― Jess Nevins
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
5 books all about the awesomeness of steampunk accessories and art
"Steampunk is what happens when Goths discover brown."
― Jess Nevins
I was playing in the catalogue (I call it play, others would call it work, but if I think of it like 'play' it seems a little less like 'work' and, truly, how can it be work when I find such great stuff?) and looking for titles to add to the Romance eNewsletter (yes, that IS a shameless plug for you to read or subscribe) when I came across THIS BOOK: Steampunk softies : scientifically minded dolls from a past that never was. I'm not sure what that means, but I know I LIKE IT. I can't make them, because hello, I'm not in the least bit crafty, but I like them all the same. A number of people I follow on Twitter who are incredibly crafty (I've seen their Doctor Who amigarumi characters and WOW) would love this book. And so what, you say? So THIS, I say! They are adorable. And I don't just say that because it's steampunk. Ok, yes, I DO just say that because they're steampunk and I heart steampunk-related things times three. Seriously, I browse things like this all the time. It got me thinking, though, what steampunk crafts books do we have? And who can I con into making me some of these things? I can answer the first - you'll find them below. The second mmm not so much. I'm still working on it :) I give you: 5 books all about the awesomeness of steampunk accessories and art.
― Jess Nevins
Friday, January 20, 2012
5 permission slips for creative play
List by Danielle
'You get better at dancing by dancing. You get better at skiing by skiing. You get better at creative work by doing creative work. Your creativity needs feeding and care.'
From Raw art journaling by Quinn McDonald
So I requested a stack of books from the journalling post earlier this month, and they're amazing. Full of colour and quirk, and some brilliant exercises to get you started with various ideas and techniques. (I'm starting to feel like I'm overloading my slender window of 'grown-up time' each day with expectations of artsiness, but that's another story.) Best thing about these books? The authors and artists want you to play. They want you to have fun with colours and shapes and words and creating stuff. They tell you that anytime is a good time start, on whatever scale feels most comfortable to you. I'm sure there are times to stretch yourself creatively, and do something outside of that comfort zone, but for someone with a current creative balance of near-to-zero, that's a really timely message. Sometimes you just need a bit of encouragement to let go of perfectionism and doubt, and pick up a paint brush or some craft shop bits and pieces and see what happens. If you're thinking of making 2012 the year you get the 'play' back into your work-life balance, try one of these beauties, or have a browse around the 745s for your own inspiration!
'You get better at dancing by dancing. You get better at skiing by skiing. You get better at creative work by doing creative work. Your creativity needs feeding and care.'
From Raw art journaling by Quinn McDonald
So I requested a stack of books from the journalling post earlier this month, and they're amazing. Full of colour and quirk, and some brilliant exercises to get you started with various ideas and techniques. (I'm starting to feel like I'm overloading my slender window of 'grown-up time' each day with expectations of artsiness, but that's another story.) Best thing about these books? The authors and artists want you to play. They want you to have fun with colours and shapes and words and creating stuff. They tell you that anytime is a good time start, on whatever scale feels most comfortable to you. I'm sure there are times to stretch yourself creatively, and do something outside of that comfort zone, but for someone with a current creative balance of near-to-zero, that's a really timely message. Sometimes you just need a bit of encouragement to let go of perfectionism and doubt, and pick up a paint brush or some craft shop bits and pieces and see what happens. If you're thinking of making 2012 the year you get the 'play' back into your work-life balance, try one of these beauties, or have a browse around the 745s for your own inspiration!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
5 inspirations to kickstart your 2012 journalling and scrapbookery
List by Danielle
"Scrapbooking is cheaper than a therapist."
~ Original source unknown, quote found at scrapbook.com
Clunky title? Clunky title. *nods* But did you know that our Central Library is having the coolest exhibition at the moment, Saved Memories: Scrapbooks 1570 - 2011? On display in the softly-lit and mysterious spaces of Special Collections are a selection of heritage scrapbooks, with intriguing bits and pieces of the past pressed between their pages, old photos, hand-drawn sketches, long-forgotten tidbits from Auckland's past... if you're at all interested in that kind of collagey treasure hunting, you should go check it out. If you go between 12 and 1pm on a Wednesday, you will even get a guided tour of the best bits, from exhibition creator/curator Kate de Courcy! And for those of you who can't make it in to town, here are some other sources of inspiration for starting off 2012 with some artsy journalling and storytelling of your own.
Added bonus: Auckland Libraries' online exhibition: Sarah Mathew's album
"Turn the pages of a Victorian scrapbook" - and you can! Page through Sarah's scrapbook, a digitised version of the 1830-1885 book kept by Sarah Mathew, wife of New Zealand's first surveyor Felton Mathew. Along the way you will find gorgeous sketches of her travels, illustrations of plants and animals, and actual keepsakes (including emu feathers - 'Poor Jack my tame emu killed by a dog 1835'). The album is here, and there's an essay for those who want to know more about the woman behind the scrapbook.
"Scrapbooking is cheaper than a therapist."
~ Original source unknown, quote found at scrapbook.com
Clunky title? Clunky title. *nods* But did you know that our Central Library is having the coolest exhibition at the moment, Saved Memories: Scrapbooks 1570 - 2011? On display in the softly-lit and mysterious spaces of Special Collections are a selection of heritage scrapbooks, with intriguing bits and pieces of the past pressed between their pages, old photos, hand-drawn sketches, long-forgotten tidbits from Auckland's past... if you're at all interested in that kind of collagey treasure hunting, you should go check it out. If you go between 12 and 1pm on a Wednesday, you will even get a guided tour of the best bits, from exhibition creator/curator Kate de Courcy! And for those of you who can't make it in to town, here are some other sources of inspiration for starting off 2012 with some artsy journalling and storytelling of your own.
Added bonus: Auckland Libraries' online exhibition: Sarah Mathew's album
"Turn the pages of a Victorian scrapbook" - and you can! Page through Sarah's scrapbook, a digitised version of the 1830-1885 book kept by Sarah Mathew, wife of New Zealand's first surveyor Felton Mathew. Along the way you will find gorgeous sketches of her travels, illustrations of plants and animals, and actual keepsakes (including emu feathers - 'Poor Jack my tame emu killed by a dog 1835'). The album is here, and there's an essay for those who want to know more about the woman behind the scrapbook.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Top 5 random display books from Manukau Library
List by Tosca
"What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists."
- Archibald MacLeish, "The Premise of Meaning," American Scholar, 5 June 1972
What is more important in a library is that I am able to get my hands on anything and everything that catches my interest for whatever awful reason - sense of humour, nostalgia, knowledge. I am forever raiding the downstairs library. No matter how many books I have on the go at any time (as of Friday I had something like 4 requests available for pickup, 21 on the way, 28 issued to my card) - I still think there's room for more. Or at least, that's what I tell myself just before I pop downstairs to steal books off their shelves. Today's list is a quick roundup of my latest batch of Oh-look!-Books!-I-gotta-have-them!-Need-them!-Want-them-now! that I borrowed from Manukau Library. And yes, that is how I talk out loud and in my head.
"What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists."
- Archibald MacLeish, "The Premise of Meaning," American Scholar, 5 June 1972
What is more important in a library is that I am able to get my hands on anything and everything that catches my interest for whatever awful reason - sense of humour, nostalgia, knowledge. I am forever raiding the downstairs library. No matter how many books I have on the go at any time (as of Friday I had something like 4 requests available for pickup, 21 on the way, 28 issued to my card) - I still think there's room for more. Or at least, that's what I tell myself just before I pop downstairs to steal books off their shelves. Today's list is a quick roundup of my latest batch of Oh-look!-Books!-I-gotta-have-them!-Need-them!-Want-them-now! that I borrowed from Manukau Library. And yes, that is how I talk out loud and in my head.
Things you might want to know: You can turn on your reading history in My Info! It's a nifty little thing if you're the sort of reader who likes to keep track of everything they read. As a rule, I'm not, but occasionally I like to do a bit of a check and see how much I'm reading and how much of it is trashy/quality and whether or not I need to even it out a bit. To switch on your reading history:
1. Log in to My Info with your barcode and PIN
2. Under My Preferences click My Reading History
3. Click the Opt In button
My Info will now start keeping track of all physical items issued to your card from this point on. Give it a go :-)
And now - the books!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Top 5 display books I stole from Manukau Library's shelves
List by Tosca
"A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul."
- Franz Kafka
One of the best things about working upstairs from a library is that I can pop down and randomly grab books left, right and centre. One of the worst things about working upstairs from a library is that I can pop down and randomly grab books left, right and centre. Many years ago I discovered that I am forever fatally attracted to books: titles, covers, writers, smell of new pages, smell of old pages...if it's a part of a book (the spine, the blurb, the font...) I will love it to death. And then some. I think that Manukau Library (the branch downstairs from me) does a fantastic job of keeping their display shelves topped up. They must do, because I am forever risking their ire to raid them and leave them empty. Today's selection is little more than the top 5 of their display books that I felt just begged to be read!
"A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul."
- Franz Kafka
One of the best things about working upstairs from a library is that I can pop down and randomly grab books left, right and centre. One of the worst things about working upstairs from a library is that I can pop down and randomly grab books left, right and centre. Many years ago I discovered that I am forever fatally attracted to books: titles, covers, writers, smell of new pages, smell of old pages...if it's a part of a book (the spine, the blurb, the font...) I will love it to death. And then some. I think that Manukau Library (the branch downstairs from me) does a fantastic job of keeping their display shelves topped up. They must do, because I am forever risking their ire to raid them and leave them empty. Today's selection is little more than the top 5 of their display books that I felt just begged to be read!
Friday, March 18, 2011
Top 5 New Zealand non-fiction recommendations
List by ex-Manukau Research Library and Central Services staff
'For me each day starts with the same ritual - drawing the curtains and gazing out to sea, often for just a split second, or, if I'm lucky, for a minute or two. I find it's like checking on a friend...'
~ From 'Go fish', by Al Brown
Like the New Zealand fiction recommendations, the 5 books below are the favourite picks of local library staff, and really only just a drop in the bucket of great NZ titles... they aren't so much a 'Top 5' as a sampler platter of the 'Top 1' for each of the staff who responded. Non-fiction covers so much ground, so we've got biographies, gardeners, grandmas, an artist and a chef, as well as an award-winning sharing of traditional teachings and local history.
'For me each day starts with the same ritual - drawing the curtains and gazing out to sea, often for just a split second, or, if I'm lucky, for a minute or two. I find it's like checking on a friend...'
~ From 'Go fish', by Al Brown
Like the New Zealand fiction recommendations, the 5 books below are the favourite picks of local library staff, and really only just a drop in the bucket of great NZ titles... they aren't so much a 'Top 5' as a sampler platter of the 'Top 1' for each of the staff who responded. Non-fiction covers so much ground, so we've got biographies, gardeners, grandmas, an artist and a chef, as well as an award-winning sharing of traditional teachings and local history.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Top 5 books I spotted on Manukau Library's display shelf that staff hollered at me to put back
List by Tosca
"Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own."
- William Hazlitt
We've recently re-located and are now settling in to the new building on Osterley Way and it's pretty but oh! I miss the cataloguing team :( And if I'm honest I'll admit that I miss the new books trolley just as much. For the last two and a half years it had been my pleasure (and probably their burden) to sit over the wall from cataloguing staff where, I assure you, every day there was like my own personal Christmas. I miss them. And I feel slightly guilty that I so easily look to Manukau Library (on the floor below me) to take their place...
"Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own."
- William Hazlitt
We've recently re-located and are now settling in to the new building on Osterley Way and it's pretty but oh! I miss the cataloguing team :( And if I'm honest I'll admit that I miss the new books trolley just as much. For the last two and a half years it had been my pleasure (and probably their burden) to sit over the wall from cataloguing staff where, I assure you, every day there was like my own personal Christmas. I miss them. And I feel slightly guilty that I so easily look to Manukau Library (on the floor below me) to take their place...
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