Fire & the Feminine: Myths & Legends A bold and humorous creative voice emerges in a variety of media, yet award-winning San Francisco-Bay Area artist Carol Witten's most dynamic expressons are reflected in her ceramic sculptures. Witten explores the mysterious dynamics of her gender through 100 works she's "squeezed to life" from bits of clay. Her artwork will make you laugh and so will the accompany text. Inspiration for her stoneware sculptures comes from Pharaohs, queens, and muses found in myths, legends, and the daily news. The passionate and tormented Medusa, The First Fire: The Face of Medusa, will make your heart pound. Later, we meet an exhausted Mnemosyne, Mother of the Nine Muses, as she reclines at the Temple at Ayra Triada after giving birth to nine daughters. Each sister is endowed with a treasure whose fire will live forever. Witten's earthy bodies are both llighthearted and outlandish, yet her sources are profound, often borne from personal struggle. We follow the artist as she discovers the sources for these works, whether in books, museums, or travel. The book offers an example of an artist who "kept her day job" while always returning to her passion. Witten concludes with veritable information on the technical aspects of her art she gleaned from a lifetime of experience: more reason to add this book to your collection.

This volume contains papers presented at the international conference Networks in the Hellenistic world according to the pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond which took place at the universities of Cologne and Bonn 23rd 26th February 2011. The organizers, all specialists in Hellenistic pottery of different regions in the Eastern Mediterranean, invited participants working from the Adriatic Sea to Asia Minor and up to Central Asia to consider their material according to the common platform of networks and exchange systems. Among the questions addressed by the contributors are: What is the character of the trade relations between political centres? What is the nature of economic development in minor cities and rural areas? Are some regions cut off from trade routes and thus characterised by a more restricted spectrum of local pottery? Which places traded their pottery globally? Whose pottery was copied, and by whom? Can the repertoire of forms reflect the adoption of specific customs?"