Show Your Work

Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered Austin Kleon

A great follow-up to Steal Like an Artist, which details how to be discovered.

Basically, find your people (easy to do with the interwebs) share a lot (easy to do with the interwebs) don’t be spammy (being spammy is easy to do with the interwebs) and learn to take criticism and stick it out for the long term.

My favorite part was when he says “No Guilty Pleasures” because he means it in the way that you shouldn’t be guilty about your pleasures--if you like it, embrace it.

I also like his emphasis on teaching and sharing skills and inspirations and opening up work processes as well as work products. I love that aspect of online maker culture right now. (I think Pinterest is great for sharing and discovering other people’s inspirations and work.)

Overall, it’s very practical, hands-on advice on how let other people know you’re out there, making things.

It retains the same vibe and design aesthetic of Steal Like an Artist and the two work really well together.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Sacre Bleu

Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art Christopher Moore

Here are actual facts:

Vincent Van Gogh shot himself in a field and then walked a mile to his doctor's house before actually dying.

True Blue. A blue that wouldn't fade or distort over time was Sacred Blue. The church deemed that this blue was the only color that could be used for the cloak of the Virgin Mary. This blue could only be made from lapis lazuli, which could only be found in the mountains of Afghanistan. For centuries, blue was more valuable than gold.

Before you can paint, you need color. Artists originally were supposed to pick their own plants, grind their own minerals, make their own color. It's a wonder anything ever got painted. Colormen were professionals who made color-- they would sell artists the pigment, the powder, that they would then mix with oil or plaster or whatever they needed to get their preferred medium.

Here's the story that Moore sets forth:

The artist community of Montemartre is deeply shaken by Van Gogh's death, especially Lucien Lessard and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Towards the end of his life, Van Gogh had warned everyone to beware of the Colorman. There were several colormen around Paris at the time, but every artist in the area knew right away which one he meant.

Beware his blue.

There is a woman, a beautiful woman, that's always involved when the Colorman appears. Even as Lucien and Henri are unraveling the mystery, Lucien's becoming the next victim.

And it slowly turns more sinister as you're not entirely sure what the woman is, but it's becoming apparent that she's not human. And through it all is Paris, and the art, and the bread (oh! the bread!), and the drink.

It's hard to fully describe without getting spoilery. It weaves through time and art.

It's not as LOL as the other Moore I've read-- most of the humor comes from bawdy drunk comments by Henri. But it's wonderful. It gives a story to some of the world's most famous paintings, it gives a background and a life to the artists. It's a mystery and a love letter to the color blue.

Henri as a character is delightful. He's much more than the comic sidekick.

I loved the way the Impressionists and the new generation of artists mixed and mingled, fought and mentored, and all were affected by the Colorman and the blue.

Also, this is a book you need to read in print or on a color screen. As much as I love my black and white Kindle, this is not a book for that.

First off, it's printed in dark blue ink instead of black.

More importantly, it's illustrated. The paintings that are discussed, many of which capture important characters and plot points, are all real paintings by Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others and they're in the book, scattered in the text, in full color. It's a gorgeous design that doesn't interfere and works perfectly.


Book Provided by... my local library

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Heist Society

Heist Society Ally Carter

Every time Kat thinks she gets out, they pull her back in. Her family's business isn't the mob, but art thievery. She thought she had pulled the perfect con, getting into an elite boarding school and out of the life. But then her friend Hale frames her for the perfect prank and gets her kicked out, because they need her for one last job.

A major art collection has been stolen and the owner wants it back. The only suspect is Kat's father and the owner won't stop at anything to get it back. Only problem is that Kat's father was doing a different job when the collection was stolen-- he didn't do it. The only way to keep her father alive is to find out who did steal the art and steal it back. But, it's a lot easier to walk out on your family than it is to walk back into it. Kat needs a crew, but who will listen to her now?

Fans of Carter's Gallagher Girl series will recognize and enjoy her blend of adventure, highly unlikely elite skills, and sexual tension. Kat's ragtag team of teen thieves hopscotch around Europe as they try to unravel the mystery of who really did steal the paintings and how they're going to get them back. It's a fun adventure and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, Uncommon Criminals.

ARC Provided by... a friend

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Swan Thieves

The Swan Thieves Elizabeth Kostova

This sprawling book encompasses three story lines. Robert Oliver is a gifted artist who is arrested for trying to attack a painting at the National Gallery. He is checked into a psychiatric residential center under the care of Dr. Marlow. Robert only says "I did it for her" and gives permission for the doctor to talk to anybody, and then says nothing else for months. He does however, read and reread a packet of old letters and draws and paints the same face over and over again.

So, first storyline is Marlow telling to story of trying to solve this mystery that Robert presents. The second storyline is that of the letters-- letters written between a French housewife and her husband's uncle in the 1870s. Eventually, these interspersed letters switch over to full chapters, to give the reader information not contained in the letters. The third storyline is that of Robert's life before the attack. Marlow visits the women Robert has loved, and who loved him, who fill Marlow in on the details of what led up to the event.

As far as the mystery goes, the book fails. It was painfully obvious what was going on hundreds of pages before Marlow figures anything out, but I didn't mind, because Kostova is such a gifted writer and storyteller, I had to keep reading. The basic plot is a basic mystery that's easily solved by the reader, but the book is actually a portrait of many people and how their lives touch, or don't. It's not as "OMG AWESOME" (or complicated) as The Historian, but I still loved it dearly. I would only recommend it, however, to patient readers.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Nonfiction Monday

For today's nonfiction offerings, I'm giving you a slew of books that are Cybils nominees. They're all under 100 pages, which I normally don't review, but they're Cybils books, so they get a pass.

Sacred Mountain: Everest Christine Taylor-Butler

Basically, this is a book that talks about Mount Everest and the people who live on and around it. Taylor-Butler tells of the expeditions to the top and the perils involved therein, but spends most of her time talking about life in Everest's shadow, particularly for the Sherpa people and their culture. Personally, I would have loved more information about life on the northern Tibetan/Chinese side of the mountain and how it's the same or different from life on the southern Nepalese side of the the mountain.

Beautifully laid out with great pictures and a lot of side bars and pull-out boxes, I especially appreciated Taylor-Butler's focus on how the Sherpa people and traces their initial interactions with foreign climbers who needed them to succeed while but looked down on them as backwards natives up through today, where they claim much of Everest's glory for themselves and are working to keep it a high-stakes tourist spot (good for the economy) while not letting too many people come and destroy their mountain and way of life.

Book provided by... the publisher, for Cybils consideration

The Vermeer Interviews: Conversations With Seven Works of Art Bob Raczka

A very interesting idea. Raczka interviews the subjects of seven paintings by Jan Vermeer. The people in the paintings tell of their lives, of what Dutch culture at the time of the painting, and how to read the painting, pointing out details of the painting that give clues to what's going on, and details that show why Vermeer was so good.

This is a really fascinating book that's going to be a quirky sell to kids. It's not one they're going to pick up on their own, but I think they'll really like it once they start reading it. It's getting them to read it that's going to take a stealthily guiding hand.

My one complaint is that, while the printing is high quality, there were times when areas we pointed out that had been painted over. While I'm sure these things are visible in the originals, I couldn't see most of them in the book. That might just be me, but it was frustrating.

Book provided by... the publisher, for Cybils consideration

The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal's Search for the Truth Susan Goldman Rubin, illustrated by Bill Farnsworth

Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor, made it his life's work to track down Nazis and bring them to justice. Despite the title, the book doesn't focus much on Anne Frank. Wiesenthal's search to find the man who arrested the Franks provides an interesting frame to tell of Wiesenthal's life and work, but his overall mission, and not that particular case, are the focus.

While I can't find information in the book itself, the illustrations look like oil paintings and are done in an almost impressionistic style. While I prefer photographs to illustrate nonfiction, I appreciate that Rubin was trying to tell this story like it was a story, and a unified illustration approach helps that.

There are photographs, as well as more biographical details, further reading (some of it even for kids!) and source notes in the back of the book.

An interesting look at what people did after the war to help deal with the affects of the Holocaust.

Book Provided by... my local library

Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom Abridged by Chris Van Wyk (original by Nelson Mandela), Illustrated by Paddy Bouma

This is a picture book version of Mandela's adult autobiography. The picture book version makes the material and Mandela's life accessible to 2nd-4th graders. It has a nice timeline in the back, as well as a glossary.

I have a few complaints about this book-- one is that it is fully illustrated with absolutely NO photographs. Not one! It's not like there aren't a million photos of Mandela out there! Not even one in the back matter? Really?

The book also doesn't explain the term "colored" in the South African context. In the US, colored is a term that meant African-American and we often see it in books for children about the Civil Rights Era. When explaining apartheid, it says "It classified every person in South Africa according to race, for example, as 'black,' 'colored,' or 'white.'" Later on it says "Thousands of colored, Indian, and white South Africans were against it [apartheid], too." (sorry, it's an unpaged book, so no page numbers.) It was confusing and even I had to look it up to see what it meant. (People who were of mixed race, but not "black enough" to be considered black under apartheid.)

Also, in editing the book for children, the reader fails to really grasp the full sense of what Mandela did, especially before being sent to prison. There's not a great sense of why Mandela is the hero he is, which is sad.

Book Provided by... my local library

Round up is over at Abby (the) librarian!

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