A pictorial chronology of Professional Fine Artist Sandy Garnett's First 1000 Career Paintings.

In 1971, after buying their acreage in a very remote area of the Colorado Mountains, the Wood family began to develop their dream ranch. The history and wild life of the area provides a fascinating backdrop for their story of adventure and discovery in the wilderness. From the first Americans to the mining era and the building of the railroads, Colorado is steeped in the glorious history of the Wild West. The property was located in the middle of a cow pasture with only marginal access and the closest electrical lines were over twelve miles away. With no means of communication and the closest town twenty-two miles away, the family had their work cut out for them. After surviving a devastating blizzard with thirty people in their home, they understood the importance of understanding survival techniques. Their crazy but true experiences are recounted with frankness and humor. By sharing his experiences and newly-gained knowledge, Wood has saved many of his friends hundreds of dollars, offering his advice on energy systems and the challenges of building in a remote area. Through perseverance and good old-fashioned hard work, he and his family built their dream ranch in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

In this book Edward Lucie-Smith considers the achievement of John Singer Sargent in response to a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. This exhibition features Sargent's more private works - images of friends, rather than portraits painted on commission. In many ways Sargent is an ambiguous figure. The child of wealthy expatriate American parents, he was brought up in Europe, at first made his career in France, then settled in Britain. Totally cosmopolitan, he kept his American nationality, painted many American sitters, but never lived for any extended period of time in the United States, either as a child or as an adult. During his time in France he consorted with a number of artists who, at a certain point in their careers, were thought of as cutting edge. Monet is a prime example. However, his more intimate artist friends, such as Helleu, whom he painted a number of times, were not radicals, and always second-or-third rankers. Sexually he is a mystery. Biographers have tended to classify him according to their own sexual preferences, rather like the biographers of Caravaggio. For some he was a closeted gay man, for others he was definitely a lover of women. He never married and there is no proof of any liaisons, either heterosexual or homosexual. Paintings of subjects from his own social circle, made for his own pleasure rather than on commission, suggest that while he liked handsome young men, he was also fascinated by women of dominant temperament. His own mother was apparently a woman of this type. Easily social with friends, he nevertheless fiercely guarded his essential privacy. There is a parallel here with his somewhat older contemporary Lord Leighton, another hugely successful bachelor artist. Both men were strikingly masculine in appearance. In terms of his later reputation, Sargent was long regarded as a paradigmatic example of an artist who was immensely skilful but in no way truly experimental - someone who fitted perfectly into the wealthy society of his time. The reconsideration of Sargent that is now taking place has parallels with the reconsideration of Gustav Klimt, which got its start a little earlier. Neither one of them can really be described as 'avant-garde' in any meaningful sense of that much-abused term, but we have now started to see them as being extremely significant as makers of images that somehow sum up their epoch without sacrifice of aesthetic quality. Their paintings still resonate with the contemporary audience today.

Following the worldwide success of his Poemotion trilogy, Takahiro Kurashima presents a title that is in no way inferior to the previous ones in terms of surprise and viewing pleasure. On the contrary: here, the motifs are combined to form a visual narrative that is revealed when the static basic image is set in motion by means of the striped foil. Then an astonishing panorama of unseen moires and patterns unfolds. The artist uses the digital tools for his creations in a virtuoso manner. At the same time he continues to catch up with the great models of kinetic art. Moiremotion is a school of vision and offers contemplative recreation for our eyes.