Seth Randal is an American artist internationally recognized for his bold, vibrantly hued sculptural works in glass. 
Over the course of more than two decades he has developed a distinctive visual language based on the vessel form. He has infused elements derived from classical aesthetics with personal inspiration drawn from cultures around the globe and throughout the history of art. His intensive study of the varied technology of glassmaking has allowed him to adapt the rigorous lost wax procedure and the p’te de verre technique to the creation of cast-glass sculptural series possessing stylistic resonance as well as inner affinities with the Art Nouveau movement, Greco-Roman culture, and Egyptian mythology. This volume intimately follows Randalís journey of discovery. The detailed text and stunning full-color photographs offer the reader an illuminating view of his artistic process as he taps ever-new sources of imagination and accepts the challenges of their design and execution.

Seth Randal: Myth and Majesty

Arts & Photography

Lauria, Jo

Individual Artists

Marquand Books, Inc.

For two centuries, Americans have made stunning, utilitarian objects by hand. Each tells a story—about the person who laid his or her hands to the work; about the historical moment in which it was created; and about the political mood, community, and cultural forces that gave rise to that design. The only book of its kind and the companion book to the PBS series of the same name, Craft in America highlights the work of America’s most interesting craft artists past and present. Illustrated with more than 200 commanding images and signature objects from furniture, wood, ceramics, and glass to fiber, quilts, jewelry, metal, and basketry, this definitive work shows how crafts, long admired for their marriage of functionality and creativity, also reflect our nation’s history and the remarkable people who passed on their traditions. The last two hundred years have brought extraordinary transformation to America—not just in the landscape and culture but also to the myriad communities that crisscross the continent. Organized by the societies in which our many craft traditions originated, Craft in America introduces the virtuoso craftspeople who expressed and elevated the values and ideals of their groups—ideals that have become quintessentially American. From American Indians and enslaved Africans who worked with indigenous materials to religious people such as Shakers, whose clean lines reflect adherence to simplicity; from designers of the Arts and Crafts Movement for whom handmade objects held a moral integrity and righteousness to the government-sponsored WPA artists who created in the service of their nation, to today’s studio artists reimagining meaning and methods, Craft in America unfolds a rarely examined side of our history. Visceral, important, and seductively beautiful, and with a prologue from former president Jimmy Carter, Craft in America showcases some of the most important American objects. In these pages, you will discover how handcrafted objects are not only essential to daily life but how they are also a culture’s tribute to its own character and place in history. They embody the desire to remember, reflect, and connect, serving as bridges among individuals, community, and the environment. Craft in America will take you on an aesthetic adventure through the evolution of craft and reveal what makes American crafts uniquely ours. Ultimately, this is the story of how enduring handmade objects both unite and define us as Americans. CRAFT IN AMERICA, INC., is a nonprofit organi-zation based in Los Angeles that is dedicated to the exploration, preservation, and celebration of craft and its impact on our nation’s cultural heritage. The mission of Craft in America is to document and advance the original handcrafted works through programs in all media made accessible to all Americans.

Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects

Fenton, Steve

History & Criticism

Potter Style

Internationally renowned artist and desinger, Peter Shire, revolutionized the design of household objects, striving to express modernist tenets while examining the practical needs of society. The artist's playful attitude toward life translates into his bold, colorful artworks and functional household constructions. Shire's art in all its forms-furniture ceramics, glass, sculpture, or drawing-captures the colors, exuberance, and rhythm of life in Los Angeles, while simultaneously transcending local boundaries and cultural contexts.
Peter Shire was born in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, where he currently lives and works. A graduate of renowned Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, Shire was a member of the Memphis Design collaborative. He has had over 100 solo exhibitions nationally. His work can found in over 35 museums worldwide, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Victoria &amp; Albert Museum, and The Israel Museum. His public sculptures can be found in Los Angeles at Elysian Park, the Academy Village Housing Project in North Hollywood, at the Ramada Plaza in West Hollywood as well as in Pheonix and Las Vegas.

L.A. to LA: Peter Shire at LSU, January 31 - April 14, 2013

Spieth, Darius A.

LSU Press

In a career spanning more than six decades, Ruth Duckworth has created an immense and important body of work. Her ambition, intensity, and defiance of convention have governed her personal journey - fleeing from Nazi Germany to England at the outset of World War II, and settling in the United States in the mid-1960s - as well as her prodigious artistic output. Although Duckworth started out sculpting in stone, and has created both intimate and large-scale artworks in bronze and other materials, she has since the early 1960s predominantly worked in clay. It is for her work in this medium that she is recognized as one of the twentieth century's most innovative and significant sculptors. A true alchemist of abstraction, Duckworth has consistently produced barrier-bending art that is elegant yet at the same time buoyant, visionary works of seductive refinement, austere power, and radiant immediacy that masterfully continue the aesthetics of modernism into the twenty-first-century. This volume, which accompanies a major touring exhibition provides a long-overdue assessment of Duckworth's significance. It reveals the conceptual and iconographic foundations that Duckworth's work shares with other important modernist sculptors.

Ruth Duckworth: Modernist Sculptor

BIRKS,Tony

Lund Humphries Pub Ltd

Book by Gonzalez, Arthur and Rosen, Annabeth and Selvin, Nancy and Welsh, Stan

Bay Area Ceramic Sculptors Second Generation

Freed, Douglass (Introduction by)

Daum Museum of Contemporary Art

Master of the Midcentury- The Architecture of William F. Cody is the first, long-overdue book on this key Palm Springs architect, abundantly illustrated and detailed. Of the architects who made Palm Springs a crucible of midcentury American modernism, William F. Cody (1916-1978) was one of the most prolific, diverse, and iconic. Directing a practice ranging from residences to commercial centers and industrial complexes to master plans, Cody's designs are so recognizable that they provide visual shorthand for what is widely hailed as "Desert Modern." While his architecture was disciplined and technically innovative, Cody did not practice an austere modernism; he imbued in his projects a love for social spaces, rich with patterns, texture, color, and art. Though the majority of Cody's built work was concentrated in California and Arizona, he had commissions in other western states, Hawaii, Mexico, Honduras, and Cuba. From icons like the Del Marcos Hotel (1946), to inventive country clubs like the Eldorado (1957), to houses for celebrities (Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Walt Disney), Cody's projects defined the emerging West Coast lifestyle that combined luxury, leisure, and experimental design. Cody also pushed the boundaries of engineering, with beams and roof slabs so thin that his buildings seemed to defy gravity. Master of the Midcentury is the first monograph devoted to Cody, authored by the team that curated the acclaimed exhibition Fast Forward- The Architecture of William F. Cody at the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles- his daughter, Cathy Cody, design historian Jo Lauria, and architectural historian Don Choi. Replete with photographs of extant and now-lost structures, as well as masterful color renderings and drawings for architectural commissions and plans for vanguard building systems, Master of the Midcenturyis the authoritative resource on Cody.

Master of the Midcentury: The Architecture of William F. Cody

History

Cody, Catherine

Choi, Don

Americas

The Monacelli Press

Architectural Pottery: Ceramics for a Modern Landscape

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Head, Jeffrey

Chavkin, Daniel

Crafts & Hobbies

Larger than Life: The Art of Tony Natsoulas

Natsoulas, Tony

Natsoulas, Theodore

Linhares, Philip

Sheilds, Scott

Independently published

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lauria, Jo. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lauria, Jo