Catalog from an exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington of artists who work with glass as a medium. How did they use it, and what does it mean? Artists include Nancy Bowen, Mark Calderon, Mel Chin, Laddie John Dill, Denorah Dohne, Kate Ericson, and many others in alphabetical order. There is a short bio of each artist and a statement or analysis of the piece of sculpture. Important addition to collection of gallery catalogs.

Glass: Material in the Service of Meaning

Levin, Kim

Glowen, Ron

History

Tacoma Art Museum

In introducing this catalog for an exhibit in the museum's new building, its director notes that a critic called Kottler "the first of the true postmoderns working in ceramics." The plate featured on the cover reflects this Northwest artist's gay theme. A chronology spans early surrealism to Kottler's death in 1989. Also included is text from Kottler's 1969 self-published catalog titled Howard Kottler, Decal Plates. Distributed by the U. of Washington Press. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Look Alikes: The Decal Plates Of Howard Kottler

Arts & Photography

Halper, Vicki

History & Criticism

Between Spring & Summer: Soviet Conceptual Art in the Era of Late Communism

Politics & Social Sciences

David A. Ross

Politics & Government

What Is a Trade? Donald Fels and Signboard Painters of South India presents sixteen large-scale paintings that explore trade and globalization in India. Fels' conceptual starting point for this exhibition was Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama's 1498 voyage to Malabar, India, in search of a direct sea route for the spice trade. What is a Trade? explores the historic and modern-day legacy of that expedition more than 500 years later.In 2004 and 2005, Fels traveled to Kerala (formerly Malabar), India, as a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar, to work with local commercial signboard painters on a body of work that examines globalization in India and traces its roots to Vasco's voyage. Most of the signboard painters had formerly worked as billboard painters -- until recently, all billboards in India were hand-painted, but cheaper and more efficient inkjet printers are making the painters obsolete. In light of this trend, Fels and his collaborators created work in the style of traditional hand-painted billboards and Bollywood advertising. The bright colors and strong graphic narratives make visually arresting statements about the historic and contemporary effects of trade and globalization.

What Is a Trade?: Donald Fels and Signboard Painters of South India

Bell, Greg

Fels, Donald

Parker, Samuel K.

For more than three decades, Northwest artist Nancy Worden has explored the cultural dynamics that shape contemporary social and political agendas, emphasizing the female experience in the United States. Working from her vast knowledge of jewelry’s venerable traditions and forms, she demonstrates a high level of intellectual rigor and simultaneously cultivates a complex engagement with aesthetics and pleasure. Reflecting her passion and personal convictions, her jewelry is forceful, unapologetic, demanding, and gripping. Her jewelry is often humorous and sometimes painful, but her voice is never timid. Loud Bones is the first scholarly examination of Worden’s career. Her work is held in private and museum collections in the United States and Europe.

Loud Bones: The Jewelry of Nancy Worden

LeBaron, Michelle

Platt, Susan

For more than three decades, Northwest artist Nancy Worden has explored the cultural dynamics that shape contemporary social and political agendas, emphasizing the female experience in the United States. Working from her vast knowledge of jewelry’s venerable traditions and forms, she demonstrates a high level of intellectual rigor and simultaneously cultivates a complex engagement with aesthetics and pleasure. Reflecting her passion and personal convictions, her jewelry is forceful, unapologetic, demanding, and gripping. Her jewelry is often humorous and sometimes painful, but her voice is never timid. Loud Bones is the first scholarly examination of Worden’s career. Her work is held in private and museum collections in the United States and Europe.

Loud Bones: The Jewelry of Nancy Worden (Northwest Perspective)

Northwest landscape painter Victoria Adams is equally committed to the landscape tradition and the creation of exquisite scenes that address the contemporary desire for the sublime. Adams depicts idealized landscapes that evoke virgin terrain, untouched by human intervention and devoid of degradation. Through her reworking of landscape traditions and conventions, her paintings reveal the inextricable connections between beauty and the sublime and melancholia. Her paintings evoke the deep desire for the perfect moment and heighten awareness of the psychological impact of the idealized landscape. Adams presents the landscape as a solitary experience with the immense and infinite sublime--a magnificent solitude.Where Earth Meets Sky is the first museum survey exhibition of Victoria Adam's work and is part of the Tacoma Art Museum's Northwest Perspective Series. Adams' work is held in private and museum collections throughout the United States.

Where Sky Meets Earth: The Luminous Landscapes of Victoria Adams

Hushka, Rock

Individual Artists

One of the most innovative Northwest artists of her time, Virna Haffer was an internationally recognized and respected Tacoma photographer who has slipped from both regional and national art history books. In a career spanning more than six decades, Haffer found success as a photographer, printmaker, painter, musician, sculptor, and published writer, though she is primarily known as a photographer. Self-taught, she began her ambitious career in the early 1920s, both running a successful portrait studio and also exhibiting her unique artistic images around the world. Margaret E. Bullock, curator of collections and special exhibitions at Tacoma Art Museum, art historian Christina S. Henderson, and independent curator and gallery owner David F. Martin examined more than 30,000 of Virna Haffer's photographic negatives, prints, and woodblocks at the Washington State Historical Society and Tacoma Public Library's Special Collections were examined to create this book.

A Turbulent Lens: The Photographic Art of Virna Haffer

David F. Martin

Bullock, Margaret

Henderson, Christina

The 10th Northwest Biennial

Julie Van Pelt (editor)

Selections from the Herb and Lucy Pruzan collection

Creating the New Northwest: Selections from the Herb and Lucy Pruzan Collection

Kangas, Matthew

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