An Artist’s Notebook: Techniques and Materials by Bernard Chaet (review)

82 Books 'The time it takes to plant a seed is not the time it takes to build a wall. This book is offered as a seed rather than a wall.' Here secrets. emotions and credos are revealed and discussed by 5S masters of this craft in Asia, Europe, North and South America. China. It is a selective book on those who have chosen to make things that go with the bOI(V, clothed and unclothed, to cover or to unveil parts of it. Willcox has his own way of encouraging them to talk about their work, which is no mean achievement. Very clearly explained and illustrated is hall' they work. The chapter on Poul Havgaard (Denmark), among others. I found exemplary. Willeox and those who cooperated with him have met their mutual aim of building a 'crafts teaching book wherein our humanness and our heart beat were neither excluded nor omitted'. On education, he says: 'I n spite of the twentieth century, to feel is not a human deformity. The ability to feel, and to translate our feelings into meaningful forms, is what "creativity" is all about. If our technology is to be kept alive and responsible, then it needs to be fed. As craftsmen. the only food we have to feed it is the raw material of our feelings. This is the nontechnical lesson that is often overlooked within a crafts education. We believe the lesson is just as valuable to a learning experience as receiving technical instruction. And. hopefully, as we try to express ourselves in both form and words this attempt will provide an insight into what makes us tick.' This is a book to be felt, digested and assimilated, not in an armchair, but slowly in work situations, while facing challenges. not only in techniques but in thoughts. He seems to have lived many lives with many craftsmen and to have done their homework with them, exercising both their and his consciousness and conscience. Lights and Pigments: Colour Principles for Artists, Roy Osborne. John Murray, London, 1980.163 pp.. illus.,£9.50.ISBNO-71953747 -9. Reviewed by Lawrence Wheeler· Osborne has written a lucid, scholarly exposition of several technically difficult domains that are of the utmost importance to artists and teachers of art. In the text and the useful appendices, he has given, in plain language, accounts of: (I) human visual and emotional responses to the stimuli that are associated with the term cotor. (2) the character of radiant energy (light transmission and reflection) in relation to color, with consideration of light sources. pigments, binders and additive and subtractive color processes and (3) color measurement systems (lights and pigments). color interactions and mixing, and color-form relationships. An important aspect of Osborne's contribution is his care with technical terminology. With more than half a dozen specialized vocabularies to sort out for the (perhaps) nontechnical reader, he scarcely makes an error in his use of the correct term for a specific concept. This is a remarkable and unusual feat, a virtuoso performance. Students will be enthralled with the working appendices, themselves worth the price of the book. He has provided a succinct, accurate glossary of the technical terms in each field treated in the text and an unusually thoughtful selection of thumbnail biographies of artists, color professionals and color scientists. His descriptive list of pigments. ancient and presentday , is one that can actually be used in a shop or a studio. Finally, his select bibliography provides a map for each of several territories that readers will surely wish to explore. Indeed, so much material is touched on in this book that one will have, perhaps, two major reactions: This is notenough about the given topic. and I am now curious to know much more about this. One may infer, therefore, that the book is not a compendious handbook, but an invitation to further learning. It will lead students and their teachers to search for additional knowledge. and it provides fine leadership for that adventure. *Dept. of Psychology. University of Arizona, Tucson. AZ S5721, U.S.A. It is ungracious to carp about small matters, given such a delightful and informative piece of scholarship, but I...