Carved in Stone

For six years, William Wylie photographed the changing landscape of the Carrara marble quarry. His images capture the intense physical scale of the site, the dramatic setting, and the character of the stone cutters - caravatori - whose families have worked the quarries for generations.

Wylie has worked extensively on the subject of place - from the American West to Europe. His photographs have been widely exhibited, and may be found in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Yale University Art Museum and others.



Bill Wylie was on press recently at Mondadori for his latest project, CARRARA, which celebrates the legendary Cava di Gioia quarry in Carrara, the source of the luminous white marble used by Michelangelo, Bernini, and Henry Moore. It is a beautifully printed project in duotone and four-color. I just received my advance copy and I confess, it definitely took my mind off the daily drone of economic disasters.


Which stone supports the bridge, Kublai Khan asks? The bridge is not supported by one stone or another, Marco answers, but by the line of the arch that they form. Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: Why to you speak to me of stones? It is only the arch that matters. Polo answers: Because without the stones there is no arch. (Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities).

These questions from Kublai Khan are all quite interesting. But I wonder if Marco Polo could also tell me why these Carrara stone cutters are so darn stylish and good-looking?

Sartorialist, perhaps you would know ....

Some Favorites (first of three posts) - Great Museum Books

I asked my colleagues in Verona what the staff thought were some of the most beautifully printed book projects for 2008. Some of their favorites are my favorites too, and I've covered a number of these projects in earlier blog posts this past Fall; here now are several more important projects that have not been covered. All of these titles are new, most released right before Christmas.

It's a stunning group of books - or perhaps I should say "weighty" since the boxes of books I received from Verona probably totaled over 50 lbs.

(And were delivered as one box of nearly 50 lbs and another of - 2 lbs! Not very convenient for lifting)

I've grouped these into several batches, the first of which is Museum Books.

This year brought a number of important titles from several of the top institutions in the United States. Featured in the foreground is The Color of Light: Watercolors by Winslow Homer from The Art Institute of Chicago. From left to right, back row, are shown: Art and Love in Renaissance Italy from The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Masterpieces: Great Paintings of the World in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and another title from the MFA El Greco to Velazquez

NOTE: And speaking of museums, for some interesting information on museums today, check out the NPR series Museums in the 21st Century.

I love having great samples like these to show potential customers, and I'll be in Washington and New York later this month for just that purpose. If only these books were not so heavy ... But the bigger issue on my mind when traveling in January is the weather: 8 degrees (F) this morning in New York! Here in South Florida it is a balmy 70 degrees.




This morning when I took the dog for a walk, the moon was out. A nice way to start a new week.

Ceramics in America Recognized with Book-of-the-Year Award

Amidst all the election hubbub last week, I received this happy piece of news: my client The Chipstone Foundation (see posting on October 24) has won the prestigious Book-of-the-Year Award from The American Ceramics Circle .

This was the first project we worked on together, and we are all very proud and look forward to great things for future editions. Director of the Chipstone Foundation Jon Prown recognized the "tremendous effort" and "job well done"!

Washington DC - Publishing and Politics

Half of the year my husband and I live and work from The Adirondacks. It is a beautiful place to be Spring, Summer, Fall, and.... Is it already Winter? It is still only October and scraping the ice and snow off my car this morning before my drive to the Albany airport reminded me again why winter is an excellent time to be down in South Florida, where we will be heading in about three weeks.


I arrive in DC and have fun talking to everyone I meet - cab drivers, waitresses - about the upcoming election. Everyone is really excited and optimistic, and I wish I was going to be here next Tuesday when the results come in. I hope it will be the great change for the better that we all are hoping for. I drop my bags at the hotel and walk over to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

I stop in on Karen Siatras, designer and production manager at The Smithsonian, and she is buried under with catalogues she and the staff are rushing to organize and get sent out. A few months ago we reprinted a title for Karen on the 19th Century American artist GEORGE CATLIN, painter of American Indians and the American West. Karen waxes poetic on how wonderful it is to work in Italy versus China. I do nothing to try to convince her otherwise - and we discuss the possibility of doing more work together in the future in Italy, if only the exchange rate would improve just a little more.....


Later I am back at my hotel. My favorite hotel. If I was a hotel I would be this hotel. But it shall remain nameless since it is already nearly impossible to get a room unless you book weeks in advance.

As usual my room is adorable, though there is one feature just outside my door that I am finding a little disconcerting. (Some of the rooms have shared baths, but....)

I have dinner at the bar. A steady stream of regulars stop in for a drink or dinner and to chat with Chantal, the bartender.

One Frenchman who I have seen before waves his arm in the general direction of the room full of diners and says "this whole place is full of Democrats! The owner of the hotel will not even allow a Republican through the front door!"  Following this remark I am surprised that the next person who sits down announces that he is - A Republican! He lives in Alexandria and sells mortgages. He says to me in a confidential whisper, "Obama scares me"  and knocks back his vodka tonic. The tiles that decorate the bar area would seem to indicate that the hotel bar is really a non-partisan watering hole. Looking closely at the tile work I notice that cavorting with the elephants and donkeys are a few small rats (note middle right edge), which may be the best indication of the hotel's true political sentiments.

Returning Home to Find a Beautiful Book

Right before leaving for Frankfurt,  I called  the Verona plant of Mondadori to speak to a client who was on press for the Chipstone Foundation.

It was a familiar story coming from Verona: The printing was going fine, but the staff in Verona was feeding my client too much!

It is a common belief among those of us who have spent a lot of time doing press OKs that certain printers plot to make their clients more pliable on press by feeding them too many lunches with too many glasses of wine. And now, apparently, ice cream is part of their repertoire as well! Unfortunately for the printer, the plan usually backfires with clients becoming more ornery and argumentative after eating and drinking too much.

 The Chipstone Foundation is a private collection of decorative arts with a focus on early American furniture, historical prints, and British and early American pottery. For the past two years I have worked with the designer on this project, and I am astonished to see how she is able to take a relatively dry subject and through sophisticated design and typography create a book that virtually anyone would want to pick up and browse through. And how great is it that she decided on a racey purple and burnt orange for the jacket and cloth cover of this title which, according to the introduction, has the sober mission of exploring "topics representing four centuries of ceramic history"?

Aside from admiring my advance copy of CERAMICS IN AMERICA, this week was spent trying to catch up on emails missed while I was in Frankfurt and following up on likely acquisitions of some of the new book projects.


And it is good to be home.

Talking About: Art and the Printed Page

Print lives!

Despite the fantastic uses of the internet as a source of knowledge, information, and connection, at some point most people will still pick up the occassional book, magazine, or newspaper.

But today I am not writing for those people. Instead, I am writing for those among us for whom buying a beautifully produced publication is a deliberate act. We are the type of people who really LOVE the look and feel – the smell, even! – of the printed page. And whether we are looking at a glossy fashion magazine or a limited-edition artist's monograph, we wonder what kind of paper was chosen, or how many colors were used in printing (was that a PMS or a tint match?). Who was the designer? Who shot those photos? We are excited when a publisher hits the market just right with a new idea – and we love when someone comes up with a unique and unexpected way to put the whole package together.

And as it turns out, we can take heart, at least for now: in 2007, according to R.R. Bowker, 277,000 new trade titles and 135,000 on demand titles were published, an overall increase over the previous year. Graphic Arts Monthly reports that among the largest print operations in the US there was an aggregate revenue leap of 12% in 2007, indicating an increase in printed publications. At least in general terms, there are more books and magazines being printed than ever before.

For two decades my professional life has been connected to the world of print through advertising, design, and publishing. Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to work with some great companies and institutions – The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Aperture Foundation, The Creative Black Book, the Italian publisher and printer Mondadori – where the translating of important images to the printed page is itself considered an art. I include among my friends and colleagues terrific artists, photographers and designers; top-notch editors, publishers and packagers of art books; tireless production managers; knowledgeable agents and sales people; and some of the best printers out there in the US, Asia, and Europe who specialize in serving this fussy group of people.

This blog is meant to serve as a forum for commentary and opinions – hopefully some other than my own! – on subjects related to the interconnected worlds of art, photography, advertising, design, printing and publishing.