Best Art Book and Best of Show—2018 New Mexico–Arizona Book Award Born in San Diego in 1946 and raised in the American Southwest, painter Paul Pletka has created a body of work that owes much to the West of his childhood, and more to the West of his imagination. Infused with an operatic sense of theater and drama, his paintings conjure scenes from the cultures, history, and religions of the American West and Mexico—diffused, as Pletka writes, “through the lens of personal experiences, dreams, research, and ancestral memory.” In Paul Pletka: Imagined Wests, the first book on this major American artist in over thirty years, readers will encounter the full range of Pletka’s oeuvre through more than eighty color reproductions of his best-known and most influential works. Images of warriors and shamans are paired with depictions of George Armstrong Custer, Christian saints, and the lost gods of North and South America, their forms rendered in a distinctive style that mixes classical drawing and expressionist distortion with elements of surrealism and European symbolism. An artist statement and notes on selected paintings provide rare insight into Pletka’s creative process, and an introductory essay by art historian Amy Scott discusses how Pletka’s studies of indigenous cultures of the American West and Mexico, as well as art historical and critical influences, have informed his work. Complex, mysterious, and mesmerizing, Pletka’s paintings are designed to make it almost impossible to look away. In their boldly conceived subject matter, vivid color, and ethnographic detail, these works—and their creator—are true originals in the rich artistic landscape of the American West.

Paul Pletka: Imagined Wests

Arts & Photography

Scott, Amy

History & Criticism

University of Oklahoma Press

Art of the West: Selected Works from the Autry Museum

Since its founding in 1988, the Autry Museum of the American West has expanded its vision and its collections in profound ways. From its original focus on the history, art, and popular culture inspired by the West and its attendant myths, the museum—located in the heart of Los Angeles—has evolved to embrace a more inclusive, complex, and contemporary approach to the American West. Featuring more than 150 color images, this volume highlights the museum’s Art of the West exhibit. Alongside these celebrated works of art, Art of the West showcases essays by prominent scholars and art historians who address various topics, ranging from motorcycles to beadwork and photography. Essays devoted to women’s art, Native American art, and Chicano photography are important correctives to more traditional and linear models of western art history, with its emphasis on rugged masculinity, Anglo-American pioneers, and the myth of an “untamed” frontier. As Autry Museum curator Amy Scott explains in her introduction, there is not one West; instead, many Wests, comprising diverse collections of places and peoples, form a “complex tapestry of ethnic mixing and geopolitical spaces, diaspora, immigration, industry, infrastructure, tourism, and environmental degradation.” By addressing such provocative themes, Art of the West challenges us to look beyond surface appearances, superficial caricatures, and cultural assumptions. The American West emerges as a dynamic place in which memory informs, but does not determine, the present.

Since its founding in 1988, the Autry Museum of the American West has expanded its vision and its collections in profound ways. From its original focus on the history, art, and popular culture inspired by the West and its attendant myths, the museum—located in the heart of Los Angeles—has evolved to embrace a more inclusive, complex, and contemporary approach to the American West. Featuring more than 150 color images, this volume highlights the museum’s Art of the West exhibit. Alongside these celebrated works of art, Art of the West showcases essays by prominent scholars and art historians who address various topics, ranging from motorcycles to beadwork and photography. Essays devoted to women’s art, Native American art, and Chicano photography are important correctives to more traditional and linear models of western art history, with its emphasis on rugged masculinity, Anglo-American pioneers, and the myth of an “untamed” frontier. As Autry Museum curator Amy Scott explains in her introduction, there is not one West; instead, many Wests, comprising diverse collections of places and peoples, form a “complex tapestry of ethnic mixing and geopolitical spaces, diaspora, immigration, industry, infrastructure, tourism, and environmental degradation.” By addressing such provocative themes, Art of the West challenges us to look beyond surface appearances, superficial caricatures, and cultural assumptions. The American West emerges as a dynamic place in which memory informs, but does not determine, the present.

Featuring lush reproductions of the landscapes of American artist Len Chmiel, this book depicts four decades of the artist's melodic, evocative, and often abstracted depictions of the land. Amy Scott contributes a fine essay discussing Chmiel's formative years as an illustrator in Los Angeles through his subsequent move to Colorado, where he turned from illustration and dove into fine art exclusively.

Len Chmiel: An Authentic Nature

Individual Artists

Rose Fredrick Fine Art Publishing

This fun, sexy book for couples offers one hundred and one themes, each with a naughty and nice version, and several activities for each version. The nice side of each theme could be rated PG, while the naughty suggestions are definitely for adults only. For example, the nice side of exploring "The Good Earth" suggests planting a vegetable garden or visiting a flower show, while the naughty side involves spreading a tarp on the floor, exchanging massages with fresh soil, mud wrestling and a rose-petal bath. Other themes include: -- Spring Fling -- Boogie Nights -- Autumn Ardor -- Fairytale Fantasy -- and much, much more!

Naughty or Nice: 101 Sexy Ways to Tempt Your Lover

Geary, Boyd

Parenting & Relationships

Sourcebooks Casablanca

50 Mandalas, Adult Coloring Book, Color To Relax! Stress Relieving Mandala Art Designs, Relaxation Coloring Pages

Independently published

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

Books by Scott, Amy

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

Paul Pletka: Imagined Wests

Art of the West: Selected Works from the Autry Museum

Art of the West: Selected Works from the Autry Museum

Len Chmiel: An Authentic Nature

Naughty or Nice: 101 Sexy Ways to Tempt Your Lover

50 Mandalas, Adult Coloring Book, Color To Relax! Stress Relieving Mandala Art Designs, Relaxation Coloring Pages