Heritage Arts

Organized by the colors of the rainbow, a design expert and writer looks at the cultural associations with and connections between colors.

Wendell Berry's profound critique of American culture has entered its sixth decade, and in this new gathering he reaches with deep devotion toward a long view of Agrarian philosophy. Mr. Berry believes that American cultural problems are nearly always aligned with their agricultural problems, and recent events have shone a terrible spotlight on the divides between our urban and rural citizens. Our communities are as endangered as our landscapes. There is, as Berry outlines, still much work to do, and our daily lives--in hope and affection -- must triumph over despair. Mr. Berry moves deftly between the real and the imagined. The Art of Loading Brush is an energetic mix of essays and stories, including "The Thought of Limits in a Prodigal Age," which explores Agrarian ideals as they present themselves historically and as they might apply to our work today. "The Presence of Nature in the Natural World" is added here as the bookend of this developing New Agrarianism. Four stories from an as-yet-unfinished novel, better described as "an essay in imagination," extend the Port William story as it follows Andy Catlett throughout his life to this present moment. Andy works alongside his grandson in "The Art of Loading Brush," one of the most moving and tender stories of the entire Port William cycle. Filled with insights and new revelations from a mind thorough in its considerations and careful in its presentations, The Art of Loading Brush is a necessary and timely collection.

Art and science are famous opposites. Contemporary innovation mostly keeps them far apart. But in this book, David Edwards--world-renowned inventor; Harvard professor of the practice of idea translation; creator of breathable insulin, edible food packaging, and digital scents--reveals that the secret to creating very new things of lasting benefit, including innovations we will need to sustain human life on the planet, lies in perceiving art and science as one.

Using minimal tools and a simple technique of bending, interweaving, and fastening together sticks, artist PatrickDougherty creates works of art inseparable with nature and the landscape. With a dazzling variety of forms seamlesslyintertwined with their context, his sculptures evoke fantastical images of nests, cocoons, cones, castles, and beehives.

For over 25,000 years, humans across the globe have shaped, decorated, and fired clay. Despite great differences in location and time, universal themes appear in the world's ceramic traditions. This book explores the recurring artistic themes that tie humanity together.

In Wachovia, the various trash pits or middens associated with early Moravian inhabitants, as well as the potters' waster dumps, both in Bethabara and Salem, have provided us with significant insights into an incredibly complex eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century earthenware production. Although local antiquarians and collectors have been aware for many years that pottery constituted one of the largest early industries carried on by the Moravians in North Carolina, it was for the most part only the well-kept archival records that testified to this fact. Fine examples of slip-decorated pottery, as wekk as some utilitarian forms, existed in local collections and in the Wachovia Museum in Old Salem, but it was not until the excavations at Bethabara were begun that anyone became aware of the real significance of the tradition in which local potters were working.

An introduction to the art of drawing explores a wide variety of media and techniques for both novice and experienced artists, with practical guidelines on such topics as shape, shading, portraiture, architectural renderings, nature, and perspective.

Pecos River style pictographs are one of the most complex forms of rock art worldwide. The dramatic prehistoric pictographs on the limestone overhangs of the lower Pecos and Devils Rivers in West Texas have been the subject of preservation and study since the 1930s, and dedicated research continues to this day. The medium is large-scale, polychrome pictographs in open rock shelter settings, emphasizing the animistic/shamanistic religion practiced by the local aboriginal peoples. Creating large-scale rock murals required intelligence, skill, and knowledge. These enigmatic images, some dating to 4,500 years ago and possibly earlier, depict strange, vaguely human and animal shapes and various geometric forms.

An exact date for the invention of photography is evasive. Scientists and amateurs alike were working on a variety of photographic processes for much of the early nineteenth century. Thus most historians refer to the year 1839 as the first year of photography, not because the sensational new medium was invented then, but because that is the year it was introduced to the world.

This lavishly illustrated volume reevaluates and updates the story of 100 years of fashion photography. Written by experts in photography and fashion history, it includes more than 300 photographs by the genre's most famous practitioners.

Interviews and essays describe the way of life and crafts of pioneer America still surviving in the Appalachian region.