Spoken Editions

Matthew creates paper art that comes to life on the page: Transformers; Star Wars; DC Super Heroes; Game of Thrones; Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs; Cinderella; Young Naturalist’s Handbook: Butterflies; The Pop-Up Book of Nightmares; ABC Disney, and many others. Enjoy an audio version of an article of our interview with children’s book author, illustrator, and paper engineer—Matthew Reinhart.  

About 17 million years ago, the land of the Monterey Peninsula was located where southern California is today. Since then, the Peninsula has been riding northward along the intersection of two tectonic plates at a pace of about two-inches per year. Eventually, the Peninsula will move alongside of the San Francisco Bay, and will have geographically completed its history as a crossroads of the somewhat rocky, sometimes shaky relationship between southern and northern California.   Bohemian Crossroads: Art & Culture Colldie Then Subside on the Monterey Peninsula   Buy the book today at Amazon. Click here.  

Bold. Confident. Visionary. These three words spring to the surface when contemplating mid-century conceptual artist and illustrator, Mary Blair.As the first woman to be hired to work in Walt Disney Studios’ male-dominated Animation Department in the 1940s, Blair maneuvered through the obstacles of what some still consider the “Disney boys’ club of design” with admirable poise and strength. Today, Blair’s enduring influence, at Disney and in many areas of design, is undeniable. With so many of contemporary designers and illustrators embracing her distinctive color palette and graphic, naïve style, it’s relevant to question where Mary Blair found her own inspiration and why her work continues to be so appealing to fans and artists—more than fifty years after much of it was created.

Throughout the long history of art, fashion, and popular culture, most representations of women depict the female form as an object of desire—whether the subject is an eroticized odalisque in a nineteenth-century painting or a hyper-sexualized model, actress, or singer on a twenty-first-century magazine or album cover. Fortunately, a few superheroes of the art world—writers, performers, illustrators, painters—have used the very platform of art to expose the sexism and inequality often found lurking beneath its gilded surface. Lena Rushing is one such artist who uses her commanding talents to remind us that although women must never be objectified, their beauty and innate power should be continually celebrated. Episode written by Jenny Ashley.

This is the story of how Sarah Maycock, the art student, painted herself into her future and became Sarah Maycock, the artist. For her final project at Kingston University, where Maycock studied animation and illustration in the UK, she created a book that included both illustrations and written narrative with the simple, repetitive syntax of a classic children’s story. Titled Human (adj.), the work looks unassuming, but it has all the complexity of a philosophical essay designed to unseat clichés and overturn overused similes like “as big as a bear.” When asked about the inspiration behind the story, the British artist explained that you might be “as big as a bear….But there’s always someone bigger than you. Everything has two sides, and neither is necessarily right. There’s a gray area.”

Free, audio book excerpt from Casting Shadows, Auguste Rodin by Ted Wells. Auguste Rodin wanted to fully engage viewers and intended his sculpture to be viewed in light and shodow, adding depth and life to the work. His sculpture tells us about the person we see when looking at the work of art: the subject, the artists, and ourselves.  Casting Shadows, Auguste Rodin is available at Amazon.com  Published by Guardian Stewardship Editions.  www.GSEbooks.com Presented by Spoken Editions. SpokenEditions.com

Audio file of an article written by Jenny Ashley. There’s something naively beautiful about letting yourself fall in love—the emotional rush, the increasing velocity of your heart, the hope for a brighter future. No one experiences the world quite like the lover. Two friends had invited me to join them for an “art crawl. ”Stepping inside, I was immediately smitten. There it was, hovering above the crowd like a vision, spanning the length of the room like a sequence of dreams: Exquisite Corpse by Jimmy apRoberts and Brian Christopher. Jimmy apRoberts studied at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, taught and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and currently runs a design business in San Luis Obispo, California. http://www.aprobertsarts.com Brian Christopher attended programs at the Ringling School of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Miami. He later studied painting and printmaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently runs a design business in Shell Beach, California. http://www.artichoked.com Published by Guardian Stewardship Editions.  www.GSEbooks.com Presented by Spoken Editions. SpokenEditions.com

To elevate the decorative arts in the early 20th century, women were encouraged to participate in the creation of beautiful and useful objects, as they had for centuries. An interview with Pat Kirkham, Professor in the history of design, decorative arts and culture at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design & Culture, New York. She has written and edited a number of books, including Women Designers in the USA 1900-2000 (MIT Press, 1998) and Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century (Laurence King Publishers, 2011).

Nature is the primary theme in her work, and Cui Fei creates art that radiates permanence, harmony, and meaning—a panacea for the collective and occasionally weary human soul.

“Color is a power which directly influences the soul,” wrote Vasily Kandinsky, the Russian painter and theorist credited with creating the first entirely abstract painting over one hundred years ago. Ian McLaughlin, an artist and filmmaker living in Boulder, Colorado, discovered that he had synesthesia after experiencing a shocking sensation while painting in 2008. “I was putting down a gray color against this vibrant yellow-orange, and the contrast created this very pleasant tone. It was like a phantom vibration, and I could feel it radiating out from my jaw. I looked around my studio and thought, Is anyone else hearing this? Is this really happening? It was bizarre, but it felt amazing,” McLaughlin said. “It only happens when I’m painting in rich primary colors. It doesn’t happen in earth tones. I can’t manufacture it or fabricate it. But when it occurs, it’s a good sign that everything’s coming together.” 

If you’ve never explored the charms of Instagram, the world’s most popular photo-sharing application, your initial visit might leave you with the impression that it’s nothing more than a clearinghouse for photos of dinner plates piled high with pasta; random sunsets; “selfies,” and other people’s children, dogs, and cats. But when you explore deeper into Instagram, it will reveal some truly beautiful, artistically rendered and graphically inspired photography that has been created for small-scale viewing on the screen of your smartphone. Published by Guardian Stewardship Editions.  www.GSEbooks.com Presented by Spoken Editions. SpokenEditions.com

The California of Harris’ youth was a very different place than it is today: It was a verdant oasis of orange groves spreading scent for miles; of abundant overgrown gardens backed by gray-green hillsides; of hazy mountains iced with an occasional shock of snow; and of beaches, blue and white and bright enough to make you squint. To Harwell Hamilton Harris, it was a land of exciting possibilities. Architect Harwell Hamilton Harris was born in Redlands, California, in 1903, and he made his home in the Golden State for the next forty-nine years. When Harris died in 1989, after having lived in Texas, North Carolina, and New York City, he still considered himself to be a Californian. We are pleased to share this excerpt from our upcoming book, Romantic Modern: The California Architecture of Harwell Hamilton Harris, by Ted Wells, available from GS Editions in October 2014.