Toluu

Book By Its Cover

A blog about all the nice books I regularly notice and have collected over the years.

Souvlaki CircusYesterday

This beautiful book is a blind collaboration between Finnish artist Amanda Vähämäki and Italian artist Michelangelo Setola. Inside the silkscreened canvas cover is a series of pencil drawings that “weave a patchwork narrative of metaphoric truths about humans and nature.” Most of the drawings depict some kind of man vs. animal theme- man hunting bear, bird hunting human’s food, dog bites hand, bear eats human sundae. There are little stories throughout which may pick up again in a later drawings. I really like the mixture of realistic delicate drawings with the more naive style of some of the others. It’s one of those books that feels just like a nice object all around. You can get a copy right here (for just 13.95!).

To Each His HomeOctober 3

This book is an intimate look into some of the most interesting, unique living spaces I’ve seen. There’s a thirteen house, twenty- two sculpture Bottle Village created by the late Grandma Prisbrey. All of the structures are made from glass bottles turned on their sides cemented together. It’s amazing what these colored bottles look like when the sun shines through them. Another space in the book which I loved is the home of a marionette maker and a mixed media artist. Their apartment in Tribeca in New York City, is filled floor to ceiling with weird old scientific things, charts, skeletons, taxidermy, tools, specimens in jars mixed with other things that inspire them- puppets of all kinds, mannequins, lots of clumps of dried flowers and industrial furniture. I mean I don’t think I would want to live there but how cool to be to hang out there for a long while. It would be like visiting some insane museum (which reminds me- this museum is awesome if you ever visit Philly ). Some of the other homes in this book are more live-able to me, like painter Mija Bankava’s home. There’s wide open space with lots of sunshine, huge oriental rugs, tons of patterned textiles flung over ornate colorful furniture, which seems like the best flea market finds. Her floor to ceiling paintings decorate the walls. It’s gorgeous. The book has lots of photographs of each of these incredible homes plus more along with an interview wit

As Overheard in the Back of my head (2)October 1

Before I start, just a quick mention, Dave Cuzner of Grain Edit is doing an enormous giveaway in honor of the blog’s first anniversary. As a big fan of the blog, I have donated a print along with so many talented designers and artists, who donated all sorts of stuff. I love Grain Edit and look forward to many more years of design goodness from there. Congrats to Dave!

Here’s another from Christopher David Ryan. It’s a second volume to this one I posted about before. I really like the layers of elements on the cover. And the interior has some great graphics, patterns and illustrations. Get your right here.

hers.September 29

Christopher David Ryan sent over two beautiful books. Today I’m showing you hers. which is a sweet sweet poem accompanied by sweet sweet illustrations. The poem starts as “hers is a world…” and goes on to say how “her” world “unlike yours” is “free of time” and “full of space” and “limited… but limitless” and other such things that I wish MY world was. The illustrations are soft with crayon lines. They have muted flat colors filling them, often refusing to stay in the lines. Each illustration has “her” face integrated in it, whether she becomes the rain, an umbrella, a leaf or the wings of a butterfly. You can see all the images from the book CDR’s website right here. I don’t see it in his shop just yet but you can find out more from him here as well as pick up prints to frame. Tomorrow I can share the other book. Thanks CDR!!

Sketchbook Series: Rebecca RubinSeptember 26

Rebecca Rubin and I lived down the hall from each other while at school at Risd. I have always been really intrigued by her work. I remember falling completely in love with two enormous- I mean taller than me and I’m almost 6 feet- paintings. I am not a big fan of abstract work but these paintings Rebecca did were gorgeous. They had so much texture made with tiny little lines and thick paint and so much red in beautiful shades. If I were a rich person they would have been mine. Rebecca’s work continues to impress me and now that she finally has her new website launched I can see what she’s been up to more recently. today she shares her sketchbooks. Here’s what Rebecca says about them and her recent work-

I perceive my sketchbooks to be a playground, a platform to explore and to have uninhibited fun. The drawings in my sketchbooks serve as conceptual starting points and ending points for almost everything I do, and I work in them everyday.
The projects I am presently working on, particularly the book, Glossary started as intimate, spare, and economical sketches to record everyday events in my life.

Glossary was recently a finalist in the Spring 2008 Diagram Poetry Chapbook Competition; it is a visual extension to a novel I am at work on. My sketchbooks are just like my best friends, I’d be lost without them and they are irreplaceabl