Master key carpentry skills, from simple joinery techniques to fine woodworking. Learn about basic woodworking techniques to more advanced types of wood joints, finishing, woodturning, and furniture restoration. This book provides all the information you need to become a master carpenter. It's the ultimate step-by-step guide to essential woodworking tips and tricks. Inside the pages of this beginners guide, you'll find: - Over 100 key techniques and 20 easy projects to get you started - Clear step-by-step photography and easy-to-follow instructions - Advice on all major wood types and veneers and how to use them - Tips and tricks on restoring old furniture This visual guide is packed with clear instructions, detailed photography, and expert advice on how to master more than 20 woodcraft techniques such as joinery and finishing. Discover how to get the best out of your woodworking tools by learning how to use and maintain them. This informative guide also includes a visual directory of all major wood types and veneers, explaining what they are best used for and tips on how to work with them. Woodworking 101 This updated edition includes a fresh design and brand-new photography making the step-by-step techniques and projects even clearer to understand. The ideal gift for Father's Day, or for anyone who's looking for an introduction to carpentry. Complete the Series: Fully illustrated and easy to use, the DK Step by Step series covers all the essential skills and techniques you need to succeed in a specific activity. Once you've mastered key carpentry skills with Woodwork Step by Step, sharpen up your survival skills with Knots Step by Step.

Following the huge demand in contemporary societies to decorate homes in a "green" style, this book offers a more environmentally conscious approach to design and production processes by presenting a wide range of eco furniture products made with natural materials as well as using recycling and more environment respecting technologies. It presents the latest eco-furniture pieces from the world's leading design teams, and aims to encourage more people, especially professional designers to consider a more environmentally conscious approach to their design ideas and processes. * A showcase of the most striking examples of product design in furniture. * A response to an increasing demand concerned with home interiors. * An excellent and inspiring resource for designers and artists. * Few competitor titles in the market: most books are focused on architecture, this one offers an in-depth study of a quite new area of eco-product designing.

Jewelry Stories highlights the Museum of Arts and Design's unique, world-class collection of studio and contemporary art jewellery from the US, Europe, Australia, and Asia, a medium that comprises one-third of its permanent collection. Artists working in this field create jewellery rooted in sculptural experimentation and the concept of art as a wearable medium. The pieces featured represent the history of art jewellery as told from a largely US perspective. Jewellery artists are inspired by such subjects as found objects and materials, as well as by politics and pressing social issues, allowing for the development of unique, personal narratives in each piece. Each of the jewellery stories is written by an expert on the artist or subject, thus the book also celebrates the contributions they have made to the field. Published to accompany an exhibition at Museum of Arts and Design, New York (US), on permanent display.

"Eames: Beautiful Details celebrates the seamlessness and fluidity in which Charles and Ray Eames operated as both a husband and wife team and as designers unrestricted by traditionally professional boundaries. Select details of their life and work, from their refined designs to their innovative experiments, and even including images depicting the everyday poetic moments of their lives, and are shared here in this exhibit within a book. Inspired by Charles's immersive and original slideshows, in which he expertly selected and grouped images together that communicated information in an aesthetic, direct, and accessible way, this book strives to visually create the Eameses' life and work by taking the viewer through a delightful journey, focusing on their ""beautiful details."" The packaging design of the Eames: Beautiful Details slipcase is a pattern inspired by the triangles and colors of one of their most inventive, if lesser known, designs for children, simply called, ""the toy."" It also pays homage to the patterns they used on their well loved House of Cards. The Eameses brought a sense of humor and joy to everything they created, and the design and layout of the book aims to convey that spirit in a visual feast for the eyes. It is a testament to the Eameses and the lasting value of good design that their Eames lounge chair, created in 1956, endures today as perhaps the most recognizable and coveted piece of mid century furniture design. Their experiments in technological innovations, like molded plywood and fiberglass, resulted in such classic pieces as the bent plywood LCW and DCM Chairs, the Molded Plastic Chairs, and the Aluminum Group; all of which are still in production by Herman Miller. Likewise, Charles and Ray designed and built their own home in 1949 in Pacific Palisades, and it is still revered as a landmark of modern architecture. Built as part of the Case Study program in California, sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, it was one of the earliest experiments in pre fab construction, using off the shelf industrial parts. But unlike the austerity of much of modern architectural design, their factory like shell was lovingly lived in along with their personal collections of folk art, treasures from their travels, and everyday objects refreshingly displayed with affection and without pretense. In exhibition design as well, ""Mathematica: A World of Numbers ... and Beyond, 1961,"" for IBM is considered groundbreaking as an interactive, educational, and experiential way to communicate the wonder and magic of math. Similarly, their seminal film, Powers of Ten, 1977, expresses the mathematical concept of multiplying to the tenth power, in a very direct, simple, and powerful way. Unlike any other book previously published on Charles and Ray Eames, this unique monograph is a visual celebration of their work and life, and was created in true collaboration with Charles s grandson, Eames Demetrios, and other members of the Eames family."

Discover a world of decorative ideas with this compendium of history's most elegant patterns and ornamental designs. The World of Ornament brings together the two greatest encyclopedic collections of ornament of the 19th century: Auguste Racinet's L'Ornement polychrome Volumes I and II (1875-1888) and Auguste Dupont-Auberville's L'Ornement des tissus (1877) to provide one lavish source book spanning jewelry, tile, stained glass, illuminated manuscript, textile, and ceramic ornament. Encompassing classical, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Asian and Middle Eastern, as well as European designs from medieval times through the 19th century, this compilation of cultures and aesthetics offers a primary reference for artists, historians, designers, and patternmakers, and anyone engaged in decorative design and impact. About the series Bibliotheca Universalis - Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!

Easy-to-follow guide has 60 step-by-step illustrations for making seats of cane, splint, rush, rope, twine, grass.

Han Jiantang provides an accessible, illustrated introduction to the fascinating history and development of the written Chinese language, from pictograms painted on rocks and pottery and ancient inscriptions to the refined art of calligraphy and the characters in use today. Chinese Characters will appeal to readers looking for an introduction to the rich but complex Chinese language and to all those interested in the relationship between language and culture.

A fascinating new look at an extraordinary artist whose deafness led to an acute visual awareness and near photographic memory Self-taught artist James Castle (1899-1977) is primarily known for soot and saliva drawings of meticulously rendered domestic interiors and farm scenes, along with fantastical figures, animals, and architectural constructions made of cardboard and stitched paper. Castle was born into a family of homesteaders in Idaho, and his visual world comprised variations of seemingly ordinary subjects: rural landscapes, houses, barns, and outbuildings; interiors with closed and open doors, beds, bureaus, tile floors, and minutely patterned wallpaper; and color copies of illustrated advertisements for food, fuel, and matches. Castle was a deaf artist who by most accounts never learned to read, write, or speak. In this remarkable book, author John Beardsley discusses how these limitations led to the development of an extraordinary memory, an ability that enabled him to create a large number of distinctly intelligent artworks. Beardsley follows Castle's work as if through a series of rooms (a "Memory Palace")-interiors, exteriors, objects, books, and words-reproducing many previously unknown works and referencing other documents made available for the first time from the James Castle Collection and Archive. Published in association with the James Castle Collection and Archive

Since ancient times, fashion jewellery in Italy has been, and still is, an important component of clothing. The history of fashion cannot be written without mentioning its jewels. This book presents 200 Italian fashion jewels that, spanning from the era of La Dolce Vita to the Pret a Porter of the Eighties, from '90s Minimalism to the Neo Baroque of the new millennium, define the aesthetic mirror of society and show the transformation of styles and customs, ambitions and conquests of women, the evolution of shapes and innovations of materials and new technologies. DIVA! Italian Glamor in Fashion Jewellery tells about fashion jewellery in its creative intersections with Italian excellence: craftsmanship, design and fashion. It is a typically Italian story based on the ability to combine creativity, manufacturing and industry, art and technology, beauty and innovation. The masters of costume jewellery enter a dialogue with the great stylists and the talents of design, three heterogeneous visions with a single great protagonist: the Italian fashion jewel. Text in English and Italian.

Create gallery-quality pieces using found objects--paper, old fittings, bottle caps, wire, and more. Inspiration and instruction illustrated with the work of many different artists. * Inspiring examples of turning discarded items into beautiful wearable art * Large, striking photos of artistic pieces of jewelry * Step-by-step drawings illustrate basic joining techniques * Learn about ethical jewelry-making practices and material sources * Highlights the work of 23 found-object jewelry artists from around the world

Rattan stalks have been bent into furniture forms in the tropics for nearly a century. Design changes have provided variations from fancy items with bamboo before 1920, to streamlined, Deco-inspired forms of the 1940s, and practical, mass-produced styles in the 1960s and beyond. Today, each rattan style is recognized for its distinctive contribution to casual living spaces, indoors and out. In this book, over 400 color photographs of rattan furniture, period upholstery fabrics, and related art works are described in detail to present an inspiring variety of furnishings for every room in the house. Harvey Schwartz identifies the best pieces and explains what to look for in the market place. Beautiful floral bark cloth cushion covers and tropical scenes in prints and paintings are shown combined with fantastic rattan furniture to provide the best look for casual living.

Italic and copperplate are easily the most popular styles among today's calligraphers. Well-illustrated, step-by-step instructions by an expert calligrapher explain every detail of mastering the two hands, from the basics of posture and practice to tips on texture, colour and commercial calligraphy.

Add a touch of retro appeal to your stationery rotation with this off-beat refrigerator journal, featuring classic-cool colors, adorable illustrations, and a split binding that gives two distinct areas for writing! Everyday tasks, notes, and to-do lists can be recorded in the lower refrigerator section, while long-term plans and goals can be kept "on ice" in the freezer compartment. Show off your mid-century aesthetic and keep everything organized with the cheeky, on-trend Vintage Refrigerator Journal. This journal features: Split hardcover binding treatment; journal cover and interior pages are divided into two distinct sections that can be opened independently. Full-color illustrations throughout the interior. Matte laminate cover with spot gloss on "metal" elements.

With the first decade of the twenty-first century behind us, it is time to reassess the concept of "modern," a term that dates to the Middle Ages, when it signified current or recent events. Not until the eighteenth century did it become a stylistic term; more recently it has generally referred to the aesthetic that evolved from the Bauhaus and flourished in the mid-twentieth century. Though proclaiming freedom from the limitations of style, it became as formulaic as most of its predecessors, as Modern architecture and furnishings conformed to prescribed specifications: geometric forms, industrially fabricated, unadorned, and studiously ahistorical. Those guidelines are no longer relevant. As Midcentury Modernism has receded into history, Modernism has been redefined, reenergized, and in the process transformed. Today it embraces a cornucopia of design in an almost limitless range of materials: design studios are laboratories for experimentation; design concepts can be as important as finished objects; and furniture has crossed barriers to become a new art form. Tools and technologies never before possible have provided new approaches to decoration, and may incorporate influences from the past. The design profession has broadened its horizons; interiors and furniture are being created by architects, interior designers, furniture makers, industrial designers, artisans, artists, and even fashion designers. Design After Modernism offers an overview of developments in design over the past four decades-some evolutionary, some expected, and some extraordinary. It identifies the diverse influences that have generated new directions in design and illustrates many of the most characteristic, most noteworthy, and most innovative objects in this rich and variegated mix. All are representative of their time, and many of the earlier designs have already gained iconic status. Of the more recent ones, whether or not they will be admired in decades to come is something that only time will tell.

For many years, Maud Lewis was one of Nova Scotia's best-loved folk painters. In the 1990s she was embraced by the rest of the country when the landmark exhibition of her work "The Illuminated Life of Maud Lewis" travelled across Canada. By the time the tour was over, half a million people had become acquainted with her delightful work.

Between 1938, when she married Everett Lewis, until her death in 1970, Maud Lewis lived in a tiny one-room house near Digby, Nova Scotia. Over the years, she painted the doors inside and out, the windowpanes, the walls and cupboards, the wallpaper, the little staircase to the sleeping loft, the woodstove, the breadbox, the dustpan, almost everything her hand touched. Her house was a joy to behold, and it became a magnet for tourists as well as a focal point in her village. In 1979, after Everett Lewis died, the Maud Lewis Painted House Society worked diligently to raise funds to acquire, preserve, and display the house as part of the cultural heritage of the area as well as a memorial to their beloved artist.

In 1984, the house and its contents were purchased by the Province of Nova Scotia for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. In "The Painted House of Maud Lewis," Laurie Hamilton, the conservator at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, shows how all the different parts of the house -- the building itself, the painted household items, even the wallpaper -- were catalogued, conserved, and prepared for exhibition. The preliminary stages of conservation treatment began in 1996 in a most unusual location: the Sunnyside Mall in Bedford, just outside Halifax., where conservators worked in full view of the public. The conservators used established techniques and invented new ones to complete their unique project and documented every stage of the restoration photographically.

The book also features more than sixty-five colour photos including several taken by noted photographer Bob Brooks in 1965 for the "Star Weekly." Today, anyone can visit the tiny house that has become a folk art phenomenon. The restoration story spans two decades, but the story of the Painted House continues as each new visitor to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia finds delight and inspiration in Maud Lewis's joyous vision.

This exquisite book by the founders of the studio May & Berry shows you how to create beautiful messages through the combination of hand lettering and watercolour. Broken down into easy-to-follow stages, you will soon learn how to use different pens and inks to produce gorgeous lettering, embellished with simple yet stunningly effective watercolour motifs. This practical book guides you gently through the materials and tools you need to get started, and sets you on your hand-lettering journey with some simple exercises. There are then ten pretty step-by-step projects for you to try, after which you'll be confidently creating your own handwritten artworks that you can display on your wall, send as notecards to loved ones, or use to decorate your journals and scrapbooks. At the back of the book there is a treasure trove of gorgeous botanical-style motifs and borders along with four delightful alphabets created by the authors in a variety of scripts - perfect for gently encouraging beginners and inspiring more experienced hand-lettering artists to play with new designs and styles. This is followed by six handy worksheets on which to practise your letter-writing technique. You'll soon find that hand lettering with watercolour is quick and fun to learn, and a wonderful skill that will bring you joy for many years to come.

Kumihimo is the ancient art of Japanese braidmaking; admired for its dual qualities of usefulness and beauty, and associated with both fashion and the samurai. In this revised and updated edition of her classic instructional book, Jacqui Carey teaches the use of a marudai (round stand) to produce a variety of different types of braids, which can then be used to create countless combinations of colour, texture and material. Clear step-by-step photographs guide the beginner through each of the projects, and many inspirational examples of the variety you can create are shown. The rhythmic movements, feel and sound of the marudai in use make this traditional craft a soothing, absorbing and aesthetically pleasing experience; perfect for weaving a calm area in your day.

In line with the works on decorators of the 1940s, '50s, '60s, and '70s, this book plunges us into the world of '80s and '90s. These have witnessed unprecedented experiments in the world of design and architecture. Composed of a rich introduction which gives a synoptic vision and 38 monographs that describe its many faces, this book makes and exceptionally creative period intelligible, and reveals through an abundant iconography, often unpublished, its formidable aesthetic richness. A new generation of designers stands out; among them Shiro Kuramata, Philippe Starck, Ron Arad, Bob Wilson, Elizabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti. All regenerate creation by refusing the elitism of their predecessors and by favouring the use of new materials. Some turn to recovery, such as the Creative Salvage group, and offer inventive and provocative furniture thanks to welding and assembly. Others, gathered in Italy around Ettore Sottsass and Memphis, combine unexpected colours and patterns to the playful use of plastic laminate. Sliding until the end of the '90s, the achievements presented in this book mark the desire for a dialogue between artistic references with a new relationship to the industrial aspect, at the dawn of the 21st century and its technological innovations. Text in English and French.

A major new look at the work of one of America's foremost self-taught artists Bill Traylor (ca. 1853-1949) came to art-making on his own and found his creative voice without guidance; today he is remembered as a renowned American artist. Traylor was born into slavery on an Alabama plantation, and his experiences spanned multiple worlds-black and white, rural and urban, old and new-as well as the crucibles that indelibly shaped America-the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Great Migration. Between Worlds presents an unparalleled look at the work of this enigmatic and dazzling artist, who blended common imagery with arcane symbolism, narration with abstraction, and personal vision with the beliefs and folkways of his time. Traylor was about twelve when the Civil War ended. After six more decades of farm labor, he moved, aging and alone, into segregated Montgomery. In the last years of his life, he drew and painted works depicting plantation memories and the rising world of African American culture. Upon his death he left behind over a thousand pieces of art. Between Worlds convenes 205 of his most powerful creations, including a number that have been previously unpublished. This beautiful and carefully researched book assesses Traylor's biography and stylistic development, and for the first time interprets his scenes as ongoing narratives, conveying enduring, interrelated themes. Between Worlds reveals one man's visual record of African American life as a window into the overarching story of his nation. Published in association with the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Painted screens have long been synonymous in the popular imagination with the Baltimore row house. Picturesque, practical, and quirky, window and door screens adorned with scenic views simultaneously offer privacy and ventilation in crowded neighborhoods. As an urban folk art, painted screens flourished in Baltimore, though they did not originate there--precursors date to early eighteenth-century London. They were a fixture on fine homes and businesses in Europe and America throughout the Victorian era. But as the handmade screen yielded to industrial production, the whimsical artifact of the elite classes was suddenly transformed into an item for mass consumption. Historic examples are now a rarity, but in Baltimore the folk art is still very much alive.

"The Painted Screens of Baltimore" takes a first look at this beloved icon of one major American city through the words and images of dozens of self-taught artists who trace their creations to the capable and unlikely brush of one Bohemian immigrant, William Oktavec. In 1913, this corner grocer began a family dynasty inspired generations of artists who continue his craft to this day. The book examines the roots of painted wire cloth, the ethnic communities where painted screens have been at home for a century, and the future of this art form.