Sanford Robinson Gifford [1823-1880] The catalog from an exhibition of the artist's work at the University of Texas Art Museum in 1970.
Sublime Spaces & Visionary Worlds: Built Environments of Vernacular Artists. Catalog from the Kohler Center exhibition - Fascinating examination and celebration of "outsider" art.
Wiley, Kehinde. The World Stage - China. Wiley takes on the Cultural Revolution in his own inimitable style.
Also, the 2008 editions of the Official Museum Directory and Who's Who in American Art are in!

End of year flurries

2008-01-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

. . . of activity that is. And starting the new year with a bang!

In the Can't Believe It department: Huge thanks to Epson America for donating an Epson 10000XL Photo Scanner to the library from their Focused Giving Program! WOW! Digitization projects, here we come!!

Online catalog update: Our converted records have been imported again . . . for the THIRD time and hopefully this time will be the charm. Bar code labels had to be returned so a slight delay on getting the labeling started as well. Looking to launch to staff at the February staff meeting, so let's keep our fingers crossed!

Recommended Readings:

Our own Charles Mo in Fiberarts, the Jan/Feb issue, on caring for a wearable art collection. There's a copy in the Jones library of the article and the magazine itself is at MMCD!
Ken Shulman's Once Bitten Twice Denied article in Art & Antiques December issue about the de-authentication of a Warhol silkscreen.
Review of Jiha Moon exhibition in the latest ArtForum
Great article on Randy Shull in the December issue of American Craft.
Museums and Libraries Engaging America's Youth: Final Report of A Study of IMLS Youth Programs, 1998-2003. Access the PDF at http://www.imls.gov/pdf/YouthReport.pdf

In the Great Gifts! department: The library has been extremely fortunate this past year with gifts we have received from generous donors. Nelson Grice donated 91 titles in 2007 on American Indian art and culture; artists Hugh Slonem, Lucinda Bunnen and Philip Moulthrop each donated books on their own works; and Frances Parrack donated 32 books on quilting along with back issues of Quilter's Newsletter to name but a few. Friends of the Mint not only donated a book to honor their outgoing president but also funds for the purchase of a book in honor of Jon Stuhlman. Plus we received exhibition catalogs from almost 30 art museums around the country as part of the exchange program! And these are just a few of the wonderful donors and donations that aided the library in 2007. Many, many thanks to all!

And in the Last but Not Least department: Early in 2007, the library received the gift of the personal papers and sketches of an interior designer named Jessica Rummell. She taught interior design at Parsons in Paris in the 1920s and then moved to New York and had her own interior design business there for years. Although the sketches were marvelous - she would go to auctions, see something she liked, run home and sketch it and then take the sketch to her client to see if they would be interested! - we realized that this was not the place for this type of archive. Fortunately, Parsons School of Design is! The head of their library and archive is not only willing but delighted to receive Miss Rummell's papers as she is former faculty! Now her work will not only have a home, but a home where students can access all her fabuous sketches and research! A very happy ending.

Too busy to blog?

2007-10-31T21:10:00.001-04:00

In the little things mean a lot department: Nancy Mosley, cataloger extraordinaire, and currently making considerable leeway into the bulk of uncataloged material at MMCD, has also made a significant contribution to the Library of Congress. Yes, that is correct: the Library of Congress.
Recently, she wrote them an email.
"I am a cataloger at The Mint Museums in Charlotte, North Carolina,and we have a large concentration in decorative arts and crafts. This includes glass. In cataloging books on this topic, I have found an inconsistency in the use of the terms "Art glass" and "Glass art" in the literature, and unfortunately in the LC Catalog. I have not found any scope notes on these two topics, either. In the Classification Web, the LC Class number associated with "Art glass" implies that it is a specific type of glass, and for "Glass art" it is a large range of numbers. I am using these implied definitions in choosing which subject heading to use, but would appreciate some more official guidance. Can you help?Sincerely,Nancy Mosley"

To which they responded:
We will add scope notes to these headings to clarify usage. The definition proposed for Art glass is: works on varieties of decorative colored glass produced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The definition proposed for Glass art is: works on art that is created using glass. Milicent Wewerka, Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Library of Congress

As Nancy noted in her email to me telling me of this, "It pays to be a pest. The Library of Congress should have done this ages ago." But they didn't and YOU Nancy are the one that got them to do it. For those of you unfamiliar with the responsiveness of bureaucracy, this is HUGE!!
Congratulations Nancy!!

Back in the grant trenches department: The retrospective conversion is officially done. This means all the card catalog and notebook records have been converted to digital form and can go into the library software. Hopefully, that will take place over the next couple of days. We are looking to show you all the catalog - staff only! - after the first of the year. Can you believe it? I'm not quite sure I do.

In with the new department: Welcome Joe! He's made the rounds and I think everyone has had a chance to meet Joe Eshleman, the new library assistant. If we've missed anyone, please come by and say hi! He is here on Tues., Wed., and Thurs. Although he is kind of new to the library field, he is an old hand at the museum/non-profit world having worked at Discovery Place for 12 years. Welcome Joe!

This is not goodbye department: Shawn's last day is Friday, November 2 BUT she will be back - she promised! - on a volunteer basis to help with barcoding all these dang books! She is already (and has been) working full-time at Heroes, so the last month she has been doing double-duty big time. Thanks for everything Shawn! And see you soon!

Road trip department: SOFA chicago opens today and a little piece of MMCD is there too courtesy of the Founder's Circle along with intrepid staff. Wouldn't it be cool if one of them could blog and share impressions, images of the show, reactions to our exhibit booth? Next best thing, SOFA's blog: http://sofaexpo.com/loop/

And of course the last but not least department: Since it is always fun to see how others see us, let's look! Here's a search on Flickr - the photo sharing site - about US! Enjoy :)
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=mint+museum+-toys+-champoy+-sakura&m=text

What the heck is going on with the grant and other library news

2007-04-03T16:06:00.000-04:00

Let's see . . . since the last post, the contracts for the library software and for the retrospective conversion have been signed; we've received the library server and other hardware; a software company representative has been on site for two days to set up implementation parameters; getting the job description posted for the grant-funded library position; and next week, another software person will be here to install the server! We are rolling! Please excuse the glazed look in my eyes.

File under new experiences: We tried but did not get a book we bid on at a Sotheby's auction in London. Many thanks to the Delhom Service League, especially Betty Holland and Caroline Gray, for their incredible support in our mutual attempt to get this specific title. Much was learned in the process!

New titles keep coming! Here are a few which may be of interest:

Georgia O'Keeffe: Circling Around Abstraction - Jonathan's book! And the first exhibition to focus on her circular abstract forms and their significance in American art.

By Hand: the Use of Craft in Contemporary Art - "From Kiki Smith's lovingly etched birds to dynamo-ville's one-of-a-kind puppets to Barb Hunt's knitted land mines to Evil Twin's hand-bound publications, today's art revels in the care and consideration of craft." What do you think?

A Life on Paper: the Drawings and Lithographs of JohnThomas Biggers - May well be the essential work on this artist. The author worked with Biggers over the last thirteen years of his life and later with his widow. Many of the works depicted - and selected by Biggers before his death - have never before been published for a general audience.

In the Hands of African American Collectors: the Personal Treasures of Bernard & Shirley Kinsey - The catalog for the exhibition of this significant collection of documents and works of art from a couple with a remarkable collective vision.

Frederic Church, Winslow Homer and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape - A gorgeous celebration of American art in an exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt.

The Dinner Party: From Creation to Preservation - A brand new publication, rich in detail, about the iconic feminist art work which finally has a permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum. Brilliant and enduring.

You may have noticed all the bins and boxes in the library over the last month. These are all from a single donation - from local appraiser Laurie Triplette who is moving to Mississippi. Her donation included her own collection of artist files, particularly her files on North Carolina artists. The donation is a huge addition to the library collection. Laurie, thank you again and you will be missed. And a shout-out to Kurt and William for being the muscle for the pickup and to Leah for helping when we got back here. Thank you all!

Last but not least dept.: Look out for a new 3-part series on PBS called Craft in America. It's a series, an exhibition and a book! Check out the website and view the streaming video preview featuring Sam Maloof at www.craftinamerica.org. Check local listings for the series which is to start in May.

2007-01-16T15:31:00.000-05:00

Welcome interns! The Library of The Mint Museums is pleased to host two interns this semester. Candace Sailstad, an English major from UNC-Charlotte, will be helping to create bibliographies and wiki pages for exhibitions among other duties. Jennifer France, a graduate student in the Library and Information Science program at the University of South Carolina, will be working in the Delhom Library helping to organize the massive amount of brochures and pamphlets on ceramics. Welcome to you both!

One of the sayings in my family is "Weavers wobble but they don't fall down." And while not necessarily or always true, it does describe a basic steadiness in the clan whatever wobble comes our way. Library shelves on the other hand . . . (wasn't that just a brilliant segue?) if wobbly, may fall down. And ours are. Wobbly, I mean. So City of Charlotte to the rescue! Within the next month we'll be moving some books around in both the Jones and Delhom libraries to facilitate getting the library shelving stabilized. Just a few wall clips and some bracing across the top should do it! And we shall be ever grateful.

New this week in the library:

Sheila Hicks: Weaving As Metaphor - Published to accompany the first exhibition of a contemporary artist organized by the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture, this gorgeous book focuses on the weavings Hicks has done throughout her career with essays by Arthur C. Danto and Joan Simon. Special note: Sheila Hicks was kind enough to send this to us herself. A reminder too that her Soft Stones are on exhibit in the Rankin gallery.

A couple of titles about nuts and bolts museum stuff
2006 Museum Financial Information, the results of the AAM survey with information from over 800 museums in the United States. An excellent benchmarking tool.
And Museum Strategy and Marketing: Designing Missions, Building Audiences, Generating Revenue and Resources touted as the "first and only guide to strategic planning and marketing for museums." Comprehensive and well-reviewed.

Sergei Isupov Sculpture 1996-2006 - Ferrin Gallery's catalog of the artist's fantastical porcelain sculptures. (OK, on your toes pop culture reference: Does Guillermo Del Toro own any of his work? If not, he should!)

Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudi, Miro, Dali: Hefty in size and content, the catalogue for the exhibition organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And it's back . . . Treasures from the Stacks Dept.!

If you've read the text panel for the lovely Mowbray painting Rose Harvest (1887) hanging in the Spangler gallery, you know that this painting was exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago - the legendary "White City." Did you know the Library has a copy of the Official Catalogue of Exhibits - Fine Arts? Did you know it was the largest exhibition of American art in the United States? View a little piece of American art history. Personal favorite part: In the back are blank pages for the fair-goer to write notes, comments, etc. and in the library copy is penciled " Monday Ferris Wheel." For more information about the 1893 Columbian Exposition, see http://members.cox.net/academia/cassatt8.html.

Back on track for the new year

2006-12-28T08:37:00.000-05:00

After a LONG hiatus, the library blog is back. Hopefully trying to fulfill its "library update" function and not just be another task on the list not done yet!! Best wishes to all for the holiday season and a (we are all hoping) a much better new year!

Now to the good stuff -

New Titles In! (in no particular order)

Romare Bearden: the Caribbean Dimension - Sally and Richard Price's book is as lush and thoughtful as Bearden's fabulous watercolors illustrating the pages. A brilliant depiction in text and image of Bearden's life and work in the Caribbean.

Museums in the 21st Century: Concepts, Projects, Buildings - From Prestel, over 20 new museums (or expansions!) around the world are described with excellent exterior and interior photography as well as, in many cases, floor plans. Essays on the present and future of museum architecture round out the text. Exposed, interior, multi-story, somewhat sculptural staircases are quite popular!

The Fundraising Habits of Supremely Successful Boards: a 59-Minute Guide to Assuring Your Organization's Future - Succinct, pithy and right on target. And right on time.

Who's Who in American Art 2007-2008 - The latest edition of the standard reference.

David C. Driskell: Artist and Scholar - The first biography of this influential figure in 20th century American art with nearly two hundred images.

Transforming Vision: the Wood Sculpture of William Hunter 1970-2005 - A gorgeous catalog of an exhibition of this wood turner's sensual works. Includes pieces from the Craft + Design collection as well as those from some very familiar collectors. Can you say Cocobolo?

Pisgah Forest and Nonconnah: the Potteries of Walter B. Stephen - Written by Rodney Leftwich and with a foreword by Daisy Wade Bridges, a needed and heavily illustrated reference on this seminal figure in North Carolina and American Art pottery.

The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content, and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art - From guest curator and author Lowery Stokes Sims - great concept, very cool exhibition.

News You Can Use

In the "Miss Luddite Regrets" department: AVISO, the newsletter of the American Association of Museums, is going completely online in January. For staff without an individual AAM membership, access is available through the Mint institutional membership. See me in the library. - JW

For the magazine article you are most likely to be asked about this month, see Charlotte Magazine's "Artistic Ambition" in the January issue now in the library. If it becomes available online, I'll send out the URL.

Learn more before you go! The "don't miss" event in January has got to be the Lecture & Book Signing: Casualities of War: the Looting of the Iraq Museum. If you want some background, check out http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0307/online_extra.html from the June 2003 online edition of National Geographic. Additional reference links follow the article. Remember, it's Thursday, January 18 at 7 pm in the Wachovia Theater at Imaginon!

art:21 Followup: Queens student Meg Whitlock won the $100. prize for best essay in the contest featured as part of our art:21 grant project. See obligatory cheesy check-hand-off photo! Actually, Meg wrote an excellent essay on the work of Kara Walker, the focal point of the grant project. Well done Meg! Her essay will be posted on the art:21 web site this spring! Isn't that fantastic! And in further art:21 news: a new season will debut next year. The production company is being rather coy about which artists will be featured but expect the list to be announced after the first of the year. One highlight: more footage on Kara Walker is definite as they re-visit some previously featured artists.

Thanks to the NEH grant, The Mint Museums is now an institutional member of the North Carolina Preservation Consortium. Interested staff should check out their frequent, very inexpensive classes and seminars. Go to http://www.ncpreservation.org .

In the "Last but not least" department: Many thanks to all the volunteers, donors, interns and staff that made this year a very special one for the Library! A special thanks and fond farewell (of sorts) to Arquimedes Thomas who is leaving staff at the end of this year. He has promised to return as a volunteer and we are holding him to it!

And a in a final note, here are a few FY07 library stats for those who like that sort of thing: Over 300 items donated, over 800 titles cataloged, over a dozen interlibrary loans processed, three separate grant projects (more on grants in the next post), and over 140 visitors not including staff and interns.

Happy New Year!

Fun tools courtesy of PLCMC's Helene Blower - Thanks again Helene!

2006-09-01T09:29:00.000-04:00

www.myspace.com/libraryloft - the Imaginon teen space on MySpace

www.secondlife.com - create a new persona and inhabit an alternative (virtual) universe - this is huge

www.flickr.com - this online photo organizing and sharing site -(I think it also has tools to create "trading cards" using your own images - for free - if I can just find it on the site - more on this later)

http://plcmclearnng.blogspot.com Helene created this online learning tool for PLCMC staff to learn about and create blogs, wikis, etc. BUT anybody can take part! This means us!

www.aadl.org site of Ann Arbor District Library - a great example of a web site, created with free online tools, and what is able to be accomplished - right now they are gathering images from the community for the "future archive"

www.cluetrain.com web site for info(?) about the book, The Cluetrain Manifesto - Helene recommended highly as intro to all this stuff

www.therengen.com - here come the Millennials

Welcome to Library Update 2.0!

2006-08-31T11:00:00.000-04:00

Greetings all!
With all the stuff going on with the library - 3 grants (yes, three!), new books, new intern, etc. etc. - I kept thinking I've needed to send out a Library Update. The problem was sitting down and getting it all written in one shot. So, here is one way of dealing with that . . . plus, now others get to add to it.
The "2.0" reference is of course to the wave of 2.0 tagged entities - web 2.0, library 2.0, museum 2.0 - to indicate a new level of social networking and collaboration by these entities.
We'll see how this works!
___________________________

The IMLS grant period starts tomorrow. If you see me muttering under my breath or running around with a glazed expression, please understand.

The Art21 grant project is in full swing! Hope you all will mark your calendars for September 12 7pm here at the Mint for the Art21 screening and conversation in the Van Every. Carla and David Eisen will discuss the work of Kara Walker - her artist's book Freedom: a Fable from the collection is on exhibit - and the Art21 series segment to be screened is on Kara Walker. Many thanks to Kate Bailon-Chase and Kimberly Thomas for all their help with this!
Besides the event itself being a little different, our partner in the project is Everett Library of Queens University. More to come on this!

Well, here it is folks - the first post on this new blog. Let me know what you think!