It is most often by way of errors, false starts, overrun objectives, and much groping and fumbling in general that great and original art arrives.
(Clement Greenberg, Affirmations and Refusals, p277)
Quote of the Week
Even when I was young, I said to myself that what is meant to be mine will come to me. I don’t have to go and look for it, just be attentive.
If there is any wisdom in life, it is knowing how to wait.
(José Saramago)
Visualising Urban Geographies
New dynamic maps of Edinburgh are now online through the National Library of Scotland’s collaborative Visualising Urban Geographies project with Edinburgh University. Included are 16 geo-referenced historical maps of Edinburgh from 1765-1940. They can all be compared together in Google Maps with present-day maps and satellite images. NLS have also created a 3-D representation of Edinburgh’s growth from 1450 to 1900 in Google Earth.
Online research resources: a reminder
eca library gives you access to a wide range of online research resources. These include various journals databases. Two popular databases are described here:
ARTbibliographies Modern:
ARTbibliographies Modern (ABM) provides full abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, PhD dissertations, and exhibition reviews on all forms of modern and contemporary art, with more than 13,000 new entries being added each year. Full coverage begins in 1974 when the first volume was digitised, but entries date back to the late 1960s.
ABM is the premier source of information on modern and contemporary arts dating from the late 19th century onwards, including photography since its invention. It includes abstracts of English and foreign-language material on famous and lesser-known artists, movements, and trends. The coverage of ABM is wide-ranging and includes performance art and installation works, video art, computer and electronic art, body art, graffiti, artists’ books, theatre arts, conservation, crafts, ceramic and glass art, ethnic arts, graphic and museum design, fashion, and calligraphy, as well as traditional media including illustration, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and drawing.
ABM is used by students and researchers around the world to pinpoint publications and writings relevant to their area of study. Its extensive classification system and comprehensive abstracts make it an ideal source for information on artists, art movements, art history and theory, design, photography, and crafts.
Design and Applied Arts Index:
Design and Applied Arts Index (DAAI) is the leading source of abstracts and bibliographic records for articles, news items, and reviews published in design and applied arts periodicals from 1973 onwards. An indispensable tool for students, researchers, and practitioners worldwide, DAAI covers both new designers and the development of design and the applied arts since the mid-19th century, surveying disciplines including ceramics, glass, jewellery, wood, metalsmithing, graphic design, fashion and clothing, textiles, furniture, interior design, architecture, computer aided design, Web design, computer-generated graphics, animation, product design, industrial design, garden design, and landscape architecture. Around 1200 new records are added in each monthly update.
For more information about all our online resources take a look at the library pages on the student portal.
Quote of the week
Education is not filling a pail, but lighting a fire.
( WB Yeats)
Free e-book on paper model design
Fundamentals of Paper Model Design is a free 2010 ebook by Angel David Guzman. Freely available in PDF format with additional Blender scripts, the 226-page book details how folded paper sculptures can be created using advanced 3D software such as the free open-source Blender suite. The book also gives an overview of other software used to create complex paper models. The book is clearly written and illustrated, and will be of use to a range of professions including contemporary fine artists, book artists, crafts makers, architects, stop-motion animators, stage set designers, and product designers. The book is deeply informed and is generally of a quality that would normally only come from a major publisher. There is a useful eight-page glossary.
Quote of the Week
A person caught in a philosophical confusion is like a man in a room who wants to get out but doesn’t know how. He tries the window but it is too high. He tries the chimney but it is too narrow. And if he would only turn around he would see that the door has been open all the time!
…the problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have always known.
(Wittgenstein, Investigations §109)
Materials library
Did you know we have a collection of materials samples from German supplier Materialworks? More information is available here.
Our Materialworks samples boxes are available at the library service desk for reference purposes. The categories of materials which we currently hold are:
- Translucency
- Wire Mesh
- Sandwich
- Non-woven felts
- Technical textiles
- Flooring
- Metocene
Quote of the Week
Whenever [Brancusi] sensed in us apprehension or distress about our painting, he would bolster our spirits. “Take the bull by the horns, press on, never give up!” Sometimes he would elaborate: “You can’t get to the real things if you don’t repudiate the I… The more you run after fame, the more it will escape you. Turn your back on it, and you’ll be free to make the works that matter.”
(Natalie Dumitresco and Alexandre Istrati, Brancusi)
Quote of the Week
Quality… is what makes art irreplaceable. Quality is constituted by the pleasure, joy, exhilaration, delight, elation, affect, the satisfaction gotten from art. Everything that is in art; the content, the import, the tenor, the drift, the meaning, the significance… -all these things are carried by quality.
(Clement Greenberg, Homemade Esthetics, p106)
