The April issue of the World of Interiors offers a profile of renowned Nigerian artist El Anatsui. Working with the detritus of modern culture, such as bottle caps, labels and tin lids, he creates fabulous wall hangings and sculptures. Wall hangings shimmer and undulate; they dazzle the viewer.

El Anatsui is keen on collaborative process in making art. He works with a team of artists who link the tiny pieces that comprise a wall hanging with copper wire following his design. When he sends work out on exhibit, there are no detailed instructions for installation. Because of this, exhibitors also contribute to the piece with their decisions about how to show them.

I was fortunate to hear him lecture several years ago at the Glenbow Museum and then see a retrospective of his work at the Royal Ontario Museum. The ROM has one of his works on permanent installation and I have gone back to view it again and was thrilled anew.

It is humbling to see what great works of art can be created from materials that we toss aside. I am an amateur artist who has access to a wide selection of art materials with which I produce pedestrian work.

You can find out more about El Anatsui and other contemporary African artists in Environment and Object: recent African art. The book examines the way African artists tackle environmental topics from plastic waste to the ravages of the oil industry in the Niger delta. Incredible works of art with an awful lot to say.

- Jane

In the next month, I’ll be retiring from my regular hours at the Library (although I will continue to work as a substitute from time to time). I’m looking forward to additional free time which I plan to spend with a paint brush in hand.

I am learning how to paint with acrylics. A few years ago, I took a class at ACAD to get started; however, I didn’t practice enough to retain the lessons taught.

About six months ago, I began again, this time using a book from our collection: Painting for the Absolute and Utter Beginner. I worked through every exercise in the book. That was a very rewarding experience because they improved my work almost immediately.

Two new books on acrylic painting are coming home with me now to spend some quality time. I like that they bring completely different approaches to the topic.

500 Acrylic Mixes: Paint Color Recipes for the Artist applies a very systematic method to learning how to mix colours and create charts for future reference. Nevertheless, examples of work in the book are loose and expressive.

Brave Intuitive Painting emphasizes the forgiving nature of acrylics to encourage a more experimental approach to painting and developing a method that suits the individual artist. When you don’t get the colour right, just glaze over it.

Happiness is a hobby that is so engrossing that you lose yourself and many hours to the process. I have found mine.

- Jane

Today's blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:

How do you enthuse about a book that is black and white, except for the cover, when it is written about Matisse, a master of colour? Matisse on Art is a new book where the artist’s language provides the colour. It arrived at the Library at the same time as the lavishly illustrated new book, Picasso and Maria-Therese: l’amour fou.

What have the two books to do with one another? I believe that Picasso owed a great debt to Matisse. It was Matisse who wrote, “The effort needed to see things without distortion demands a kind of courage; and this courage is essential to the artist…” Both artists had a great deal of courage when it came to creating bold and innovative styles of expression with paint. It was like developing a new language and having to educate the viewers.

After all, paint is paint; it is never the object it represents. Therefore, it has to be true to the artist’s vision and not the preconceptions of the viewer. Matisse worked on some of his paintings through hundreds of hours until they arrived at a stage where they spoke truly to him. I believe that slowly and methodically Matisse broke down boundaries in art.

Learning from this approach to truth in painting, Picasso explored it through a prodigious number of works. Some of the most captivating were paintings of one of his mistresses, Maria Therese Walter. They remained remarkably gentle in ways that the paintings of his other mistresses – or wives – never did. These are just thoughts, but don’t take my word for it. Check it out for yourself.

- Candace

Many of our new books are beautiful. In fact, that’s the norm in the Arts Department at Central. But, from time to time, we get bizarre and goofy too and that’s a lot of fun.

Susie Says is an adult picture book by photographer and doll collector Gina Garan. Garan takes a 70’s fashion doll, “Susie Sad Eyes”, dresses her up – and down – and takes her on the town. Or to the beach, the park and the mountains. Mostly it’s urban Susie; but some of her streets are mean ones.

At times she’s ravishing with glamorous outfits, big hair and makeup. She has outings with cute friends to happy places with sunny skies. Other times she’s wasted and hung over. But she’s never short of pop philosophy.

The words of wisdom come from performer Justin Vivian Bond who supplies Susie with a voice to suit the outfits and the setting. Susie’s outlook ranges from cheery and optimistic to wistful and gloomy whenever she trips over life's hard truths. Her impressive mood swings are a large part of the appeal.

Garan has made a career out of vintage fashion dolls and has collaborated on the design and production of several new ones. If you enjoy Susie, check out Blythe.

-Jane

Today's blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:

It has been a good week for the art lover at the library. A treasure trove of new books on artists has arrived. In particular, one book has really grabbed my attention. It is a tribute to Colleen Browning.

As in my previous blog on the surrealist women artists in Mexico, I have more reason to rejoice in the publishers who are now making books about important, but little-known work. Colleen Browning: The Enchantment of Realism celebrates a woman whose paintings have been neglected for many years.

Born in England at the end of the First World War into a military family, she came to the United States in 1949 to marry an American author and scholar. Having survived the blitz in England as a young woman, she resolved that her art would be harmonious and free from fear. “It bears pointing out that choosing to accentuate the positive is a courageous, rather than a naïve choice, as art critics sometimes claim. Browning deliberately banished nightmares from her images – not mystery.”

She had considerable acclaim as a young woman before realism was upstaged by abstract expressionism on the art scene. As an artist, she continued to follow her vision and paid dearly for it in terms of her career. Her work was largely forgotten or dismissed as being sentimental.

To my mind, her compositions are very strong and in line with her mastery of the figure. A meander through the pages of this book left me with strong admiration for this artist and her commitment to figurative work.

- Candace

Today's blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:

The library has acquired four out of five titles in the series, The Unheralded Artists of BC. We now have the books about artists Ina D.D. Uhthoff, Mildred Valley Thornton, George Fertig and David Marshall. This artists series is published by Mother Tongue Press which operates from Salt Spring Island. All have fine reproductions printed on good quality paper – a bonus for the bibliophile. They are definitely worth a look.

The newest addition, The Life and Art of Ina D. D. Uhthoff, shines light on an influential woman of the arts in Victoria. Her biography shows how hard she worked to survive and care for her children as she balanced her artistic needs with the responsibilities of family.

Her husband had been damaged as the result of World War I (probably shell shock). Although they lived apart for much of their married life, she appears to have supported him, as well as her children, for many years. An amazing woman, her name is linked with the establishment of the Greater Victoria Art Gallery. She was a respected art teacher who knew Emily Carr. She founded and taught at the Victoria School of Art until forced to return to private teaching by the Second World War. Her paintings attest to her talent.

I suspect that she was formidable.

- Candace

Today’s blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:

I love looking at images: paintings, photographs or sculptures.

One of the library’s newest acquisitions, In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States has lots to look at; its pages are filled with weird and wonderful imagery.

The book presents the work of well-known artists such as Frida Kahlo, Lois Alvarez Bravo and Louise Bourgeois. One painting, the Creation of the birds, I would love to have hanging on a wall in my house. It was created by the Mexican surrealist, Remedios Varo. I have a particular fondness for the work of Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington. These women were close friends, meeting over coffee in each other’s kitchens. (You can learn more about their lives and work in another great book from our collection: Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna.)

Included, as well, is the work of lesser-known artists. It introduced me to a number of great images and artists, such as the exquisitely sensitive photography of Francesca Woodman. She captured haunting images often using her own body in decaying interiors.

Publishers are rediscovering some very fine artists who have had little published about them. What a joy for us to share in this discovery!

- Candace

If you have been thinking about a visit to Central Library, Stampede is a great time to venture downtown. The adjacent Olympic Plaza and Stephen Avenue mall are lively places that feature music, dancing and other street performances during Stampede. You could also include a visit to the Glenbow while you're at it.

In a new exhibit that opened in June, the Glenbow Museum celebrates Charlie Russell’s connection to the first Calgary Stampede. The “Famous Cowboy Artist” exhibited twenty paintings that were a popular attraction. The Glenbow has tracked down seventeen of these works and brought them together again.

Fans of his western art will enjoy a new addition to our collection: The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell: A Retrospective of Paintings and Sculpture. The book is a catalogue from an exhibit at the Denver Art Museum in 2009 – 2010. It includes eight essays that examine key aspects of Russell’s art and the culture in which he lived and worked.

You can find other wonderful books in the collection by subject searching “west in art”, “cowboys in art”, “horses in art”, "Indian art" – you get the drift.

I have been enjoying Contemporary Native American Artists which popped up from one of these searches. It introduced me to the colourful work of artist Malcolm Furlow who lives in northern New Mexico. I am enchanted by his Reclining Coyote which is pictured in the book.

“Too American,” you say? I’m not a purist. So much of our Stampede celebration traces its roots south of the border. It’s all good.

-Jane

You may not know his name; but, chances are, you have seen his work. Jack Vettriano is a self-taught, Scottish artist whose popular images appear on posters, mugs and umbrellas. Prints of his work outsell Van Gogh, Dali and Monet.

Sometimes his work is nostalgic and romantic; sometimes it’s mysterious and erotic with a threatening edge of violence about to erupt. He describes his paintings as akin to pulp fiction novel covers. Indeed, there appears to be a story about to leap to life from the images he creates.

Flawed relationships – including his own failed marriage – were a big source of inspiration when he was developing a personal style. The glamour and gracious living of bygone eras also infuse his art: “A perfect world I would like to have lived in, but didn’t”.

“Broadly speaking, the art establishment disdains him as populist and unchallenging, and British galleries consistently refuse to acquire any of his works for exhibition,” says Anthony Quinn. He is the author of a new edition of a book on the artist that includes work from exhibitions between 2006 and 2010. The work and commentaries are presented by date and themes.

Vettriano's art is accessible and invites the viewer to invent the story. When you do, you will be in good company. His work is embedded in the story line in Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

Vettriano’s success and enduring popularity have slowly brought acclaim and an OBE. He is “the people’s painter”.

- Jane

Today's blog comes from Candace Weir, Central Library staff:

Another new book has a home in the collection. It is Richard Diebenkorn: the Ocean Park series. This series of abstract paintings transport me back to the clear cerulean blue of the ocean, the white sands and the clapboard beach front houses of southern California.

The artist started producing paintings for this series in 1967. It was at this point, that he moved from a highly successful career making representational figurative paintings to Ocean Park’s strangely emotive abstracts.

The paintings remind me of the experience of flying over the rice fields that surround Sacramento. While flying through the clouds and sky, you could also see them reflected from the patchwork of watery shapes below. The experience was all too fleeting but my memories of it persist. I find that Diebenkorn’s abstract style captures these sensations better than a representational style would. My mind too easily identifies with objects and starts to categorize them withering the emotional impact.

His use of colour and his technique of application are fascinating. Thin layers of colours are partially scraped away to reveal the layers below which creates subtler shades. These complex colours are coupled with sharp delineations of forms that hint of roads and buildings – surreal subdivisions. There is an aerial feel to his paintings.

As well, the paintings flirt with light; an inner light defines them.

Any one of his paintings would have a honoured position on my walls, although the ones he did on the lids of cigar boxes have a special appeal.

This book plays homage to a wonderful body of work and a great painter. It is about time.

- Candace