Author Lynn Barnes admits she's known all along that she'd been a little different in ways she can't explain. In her memoir, The Last Exit before the Toll, she examines her life and tries to make sense of who and what she is and how her being affects her existence.

She reflects on growing up as an only child and her life now as a single, surrealist artist and Poe aficionado. Barnes recalls the events that have greatly impacted her, including the deaths of her mother and father and the suicide of her best friend, Marc. But it was the discovery that she has undiagnosed Asperger's syndrome that helped piece together the puzzle that has been her life and allowed her to come to terms with the troubling personality traits she has experienced all her life.

An insightful and creative look at Barnes's life, The Last Exit before the Toll provides a glimpse into the sometimes frustrating and unknown world of someone who lives with Asperger's syndrome.

Tap into your natural ability to create
* Engaging, proven exercises for developing creativity
* Priceless resource for teachers, artists, actors, everyone
Artist and educator Corita Kent inspired generations of artists, and the truth of her words "We can all talk, we can all write, and if the blocks are removed, we can all draw and paint and make things" still shines through. This revised edition of her classic work" Learning by Heart "features a new foreword and a chart of curriculum standards. Kent's original projects and exercises, developed through more than 30 years as an art teacher and richly illustrated with 300 thought-provoking images, are as inspiring and as freeing today as they were during her lifetime. Learn how to challenge fears, be open to new directions, recognize connections between objects and ideas, and much more in this remarkable, indispensable guide to freeing the creative spirit within all of us. With new material by art world heavyweights Susan Friel and Barbara Loste, " Learning by Heart "brings creative inspiration into the 21st century

Tony Narducci fell in love with Tennessee Williams's poetry when he was fourteen years old. For Narducci, Williams was the genius who redefined theater in America, most accomplished modern playwright, and perhaps one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. So when thirty-three-year-old Narducci met Williams at a Key West bar in February 1982, the encounter was more than coincidence. It was destiny.

In In the Frightened Heart of Me, Narducci narrates the story of how, after that first meeting, he was drawn deep into Williams's life and work-a journey that would change Narducci's life in every way. Companions until Williams's death in February 1983, this biography shares how their time together was an odyssey of adventure, emotional entanglement, and insight.

While providing a glimpse into the Key West of the early 1980s, In the Frightened Heart of Me blends the events and sorrows of Williams's last year on earth with Narducci's life-changing story and the effects of their relationship. It tells how 1983 was the year Narducci evolved from a floundering, young aspiring artist to a focused business entrepreneur. It was the year he watched his literary hero, a titan of literature, become a frightened, dying old man-and the year AIDS took the lives of many of his loved ones. It was the year that defined his life.

For years, I have wanted to write a book about the relentless determination it takes to succeed in the arts. Whether as a young artist in New York City, as a music coordinator of a Broadway musical, or as a musician traveling through Europe, I will share with you excitement, acclaim, and culture. Onward and Upward is the true account of my pursuit of a dream; a career in music. In this around-the-world journey, I share my stories of culture, family, laughter, friendship, wisdom, and heartache, with a generous splash of the likes of Strauss, motorcycle chases, and Hollywood. Any aspiring artist, would-be world traveler, or entrepreneur, will benefit from reading this book. Learn from another's experience about dedication, passion, and culture. Partly by means of behind-the-scene memoirs, partly by means of journal entries, we will walk hand in hand on this most extraordinary journey through a life in the arts.

"Jason C. Kuo's in-depth study of the paintings of Gao Xingjian significantly enriches our understanding of a major cultural polymath. This lavishly illustrated book enables us to make important connections between painting and writing, a type of synthesis often downplayed by western post-Enlightenment tendencies toward cultural specialization but very much at the heart of the Chinese literati tradition." Paul Gladston (University of Nottingham), principal editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and author of Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History. "In The Inner Landscape: The Paintings of Gao Xingjian, Jason C. Kuo offers his readers a multifaceted lens through which to frame an engagement with the remarkable pictorial, filmic, and literary art of the Chinese writer and 2000 Nobel laureate in literature, Gao Xingjian. A central theme in his oeuvre is reflection on his life as a writer in self-exile in France, a life at once burdened with the memory of his homeland and yet artistically liberating. Kuo illuminates our understanding of the meaning and significance of his art by situating it within a critical discussion of the contemporary context of global modernity, a context that challenges our notions of national cultural identity in an age of mobile subjectivity and the deterritorialization of cultural practices." Stephen J. Goldberg (Hamilton College), author of Dislocating the Center: Contemporary Chinese Art Beyond National Borders. "The Inner Landscape: The Paintings of Gao Xingjian presents almost 300 paintings by the contemporary artist, poet, film-maker, author, and Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian. Jason C. Kuo's erudite study not only details Gao's development as an intellectual, but also contextualizes and explores his attitudes toward writing, painting, and film-making in the interstices of 'East' and 'West'." Katharine P. Burnett (University of California, Davis), author of Dimensions of Originality: Essays in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Art Criticism. "The Inner Landscape: The Paintings of Gao Xingjian by Jason C. Kuo is a most thought-provoking and intelligent study of the art of Gao Xingjian. Kuo, driven by a desire for synthesis in his scholarship, brings a modernist practice to bear on a long tradition of intellectual discourse in China." Frances Klapthor, Baltimore Museum of Art.

Ceramicists searching for new ways to fire their creations now have a wealth of options. Authors James Watkins and Paul Wandless, along with a group of distinguished artisans, demonstrate in detail how to build low-cost, low-tech, yet high-quality kilns and varied firing techniques. The plans range from an easy, affordable and versatile Raku Kiln to a unique wood-fuelled Downdraft Stovepipe Barrel kiln. These clever devices make it possible to produce rich surface effects from alternative reduction firing techniques. In addition to showing the basic procedures for using each kiln, easy-to-follow directions for many fast-fire methods unfold in color photographs: you'll see how to achieve terra sigillata surfaces with direct chemical application and how to do traditional crackle-glaze raku and smoke finishes.