Saturday, April 2, 2011

Saturday Sharing (My Finds Are Yours)

In today's new edition of Saturday Sharing, take a virtual swing through four of the fabulous digital collections at the Library of Congress, check out the curated ArtBase at Rhizome, learn how contemporary artist Rebecca Crowell uses the cold wax medium, preview photographer Diane Walker's new book Illuminating the Mystery, and head down the Appalachian Trail with filmmaker Kevin Gallagher.

✭ The virtual Library of Congress is a fabulous resource. Interested in viewing newspaper pages from 1860 to 1922? You might find what you're looking for in Chronicling America, which lists 3,308,613 pages of historic newspapers from 23 states. (And that number could have changed by now.) Perhaps you're studying Japanese woodblock prints and drawings? The LOC has digitized more than 2,500 images of such artworks dating from the 17th Century to the 20th Century. Maybe you've just won a coveted residency at The McDowell Colony and want to bone up on its history? The Library's A Century of Creativity: The MacDowell Colony 1907-2007 should be the first place you look. Is social dancing more your thing? Head to An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals ca. 1490-1920, a collection of more than 200 social dance manuals at the LOC. All these and many more collections are easily accessible and a gold mine for students, researchers, and anyone who's just plain curious.

✭ Created in 2001, ArtTactic provides art market research services by paid subscription, in addition to a database of podcasts. ArtTactic also partners with ArtInsight to offer art market-related seminars and courses to individuals and companies. 

ArtTactic on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ An online archive of new media art from all over the world is available at Rhizome ArtBase. Submissions are welcomed and reviewed by curatorial staff each month. Non-paying users may view all work in the Artbase, sign up for a weekly newsletter, create a portfolio page or profile, and submit work to ArtBase. Member and organizational subscriptions that offer a range of benefits, including access to various new media technology tools, are available.

✭ I recently came across the contemporary abstract paintings of Rebecca Crowell and then found her interesting blog, where she pens her thoughts about all-things-art. In a brief video, Crowell describes how she works at her studio on 40 acres in Wisconsin. Crowell will be an artist-in-residence in Ireland this fall. She recently started a members-only Oil and Wax site for artists who work with cold wax medium. Her two books are Connections: Abstract Paintings 2006-2008 and Old Walls and Lost Paths: An Artist's Residency in Catalonia.

Rebecca Crowell on FaceBook

✭ Photographer and writer Diane Walker recently published Illuminating the Mystery: Photographic Reflections on the Gospel of Thomas, a lovely book that results from Diane's three-year project to illustrate her responses to the Gospel of Thomas. The book is available in hardback and paperback. A preview is available. Diane writes daily at Contemplative Photography and posts her images and poems at Photos and Poems by Diane Walker. Her videopoems are here.

✭ In the video below, "Green Tunnel", Kevin Gallagher of Richmond, Virginia, has condensed the six months he spent hiking the 2,200 mile-long Appalachian Trail into five reinterpreted minutes of stop-motion. To learn more about the filmmaker and his experience along the trail, visit his Website.


Green Tunnel from Kevin Gallagher on Vimeo.

1 comment:

the sad red earth said...

The LOC newspaper archive will help me with a book I'm working on. You're becoming my personal librarian.

Cool, evocative video. I can't believe I haven't hiked the trail yet.

Thought you might be interested to know that Stanley Plumly, the Maryland poet laureate you covered in February, has a poem in the April Atlantic.