Powerful and beautiful, the Mississippi River holds some of the nation's most interesting scenery and treasured history. Although the river had long been a channel for trade, the 1850s marked the transformation of the Mississippi River from a travel route to a vital conduit for cultural, artistic, and architectural ideas from Louisiana to Minnesota.Minneapolis Institute of Arts curators Jason Busch and Christopher Monkhouse have culled public and private collections to assemble an exhibition of fine and decorative arts from along the river during the period from 1850 to 1861, a time of unprecedented economic and technological change throughout the country. Currents of Change brings together art in all media: paintings, prints, drawings, furniture, silver, ceramics, textiles, and sculpture-many of which have never before been showcased in a national exhibition. Each of the 150 objects presented demonstrates the development of culture and design along the Mississippi River, honoring and preserving the artistic history of the era.The fully illustrated Currents of Change includes color plates and black-and-white photographs. Monkhouse, Busch, and Janet Whitmore, a freelance art historian, each contribute an essay to the publication. Monkhouse examines the development of America's artistic identity with the Mississippi River through Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha and Evangeline. Busch uses furnishings and portraits by artists like Thomas Sully and Alexander Roux to trace patterns of patronage and decoration along the river. Whitmore explores the Mississippi River landscape, people, and architecture in paintings by artists such as George Caleb Bingham and Henry Lewis.Jason Busch is assistant curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.Christopher Monkhouse is curatorial chair at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.Distributed for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

First in-depth study of the famous home of Henry Clay Frick, which houses The Frick Collection in New York City. Contains new scholarship by the Chief Curator of the Frick Collection.

Presents a collection of more than 250 classic covers from the Batman comic book series.

Roman Signer is an artist like no other. Although he identifies himself as a sculptor, he is best known for actions in which simple materials (rockets, balloons, rushing water) react with natural forces to yield surprisingly lyrical results. Part mad scientist, part sorcerer's apprentice, part Buster Keaton, Signer often appears in these actions, sometimes at considerable risk to himself. The real star of his works, however, is time. In works such as Sandbag with Timed Detonator (1988), an auto-destructive device featuring a plastic alarm clock that releases a heavy sandbag hanging above it, two periods of tranquil rest are bridged by an instant of sudden violence. In others the change is more gradual, as in Action with a Fuse (1989), a twenty kilometre, thirty-five day 'time sculpture' in which two hundred lengths of fuse burned a path to Signer's current hometown from the village of his youth In the Interview, Paula Van Den Bosch speaks to the artist about the origins of his interest in art and explosives. Gerhard Mack's Survey traces the key themes in a career that spans four decades, from the artist's early experiments with elemental materials to his large-scale explosive actions. In the Focus, Jeremy Millar visits the artist in Switzerland to retrace the path of the epic 1989 Action with a Fuse.

Learn to draw amazingly realistic portraits in seven easy stages This book is the perfect guide for creating lifelike representations of the human head in graphite. Experienced artist Lance Richlin begins by explaining drawing tools and materials, shading techniques, and the important anatomical structures of the head. Following these basics, he shows how to light the subject, block in and render each feature of the face, and address a variety of expressions-from subtle smiles to toothy grins. Then he guides the reader through four impressive projects, showing how to develop a lifelike head drawing in seven simple stages: the lay-in, plumb lines, volume, outline, tonal pattern, value, and finishing. Readers also will find an in-depth troubleshooting section to help them identify and solve any problems that lessen the realism and accuracy of their drawings. In an age full of technological shortcuts, this book emphasizes drawing from life and seeks to preserve the methods of the old masters.

We are living in a golden age of self-expression. The explosion of user-created content on blogs and social networking sites moved Time magazine to name 'You' their 2006 person of the year. But while we may be spending a lot more time in virtual worlds, we have not lost the urge to make our physical world more meaningful. By leaving art and ideas in public places, you can affect someone's day change their mood or their mind and maybe even change the world in the process! The Guerilla Art Kit shows how small artistic acts can start a revolution. Keri Smith, noted author of Living Out Loud and the blog Wish Jar Journal, uses her unique drawing and handwriting style to help anyone find and release their inner artist or activist. This visually exciting activity book full of step-by-step exercises, cut-out projects, sticker ideas, and more has both fun assignments and handy tips to help you unleash your creative energy into the streets, where you can really make an impact. From the quick exercises leaving books for strangers to find, chalking quotes on the sidewalk to the more involved making a 'wish tree,' guerilla gardening, or making your own stencils The Guerilla Art Kit contains everything you need to put your message out into the world.

Today's crafters are no longer interested in simply cross-stitching samplers or painting floral scrolls on china. Instead, the contemporary craft movement embraces emerging artists, crafters, and designers working in traditional and nontraditional media. Jenny Hart's Sublime Stitching has revolutionized the embroidery industry. Each year Nikki McClure sells thousands of her cut-paper wall calendars. Emily Kircher recycles vintage materials into purses. Stephanie Syjuco manufactures clothing under the tag line 'Because Sweatshops Suck.' These are just some of the fascinating makers united in the new wave of craft capturing the attention of the nation, the Handmade Nation. Faythe Levine traveled 19,000 miles to document what has emerged as a marriage between historical technique, punk culture, and the D.I.Y. ethos. For Handmade Nation (along with the documentary film of the same name, coming in 2009) she and Cortney Heimerl have selected 24 makers and 5 essayists who work within different media and have different methodologies to provide a microcosm of the crafting community. Participants in this community share ideas and encouragement through websites, blogs, boutiques, galleries, and craft fairs. Together they have forged a new economy and lifestyle based on creativity, determination, and networking. Twenty-four artists from Olympia, Washington, to Providence, Rhode Island, and everywhere in between show their work and discuss their lives. Texts by Andrew Wagner of American Craft Magazine, Garth Johnson of Extremecraft.com, Callie Janoff of the Church of Craft, Betsy Greer of Craftivism.com, and Susan Beal, author of Super Crafty, supply a critical view of the tight-knit community where ethics can overlap with creativity and art with community. Handmade Nation features photographs of the makers, their work environment, their process, their work, and discussions of how they got their start and what motivates them. Handmade Nation is a fascinating book for those who are a part of the emerging movement or just interested in sampling its wares.

A collection of stark and sophisticated black-and-white images created with x-ray technology features such subjects as a Boeing 777, an mp3 player's circuitboards, and a translucent daffodil, in a computer-enhanced volume that reveals the unlikely beauty within everyday objects. 20,000 first printing.

Palm mats and pilgrim tokens, manuscript illuminations and church frescoes, gold and enamel reliquaries and papier-mâché figurines, Russian icons and Mexican murals: What makes these works of art Christian? And what, as such, distinguishes them from other works? These are the questions at the center of this book, which is at once a sumptuously illustrated survey of Christian art over time and across the globe and a probing study of what "Christian art" really means, how it functions, where it arises, and whom it serves. Rowena Loverance draws extensively on the vast international collections of the British Museum, with its remarkable examples of Christian art in the fourth-century Roman empire, the meeting of Eastern and Western art during the Crusades, Christian missionary art and its reception in sixteenth-century Africa, India, and Japan, and twentieth-century Christian popular art from Latin America and Oceania. The Museum's collections of decorative arts yield original and lesser-known Christian iconography, allowing the author to show how Christian and other artists have responded to a variety of visual traditions. Within the European convention, the book considers the assaults of post-Renaissance scientific and philosophical discoveries and concludes with an assessment of the current state of Christian art at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Essays by Roman Zieglgansberger, Marion Bornscheuer, Christofer Conrad, Christian von Holst and Katja Matauschek.