Monday, October 26, 2009

"1000 Ideas For Creative Reuse"



Quarry Books recently published a softcover book on rePurposed Furniture and Furnishings called- "1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse"- featuring my work (5 images) and the work of my brother
(6 images).

This book is written by an artist from Eureka ,California named Garth (can't help but think of Waynes World when I hear that name- sorry dude!) Johnson who found my work thru flickr (ahhh- the wonders of Social Networking/ aka Web 2.0 !)
Garth chose to break his book into chapters that group the work into what I feel are slightly confusing categories.


For example, his first chapter is titled "Paper,Collage, + Assemblage"- which implies a material based taxonomy - but then other chapters are arranged by function (for example the chapter titled "Housewares + Furnishings" ),
but, then there's a chaptered titled "Geek Craft + Man Craft" (which sounds waaaaay to much like a term HGTV uses called a Man Cave- which I cant stand!) -
so - I'm a little confused by his method of taxonomy.

Also - for visual purposes - they chose to display the books photographs with out any text to explain/support what the image is.


The only text is a credit for who made the piece and who photographed the object.
All of the explanation of materials used- what the object was reclaimed, upcycled from, exists as an "Image Directory", which I found very clunky to use when reading this book.

What I'm pleased about is how diverse the range of creativity is that Garth has assembled in this book- it's truly wonderful to see how vastly skilled and talented artist and designers can be.
And- it's the very first book that has published my work- and the work of my brother Aaron Kramer. (.......who's counting, that there's 6 images of his work- and only 5 images of my work- really- who's counting!?!?)

This book has spawned some ideas for me personally, to publish a book- that showed more examples of this vernacular-
but shown in situ.
How many times do most folks need to see how a piece of Furniture or a Lamp will "look" in their home- or a home "like" their home......so simply showing an object without seeing it in it's context...anyway- I don't want to give away too many ideas for my book.

Here's the ISBN to order the book:: 978-1-59253-540-8