We’ve exhibited in Palm Beach, Florida in January for the last seven years. In that time, the exhibition has had three different owners, three different names and differing emphases each year. Despite the difficulty the fair has had finding a footing, we’ve returned each year. We are convinced there is a good audience in the Palm Beach area and we are always happy to catch up with our existing Florida clients, and family and friends.
This year, however, the news is better. The latest incarnation, artpalmbeach, art+photography+design, seems to have found a workable formula. The crowds at the fair were large; the composition of the show varied and exciting, we added new clients to our list and the other dealers we spoke to seemed pleased sales. In this economic environment, those are impressive achievements. David Lester, of International Fine Art Exhibitions, who founded the fair in 1998 with his wife, Lee Ann, and resumed ownership a year ago, told Artinfo, “I want this fair to have broad appeal, quality art, and accessibility. My goal is to go out and bring in much more interesting art from around the globe.” The global emphasis was evident in the mix of galleries and work. The 70 galleries came from the US and abroad, including the Netherlands, Ukraine, UK, Sweden Argentina and Dubai. Chinese, Vietnamese, Icelandic and Latin American artists were featured. In the browngrotta arts booth alone was work created by artists from 15 countries.
“That power of attraction, admirable for any fair in an inhospitable economic climate, bodes well for the process of reinvention that the Lesters have only just begun, ” concluded Margery Gordon in her Artinfo article, “Art Palm Beach Mixes Media — and Messages.” http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/33659/art-palm-beach-mixes-media-and-messages. We were so optimistic, in fact, we are turning around and returning next week to participate in IFAE’s American International Fine Art Fair from February 2nd – 8th at the Palm Beach Convention Center http://www.aifaf.com. More on that to come.
We’re leaving the ice and snow (sigh) for sunnier climes next week, where 
and 
with Valeria Belletti and Sam Goldwyn Jr.) The result is the highly idiosyncratic list below. I am indebted to artist Sabrina Gschwandtner and Fiberarts editor Marci Rae McDade who compiled a list of feature-length fiber-related films in the April/May 2009 issue of Fiberarts (their selections are asterisked below). I have added the parantheticals and other nominees in developing my own compilation. For a much more extensive list (132!) of films that feature just knitting, see Knitting in the Movies; there’s another at 
by Raoul D’harcourt (Univ of Washington Press, 1974; Dover Publications, 2002). I discovered this book in the Public Library in Chicago around 1958. It was a reference book and only in French. Later it was translated in English, and a few years later it was reprinted. Wonderful examples, history and diagrams; there’s nothing like it. It was like my bible. Not sure if it still available. There are many other books on Philosophy and Architecture that I would recommend, but the D’harcourt book was the most influential.
by Eric Broudy( Littlehampton Book Services Ltd., 1979; Published by the University Press of New England, 1993). This book is absolutely fascinating from a visual, historical, and technical point of view. The forms of looms have inspired me as sculptural elements in themselves. Understanding the evolution of their forms in a cultural context is invaluable. I have to imagine this book of interest to non-fiber people as well as serious fiber artists.
, ed. Dieter Schwarz (Hatje Cantz Publishers; Bilingual edition 2005). Agnes talked about waiting for inspiration… and waiting…and waiting…and waiting. She also spoke of not having unnecessary distractions in your life such as pets and unnecessary friends. I put my husband and the two cats up for adoption but so far no takers.
, by Robert A Burton, M.D. (Reprint edition, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009) is a book I have read recently that I think will be influential going forward. I am interested in emotional responses to visual perception of handwoven works. It is perhaps tangential to my main focus but nevertheless important to the research process.
by Bernard Leach (Faber & Faber 1988).
(and all of its variations)(recent reprint, Weatherhill, 2008) had a HUGE influence on my work. The Japanese have a wonderful way of using indigenous materials to wrap things…packaging, transporting, presenting. Even now, years later, the influence of these old techniques prevails. This book and its information, not basketry nor bamboo, drove me to Japan in the first place. Who knew it would have such a profound influence on my work? If you look at some of the earlier work I exhibited through browngrotta arts, you’ll see Japanese packaging everywhere. In New York, the recent reprint can be found in Kinokuniya Bookstore on 6th Avenue. Love that place!
(University of California Press, 2004) is the absolute cornerstone of the project I have worked on for six years for the North Dakota Museum of Art. The book contains a series of papers and artist interviews that resulted from a year-long project all up and down the west coast (why not Portland???) in which Jacquelynn Bass and independent curator Mary Jane Jacobs looked at how curators shy away (to say the least) from work that has anything to do with spirituality. There were several retreats at a Zen Center in California, where papers on the topic were delivered. There’s more information about the project on the UC Press website. As to pursuing a career, I never really did that. I do what I do because I have to. It is what keeps me in the world.
by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz (Phaidon Press, 2009) It’s an account of Albers’ teaching at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Yale. I took a summer course with him at Harvard when I lived in Cambridge and this book sums up some of the thing he had us do. It was very exciting.
by Germain Bazin, curator of the Louvre (Simon Schuster, NY, 1962) probably way out of print! The book is beautiful and I have it and love it still. 
(with Alexandra Quinn, Gibbs Smith, 2008). It is a wonderful book. He collects street trees and mills them and uses them in his work so he is dear to my heart. 
IF (Getty Publications; J. Paul Getty Museum; First Edition edition 1995) by another artist friend of mine, Sarah Perry. 
(The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2007) by John Elderfield, Elizabeth Reede, Richard Powell, Michael Auping, Martin Puryear. 
by Tony Birks (Marston House 1994). I feel this book documents her work very well. I am always amazed at the “drawing” she could do with glaze. 
(Wesleyan 1971). It was my weaving “Bible”. In fact everything she wrote makes so much sense to me. 
by Mildred Constantine/Jack Larsen (Van Nostrand Reinhold 1972) it just turned my ideas and work upside down. I saw what was possible with the materials I was using and what else was out there. That book opened up a whole new world to me. 
by Soetsu Yanagi (Kodansha International, Revised edition, 1990). One of my first trips after arriving in Tokyo three weeks ago was to the Mingeikan, Yanagi’s museum and home. It was a delight, after so many years, to see some of the work pictured in the book. Yanagi’s theory that hard, repetitive practice resulted eventually in the disengagement of self and led to work of merit produced with ease was an inspiration to me. I was a young grad student when I first read the book and at the time every day was a struggle. 
by Claude Levi-Strauss (University Of Chicago Press, 1968). The introduction made me think about the role of an artist and about materials.
Only a few weeks left to left observe the official International Year of Natural Fibres (yes, we’re sticking with the international spelling here). For browngrotta arts and many of the artists we represent, of course, promotion of natural fiber in art and otherwise is a lifelong pursuit. In 2009, however, we had the assistance of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, which declared this year the International Year of Natural Fibres
Sneak Peek 10th Wave III Catalog: Essay by Akiko Busch
Writer Akiko Busch has drafted an essay for the catalog 10th Wave III: Art Textiles and Fiber Sculpture, which is being printed this week. Busch is the author of The Uncommon Life of Common Objects (Metropolis Books), Geography of Home: Writings on Where We Live (Princeton Architectural Press) and, most recently, Nine Ways to Cross a River: Midstream Reflections on Swimming and Getting There from Here (Bloomsbury). A former writer for Metropolis Magazine, Busch writes about culture and design for a variety of publications. She is a regular contributor to the Considerings column in American Craft Magazine. About the work in the 10th Wave III, Busch writes,
The 164-page color catalogs can be ordered from http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/catalog.34.html beginning October 30, 2009.