Studios Books

Being a Michigander, there is a certain nastalgia about our Upper Penninsula. That shared nastalgia and love/enjoyment of life comes out it all of these books. You'll laugh so hard that your wife will think you've gone crazy.

this is only the 3rd book in a series of five and i can already guaruntee that no matter where you'e from, you'll love this book! living near Flint, Michigan most of my life and going to the UP a few times makes it even easier to identify with this book. i've been through the town where the writer grew up(in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) and its a lot like my hometown. especially in the first story, the Kindergarten Chronicles, i can really agree with the writer. it felt like you were the dumbest kid in class on the first day of kindergarten, but it also felt like you were already tons smarter than everybody else and you were the only sane one there! at one point in the story, when the writer's class' assingnment was to draw a ball and color it, they could only choose from red, yellow or black. the writer uses a turquoise(sophisticated!)crayon that he brought from home and a tinkertoy can to make a perfectly round circle while the teacher isn't looking. since the kid next to him was having trouble, he thought he would help him out and tell him his secret. when he finished explaining, it said,"He gave me a blank stare." AMEN! this same thing happened to me a lot, and still does. another example of feeling like you're the only smart one there. and when their teacher tells them she'll pick the best one and the artist will be the winner. when she "judges", she says "they're all so good i can't decide! so you're all winners!" AMEN! again! i hated this when it happened to me! the writer then writes, "It was clear the school system didn't appreciate independent thinkers." this is how i always felt. then the same kid he tries to help does something that i was much too chicken to do as a little kid for fear of getting into deep trouble (that i shouldn't mention directly because i'd be spoiling it for you) to the fat kid who takes over all the toys, the writer gets blamed for it. so when the teacher keeps him after school, the kid who did it says it was him, not the narrator. after he(the narrator) is let off, the teacher tells him that his ball was actually the best, and she just didn't want to hurt the other kids' feelings. i can identify with this, too. i couldn't stand the suspense. gee,i hope i didn't spoil too much for you, but it was necessary to help get my point across of why i love this book. besides, this was only part of the first story in a book of 9 short stories. again, if you want a grab-it and read a great, quick, funny, book(with modestly clean humor), this is the book for you! do not pass this one up!!

Northern Passages is the third book in Jerry Harju's chronicles of growing up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It is chock full of adventures of his boyhood. Even if you grew up in the city, when reading this book you can experience growing up in rural America. Northern Passages is filled with humor, nostalgia, and sometimes sadness. Every child's first day of school is a memorable one, but in Jerry's life it was even more than that. Imagine a five-year-old explaining to his mother why he was kept after school. This book also commemorates piano recitals, the annual Fourth of July bonfire, the poignancy of changing schools in the middle of the year, Jerry's introduction to and coping with segregation, the rigors of catechism class, home economics without the girls, and finally his night out with the boys, visiting a wide open Wisconsin border town at the ripe old age of sixteen. From beginning to end, each page of Northern Passages will bring a smile and a chuckle.

This is a wonderful book of short stories with interesting characters and plots. Anyone who likes the UP will love it.

cully gage was the pen name for charles van riper. cully is Finnish for charles. gage was his grandpa last name. this book contains stories of his child hood days in tioga a fictional town in the upper penninsula of michigan. he really grew up in champion michigan. the stories he tells take place in the early 1900 to 1920. times were tough no t.v. radio even the newspapers were days old and were saved to be used in the out house. the mine had caved in and was closed down for good. all the good timber had been cut and the logging industry was going down hill. everybody hunted fished and gardened for their food. the winters were very cold with lots of snow. evrybody had a wood cooking stove. things weren't as easy as we have it now. ther are alot of real characters in his story. they are based on real people but he changed their names.

Cully Gage is an inspiring writer and his northwoods books are wonderful reads for any age. They vividly describe life in the early 20th century in Michigan's beautiful but unforgiving wilderness of the "U.P.". Each story, as it's told, unfolds before the reader, making you feel as if you could actually be there. It made me wish that I were there on more occasions than one. Kids will love these stories as well as adults interested in history, wilderness, bravery and humor. I highly recommend this for ANY collection.

My mother read this book to me as a child. While I don't personally remember it, my mother certainly does. Once I had my own children, my mother would often quote the first verse of this book to them, in sing-song fashion, even though it had been years since she'd read the book. So, last year, I finally got this book for my children (four under 7).

As you can see from the excerpt of the first verse in the editorial review above, this book is very rhythmic and sing-song in fashion, which children, of course love. But, it's an enjoyable read for me as well, unlike some children's books that I dread to get out. Each page spread has a different mother animal with her babies (1 more each time). The pictures of the animals are also quite attractive. My only peeve is that in the final verse the mother and little beavers ten "beave," whatever that means. Would have been nice if some other word, and if necessary, another animal had been used.

This may be a small thing to some, but if you remove the dust jacket, the hardcover book has the same attractive cover. I love this! I hate dustjackets because of tearing, but I love hardcover books for durability. I love it when hardcover books (especially children's books) also have the "real cover" on the book itself.

I highly recommend this book as a read-aloud to anyone with young children.

This is one of those sweet, gentle books that a child will remember for years to come. The pictures are beautiful, the rhymes almost lyrical and on top of it all, it teaches counting. It's especially fun when the child realizes that other animals in the picture also add up to the same number as the main animal (5 ladybugs, 5 leaves, 5 stones, etc.). My little boy has requested this book consistently for the past year and he's almost 4. Something we'll save for his children.

This is my 3 year old daughter's favorite book. I read er, sing it to her several times a day. Each page is like a new treat, this book is beautifully illustrated. Each page has a certain number of animals, and the same number of other things for your child to find. On the four little rattie's page, there are 4 baby rats(which are adorable), there are also 4 ears of corn, 4 chickens, etc. It has been extrememly helpful for counting practice. Before my daughter knew the name of the book she called it the cute little animal book. After a month, this book still has top honor on my kids' bookshelf, with the fickleness of my children, that is saying a lot.

I found this book very helpful in learning to use all of Painter's features effectively. It was easy to read & has lots of good photos. My only wish is that it had more accurate instructions on using the CD.

My favorite section was on the Painter pallets. It shows example pictures for each "brush" & it's variants. Sample photos also showed the various options available in the gradient box. These made it far easier to know what tool to use.

Other sections of the book covered masking, image hose use, painting & composite techniques, special effects, working with type, enhancing & outputting images, animation & web application, and using Painter with other programs.

The CD contains some good movies on making blobs, creating an image hose from a floater, building and editing floaters maps and making mosaic or patterned type. It also includes tutorials on making movies & working with color.

This book is very useful, in that the ideas and follow-through presented will get you well into capable use of the software. The organization, quality and content are top-notch.
Job Well Done!

Wayne D
Arizona-where art is everywhere!

It's an incredible book! A must-have for all Painter users. The book contains step by step instructions to create amazing effects seen on fully colored pictures.

This book is so comprehensive and has answered so many of my initial questions regarding the start of a pottery studio and business. Steve writes in a language the layman and advance potter can both understand. The chapters are coherently laid out with the pertinent topics such as vendors, supplies, electrical needs, studio set-up, equipment making and purchasing, space needs, floor plans; the list goes on and on for the whole book. The back of the book has many vendors, suppliers and web links for reference. Although the web pages of many have changed, it is a great start on connecting with the pottery world. I highly recommend this book.

This is the book I have been looking for. I'm building a clay studio and wanted advice and tips on how to set it up. This is the only book I've found that gives really in-depth information on these topics. He also covers other topics you would want to know if you're going to be a professional potter.

Not only does he share some of his own horror stories (so you won't repeat them yourself!), but he also includes insets of the stories of other pro potters and their studios. Very helpful. He covers studio needs, selection, etc.; working with suppliers, vendors, contractors; equipment selection; and business practices, marketing and self-promotion (the hardest part of the business for me - and I think for most artists!). He also talks a bit about teaching and it's effect on your work (pro and con). The subtitle of the book says it all: "The complete guide to defining, identifying, and establishing yourself in the craft community".

This book is a must have for any professional potter and will be found very helpful even to hobbiests.

It is comforting to know that there is a book out there that is well written and primarily intended for people like me, who earn a living from clay. Naturally, most of us have already knocked our heads and come up with some soluations - discussed by Steve, but the confirmation of having made "right" decisions, etc., takes a load off and builds confidence. Had I been able to read a text like this six years ago, I would have had less bruises to my head and my ego! His other book, Raku: A Practical Approach is also a treasure which I notice is not listed here on Amazon - uhhmmmmm! Would be nice to have that as an Amazon selection.

MARTIN GRUSINS' NEW BOOK IS A VERY VALUABLE TOOL FOR MUSICIANS AND SINGERS WHO NEED TO IMPROVE THEIR SIGHTSINGING SKILLS. I RECOMMEND IT.

MARTIN GRUSINS' "PROFESSIONAL SIGHTSINGING TECHNIQUE" IS A COMPREHENSIVE, HANDSOMELY PRINTED AND METICULOUSLY ORGANIZED TUTORIAL FOR THE SERIOUS STUDENT OF SIGHTSINGING, EAR TRAINING, AND MUSIC THEORY. THIS VOLUME IS ACTUALLY THE FIRST OF A SERIES OF PROGRESSIVELY ADVANCED BOOKS THAT GRUSIN IS WRITING BASED ON THE VAST EXPERIENCE HE HAS GAINED IN HIS MANY YEARS OF TEACHING PROFESSIONAL VOCAL TECHNIQUE AND SIGHTSINGING TECHNIQUE TO SINGERS AND MUSICIANS.

AS A GRADUATE OF THE EASTMAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC WITH A MAJOR IN THEORY AND AS A NEW YORK STUDIO MUSICIAN FOR THE PAST 35 YEARS, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE MARTIN GRUSIN STUDIO PROFESSIONAL MUSICIANSHIP SERIES.

PROFESSIONAL SIGHTSINGING TECHNIQUE IS A MUST FOR ANY MUSICIAN SERIOUSLY INTERESTED IN INCREASING HIS OR HER ABILITY TO READ AND SING MUSICAL NOTATION. GRUSINS' BOOK IS WELL ORGANIZED AND CLEARLY ILLUSTRATED WITH A LOGICAL AND EASY TO FOLLOW GRAPHIC PRESENTATION. WORK WITH HIS SYSTEM AND WATCH YOUR CONFIDENCE GROW.

The ideas and concepts in this book are wonderful. When I am not looking at it for inspiration, I am looking at just for sheer enjoyment.

A book that no designer should be without. A lasting source of inspiration.

Here's how to start a studio, publicize it, become a superstar, and change the world: (1) From birth, draw like a Renaissance angel. (2) Be one of 15 percent of applicants selected to attend New York's Cooper Union. (3) Get fired from your first job, or hate it and quit. (4) Surround yourself with like-minded, equally talented partners. (5) Follow your heart, put forth your ideas, be fearless. (6) In a grid-locked Modernist era, produce fanciful, hand-drawn work. (7) Keep doing it for 50 years. Over 25 of those years, distribute 86 issues of a self-promotional publication that still continues to inspire.

For a quarter-century, members of Push Pin Studio used every art technique -- woodcut, charcoal, watercolor, collage, pen-and-ink, color adhesive film -- to interpret subjects including Good and Evil, Black and White, and Teens and Bikers. Topics ranged from the serious ("Violence and the American Dream") to the silly ("The Mouth").

Milton Glaser has been known to say that nobody draws any more. This book, which features at least one cover and spread from each issue -- many tattered and yellowing -- may spawn a revival of the artist's hand as a design tool, and a revival of the one-color job. The first 30 or so issues of the Graphic, with a couple of virtuoso two- and three-color exceptions, are a lesson in how to do brilliant work in black on newsprint. Contrast is the designer's best friend and weapon: white space against black, tiny against huge, curlicue against justified column of type. Wit is a powerful tool, too.

A head-and-shoulders portrait of a large barnyard rooster graces the book's cover. Thickly outlined on benday-dotted background, he sports a tuxedo shirt, bow-tie, monocle, dotted beak, and bright red wattle. I'd like to think that the mascot choice has more to do with the concept of "something to crow about" than being fearful-or cuckolded. In a phone interview, Seymour Chwast set me straight by listing the bird's qualities: authoritative, prolific, sophisticated, and on-time. Ah-ha, the real meaning is "the early bird meets the deadline," with a few grains of self-mockery thrown in.

If Push Pin did not singlehandedly transform mainstream culture, as Steven Heller suggests in the introduction, it had a symbiotic relationship with it. Push Pin took from everything around them: from the Victorian, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco, from old signboards and newspapers, American primitives and wood-type specimens, from current art and music, fashion and advertising. The faces in Chwast's "Dante's Inferno" poster of 1967 echo Richard Avendon's solarized Beatles portraits. The Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine -- and the rainbows-and-butterflies trend in animation that ensued -- owed its aesthetic to Push Pin. It will take a more diligent researcher than I to ascertain whether the color and line that burst through in the Push Pin Graphic issue 52 (and morphed into Chwast's signature style) was inspired by psychedelic rock posters, or whether the Push Pin style reached San Francisco concert promoters first.

Content aside, the Push Pin Graphic is a book well worth examining for its own design: the hefty squarish format, sense of scale and pacing, fine color and black- and-white printing on uncoated stock. The details also merit pleasurable study: old-fashioned typefaces like Cheltenham and Stymie set in old-fashioned ways like centered and flush-left-and-right; even the placement of the folios on the page. Just as the subject matter of each issue of the Push Pin Graphic mirrored goings-on in the world, the design and pacing of the book mirror the issues being featured. As the Graphic became more eclectic and colorful and began to function as self-promotion for a larger group of artists, the pages of the book become more patterned and colorful. Martin Venezky has honored the Push Pin style while designing a book that's 100 percent up-to-date.

This book may be a walk down memory lane, but it's far from an epitaph. Glaser, 75, now working on posters, books, a museum exhibition, and performance art with a political bent, recently said, "Retiring is for people who fundamentally hate what they do." Chwast, 73, added, "Every era had its doubts, but we kept going. The culture -- music, posters, films, kept rubbing off on us, and we keep reinventing it and rubbing it back on them."

If the Push Pin conviction, zest, and humor rubs off on today's readers -- and if some of them decide to shut down their computers and digital cameras for a little while and pick up a brush or pen and ink -- this book will be a great success.

Acording to Greg this book contains the first year of Real Life, all of The Forge comics, comentaries on all of the comics in the book, plus a lot of other extras that can not be found on the website. I have been reading Real Life since the Keenspot days, and have always loved it. Well worth it.

I haven't read the book yet and I hope it gets here in time for Christmas, but I have read all the comics on Reallifecomics.com which are essentially the same comics contained in the collection. I started reading real life back when it started (yes, when it was still with keenspot), and it's definitely one of my favorite webcomics...right up there with Penny-Arcade and PvP. I'm certain that the book is fantastic and the comics contained within are not only incredibly humorous, they are also very accessible for readers that aren't into video games and computers. I'd go as far as saying that it's at least as accessible as Dilbert or Foxtrot...your Grandmother could understand these comics and still laugh, they're that good.

If you've never read the webcomic Real Life, you don't know what you're missing. It's hilarious! One of my favorite webcomics, definitely, and I am SO buying the book. I recommend you to check out the website: www.reallifecomics.com.

Oh, and apparently the first year of The Forge, another comic done by Greg Dean, is also in there. Yet another reason for you to buy the book.

So, as short and to-the-point as this review is, I want to share with you the sheer greatness of Real Life and encorage you to buy the book. So? Go buy it already!

The newly designed characters, exciting and unique storylines plus the most advanced 3D computer technology of coloring make it a stunning sci-fi comic work. Done by the Archangel Studio, they really made the comic book a new generation of visual performance which combines traditional drawing skills and advanced computer 3D technology plus video game and animation elements. The Red Star especially this collected edition is a must have for all of the comic fans, sci-fi fans and video game fans. Buy it!!!

Without doubt, The Red Star will, with its outstanding production and conceptual design, usher in a new visual front for comic books-or at the very least, make some skeptics appreciate the possibilities presented by computerized artwork. Utilizing wonderful 3D modeling and texturing techniques (which are seamlessly blended with the penciled artwork, I might add) comparable to the stuff done in some of today's video games and animated features, this new comic has to be seen to be believed.

Christian Gossett and B.J. Kayl have concocted a perfect combination of fantasy and sci-fi in a story of epic war that is truly engrossing. The narrative style is smoothly sophisticated and will certainly please the die-hard Alan Moore fans. Gossett and Kayl's novel-like prose demonstrates a keen understanding and respect for the readers' intelligence. His meticulous sequence of the URRS' invasion made me feel as if I was on the scene of the action.

Computerized comic book art (i.e. J.U.D.G.E. and GearStation) has always left me somewhat indifferent, but the unique and quality production of The Red Star simply left me in awe from start to finish. The art team (with Gossett penciling) have done such a great job of blending the CG and non-CG art that it is often hard to discern what has been computerized and what has been penciled. The end result is an impressive mixture of early Frank Miller penciling style, fantastic panel layouts, and beautiful coloring.

With its distinctive art production and its equally absorbing premise, I strongly urge you to give The Red Star a try. I'm convinced that you will come to agree with me that there is presently nothing like it on the market.

The concept of Red Star is unique. It is about U.R.R.S (United Republic of Red Star), a country governed by power-crazy dictator. The best part of this collection is you will feel with the characters, you will feel sorry for the loss Maya has suffered, feel frustrated with Marcus while fighting the losing battle, feel anxious with Makita while trying to go to her father and most heart-warming moments of all, you will feel with Andrea when she has the chance to kill an enemy solider, who is mere a child (who is Makita btw) but didn't kill her even though that might save her life.

U.R.R.S is uncannily similar to cold war U.S.S.R. If you like politically intrigued stories, this book will be a special treat. Even you don't know nuts about history or about Russia, you still are in for a thought-provking story with visually stunning artwork.

Only one gripe though. Since it is a thick book, some spreads of artwork are lost in the binding. Otherwise, it would be much more astounding 3D artwork which is not unlike watching the dvd intro before playing PS-2 games.

Give this book a try. It has all issues 1-9 of volume 1 including Battle at Khar-Dhtha Gate, Worker's Tale, Award-winning Run Makita Run, Battle of Norkorka. Now I'm anxiously waiting for vol 2 collected edition to come out.

Oberlin College Press chose well when it awarded this book the Field Poetry Prize, 2007 - Cornish wraps her fierce intelligence (artistic, scientific, historical) aroundthe delicate structure of the lyric, whether she's writing about tomb paintings, John Keat's hat, the River Arno, Japanese painting, magic, dragonflies, sideshow freaks, Saigon water puppets, canopic jars, the art of binding feet, carnal prayer mats, or simply a quiet moment in the kitchen. Her frame of reference is huge - but here is a poet that chooses to use her intelligence to celebrate the small delicate objects of the world. The sound these poems make is like a clear bell surrounded by silence. And in the same way Mary Oliver's work is accessible to non-poets, Cornish's work strikes a clean note, not muddied by difficult/obscure language, though her work opens out considerably from the natural world Oliver remains anchored in, to reach into the life of the mind as well. Blurbs on the back of the book include praise from poets as wide-ranging as Billy Collins, Marie Howe and Thomas Lux - quite a list of endorsements! But most important is the way the poems of Red Studio mingle Cornish's own personal story of loss with small, haunting stories of loss from other centuries and other cultures, and her choice of an opening epigraph by Matisse ("I use small brushes and never more than twelve colors") is pitch perfect. Here are a few lines from the poem "Tomb Painting: The Chapter of Breathing Air" -- "Once more the pintail ducks are flying / over the bricklayer's house. Spools are filled with twine. / Loaves cool on a plank, / and the milk jug's carried home in a net. / On a roof where they slept in the open air, / hairpins in the same clay bowl."

For Mary Cornish, the parts of the world are connected not by physical bonds such as sinews or surfaces or umbilicals or even by principles of physics such as gravity or motion. The parts are filled--or buoyed, it might be said--by a sort of ethereal activity which cannot and need not be explained. This activity is described in a way that is virtually the same as imagination. In "We're in the kitchen," the speaker's dress is "held up by the patterned flight of birds/along the cotton." In "In the middle of the night," sound spreads its touch--"I open/both taps in the tub and let the water run/to make a sound that carries." "[T]he sky/accepts the weight of birds./The crow's shadow falls to earth..." in "Legato." The parts of the world are suspended together not even by language; as in "Dragonflies," "We can barely hear their dry rasp over water" as they approach. Cornish's poetry does not empty the world, but rather fills it with a spirit of feeling which closely resembles that of a refined musician.

I decided to review and recommend this book not only because it is good contemporary poetry but also because it is the poet's first book and I think good first books deserve a chance in the market place, especially one this good. These poems combine life and art and their interdependence beginning with the Florence flood of 1966 and its impact on the incomparable art treasurers that were painstakingly brought back to life. This book is a virtual tour of art galleries and life via the printed word that will remind one of the precarious nature of both. Thumbs up for both Cornish and Oberlin College Press.