Create beautiful, natural soaps without leaving home

Ever wonder what's really in your store-bought soap? Once you start making your own soap, you'll never have to wonder again "The Everything Soapmaking Book, 3rd Edition" is a comprehensive guide to making all kinds of soap, whether you want to decorate your home or pamper your or your family's skin. Homemade soap is not only an easy project for any level craft lover, but it's beautiful, too

Completely revised and updated with information on natural and organic ingredients, this easy-to-use guide shows you how to:

• Choose the right soapmaking equipment
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• Create all kinds of soap, from bath soap to facial cleanser
• Make soaps for holidays and special occasions

Auguste Rodin, the most famous and influential sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is also widely considered to be the successor to Michelangelo, whose genius was a lifelong inspiration to him. Though the astonishingly lifelike quality of his sculpture was in defiance of current academic conventions, Rodin was spared the prolonged and bitter hostility meted out to the Impressionists who were his contemporaries, and in later life he became a famous and widely respected figure.

Bernard Champigneulle discusses Rodin's great significance as an innovator in sculpture. For Rodin created an entirely new form -- the detail considered as finished work -- and in doing so exercised a lasting influence on future sculptors, who were profoundly affected by his emotional expressiveness, his power of characterization, and his subtle modeling. This authoritative monograph combines a searching reappraisal of Rodin's achievement with revealing account of his personality and his troubled private life.

Concrete is in. And no wonder: it's inexpensive, durable, and makes unique, stunning pieces with which to decorate your home. With just a bag of ready-mixed concrete, water and a few utensils and moulds you can find around the house, you can create beautiful, minimalist items in no time at all; from clocks, vases, lampshades and bowls through to jewellery, wine coolers and desk organisers. Each project is equipped with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions and tips, and all can be made with very little know-how - making it a perfect craft for beginner concrete artisans, as well as the more experienced mason. A perfect mix of power, presence and practicality, bring concrete into your home today and discover a new-found love for this often overlooked but remarkable building material.

The Kuyu are an ethnic group who live in northern Congo-Brazzaville, on the banks of the River Congo, in a part of Equatorial Africa that has remained only marginally influenced by Moslem encroachment and Western colonialism. Kuyu art can be broadly broken down into three styles, the first two - of which there are the fewest examples - are strictly associated with the Kuyu ethnic group, while the third style, which has the largest sculptural component, includes both Kuyu and Mbochi pieces. Among these are a number of statuettes and especially wooden clubs topped with a human head (the most recent being polychrome), known as Kebe-Kebe, which were used in the dance by the same name. This ritual performance has remained faithful to its original function of giving physical expression to the Kuyu cosmogony.

Santa Claus, elves, gnomes, wizards. These fanciful characters delight and mesmerize us. All of them are magical creatures, possessing great and wondrous powers. Tom Wolfe has a bit of this magic himself. In his hands a piece of wood, carved with the simplest tools, is transformed and takes on a personality of its own. They come to life. The projects he shares in this book are perfect for the beginning carver, or the person who likes to whittle for fun and relaxation. They also give the opportunity for the more experienced carvers to be creative and expand their repertoire. Whether the carver is experienced or not, the objects in this book are just plain fun and make wonderful gifts.

Camiel Van Breedam ( DegreesBoom 29/06/1936) made his first artworks in 1956: reliefs and small zinc sculptures. Later followed by assemblages, collages, objects, sculptures, environments - exhibited in many places in Belgium and abroad. Influences and inspiration come among others from: his father's plumber workshop, the region of the river Rupel and the brickyards, Paul Klee, ethnic art, Indians, Joseph Cornell, the Russian avant-garde, Chaim Soutine, Oskar Schlemmer, Bauhaus, De Stijl, dreams, nightmares and RED. His social involvement provides the red thread and the binding element.

The first book to put the sacred and sensuous bronze statues from India's Chola dynasty in social context From the ninth through the thirteenth century, the Chola dynasty of southern India produced thousands of statues of Hindu deities, whose physical perfection was meant to reflect spiritual beauty and divine transcendence. During festivals, these bronze sculptures-including Shiva, referred to in a saintly vision as "the thief who stole my heart"-were adorned with jewels and flowers and paraded through towns as active participants in Chola worship. In this richly illustrated book, leading art historian Vidya Dehejia introduces the bronzes within the full context of Chola history, culture, and religion. In doing so, she brings the bronzes and Chola society to life before our very eyes. Dehejia presents the bronzes as material objects that interacted in meaningful ways with the people and practices of their era. Describing the role of the statues in everyday activities, she reveals not only the importance of the bronzes for the empire, but also little-known facets of Chola life. She considers the source of the copper and jewels used for the deities, proposing that the need for such resources may have influenced the Chola empire's political engagement with Sri Lanka. She also investigates the role of women patrons in bronze commissions and discusses the vast public records, many appearing here in translation for the first time, inscribed on temple walls. From the Cholas' religious customs to their agriculture, politics, and even food, The Thief Who Stole My Heart offers an expansive and complete immersion in a community still accessible to us through its exquisite sacred art. Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

The beginning of the 20th century saw literary scholars from Russia positing a new definition for the nature of literature. Within the framework of Russian Formalism, the term 'literariness' was coined. The driving force behind this theoretical inquiry was the desire to identify literature-and art in general-as a way of revitalizing human perception, which had been numbed by the automatization of everyday life. The transformative power of 'literariness' is made manifest in many media artworks by renowned artists such as Chantal Akerman, Mona Hatoum, Gary Hill, Jenny Holzer, William Kentridge, Nalini Malani, Bruce Nauman, Martha Rosler, and Lawrence Weiner. The authors use literariness as a tool to analyze the aesthetics of spoken or written language within experimental film, video performance, moving image installations, and other media-based art forms. This volume uses as its foundation the Russian Formalist school of literary theory, with the goal of extending these theories to include contemporary concepts in film and media studies, such as Neoformalism, intermediality, remediation, and postdrama.

Latest production of Cuban artist, Adrian Fernandez, concerned with the impact of material culture, history and memory on contemporary man. Interested in the symbols that represent ideologies and that construct collective identities, he searches in his photography for the memory of the historical past and its impact on his cultural present. His work is organised in series that sometimes interconnect and complement each other. Each new series is a consequence of the previous one, with similar concerns and interests, from black and white photography with a documentary perspective, to studio photography, to the use of digital media and colour photography. His sculptural work is developed in installations, in which he uses assemblage and welding of metal and carbon steel. Text in English and Spanish.

This is the twentieth volume in the Public Sculpture of Britain series, the ambitious collaboration between Liverpool University Press and the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association that will eventually document the outdoor sculptural heritage of the whole of the UK. Public sculpture is defined in this context as any work of three-dimensional art located in an unregulated public space, typically consisting of free-standing commemorative monuments, architectural carvings and statues attached to buildings, and contemporary site-specific interventions. A subject that was until recently overlooked as a matter of marginal relevance to the history of art, public sculpture has been shown through the Liverpool University Press series to offer a range of important insights into the built environment, enriching our understanding of architecture and city planning, and raising many challenging issues relating to the development of society as a whole. This is nowhere better illustrated than in Edinburgh, where the richness of its history as a capital city, and the dramatic power of its urban topography, have combined to create a uniquely fertile breeding ground for public sculpture of every kind. With the coverage divided between two companion volumes, the study begins appropriately with the historic Old Town, and the various suburbs extending from it to the south.

In the 1970s, in the region of the Landes, between Bayonne and Peyrehorade, on the banks of the Adour River, the photographer Jeannette Leroy and the art dealer Paul Haim created a sculpture garden around a modest farm, La Petite Escalere. With the help of the faithful gardener Gilbert Carty, amidst canals, bridges, paths made of railway ties, and many trees and flowers, they installed about 50 works, some of them monumental, by artists such as Rodin, Maillol, Niki de Saint Phalle, Zao Wou-Ki, Francoise Lacampagne, Cardenas, Mark Di Suvero, Leger, Matta, Zigor... Paul positioned the sculptures, and to help them vanish into the natural environment Jeannette would plant a shrub, a rosebush, dahlias, an oak, a maple, a gingko, a Caucasian walnut... "I don't want this garden to become ridiculous!" she said. Paul Haim has evoked the bewitching beauty of La Petite Escalere better than anyone else: "The nonchalant visitor will pass from the shade of Les Barthes to the brightness of the Moura, from the freshness of the fountains to the suffocating heat of the forest. Coming around a bush, he allows himselfto be surprised by an unusual presence. Immutable. ... Far from the agitations of the world, sinking into nothing-ness, watching the clouds go by, contemplating the places of joy." Text in English and French.

An exciting new account of Irish high crosses This landmark study of Irish high crosses focuses on the carvings of an unnamed artist, the "Muiredach Master," whose monuments-completed in the early years of the 10th century-deserve a place alongside the Book of Kells as great works of their time. Drawing on a wealth of recent research, Roger Stalley describes in vivid detail how the crosses were made, where they were carved, and how they were lifted into place. His lively prose situates the works in their context, identifying patrons and exploring their motives, as well as venturing to understand what the crosses may have meant to those who gazed at them a millennium ago. In doing so, Stalley rejects preconceived notions about the imagery of the crosses, including the extent to which they were inspired by images from abroad. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Delightful Decorations and Gifts to Make with Your Scroll Saw Create holiday masterpieces for the home, family and friends with the tried-and-true scroll saw projects and patterns from the archives of Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts. This collection of holiday favorites features fretwork, compound-cuts, intarsia, and inlay projects for ornaments, wreaths, Santas, portraits, candleholders and more. Big Book of Christmas Ornaments and Decorations also features a stunning gallery of work. Readers will gain information and inspiration from some of scrolling's leading experts including Judy Gale Roberts, Kathy Wise, Sue Mey, Paul Meisel, John Nelson, Theresa Ekdom, Tom Sevy, Volker Arnold, and more. There is a project inside Big Book of Christmas Ornaments and Decorations for everyone, from beginners to advanced craftsmen. With step-by-step instructions and color photos, readers are guaranteed a very merry scrolling experience. Some of the projects inside: " Vintage Fretwork Sleigh Scene " Poinsettia Wreath " Inlay Snowman Ornaments " 12-Piece Intarsia Nativity Set " Christmas Card Tree

A compelling examination of French sculptor Auguste Rodin from the perspective of his enthusiastic American audience This exhibition catalogue explores the American reception of French artist Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), from 1893, when his first work entered a US museum, to the present. Its trajectory reaches from the collecting frenzy of the early twentieth century-promoted by philanthropist Katherine Seney Simpson and performer Loie Fuller-to important museum acquisitions of the 1920s and 1930s. From there, it traverses the 1950s, when Rodin's reputation flagged, through to the artist's revival and recognition in the 1980s. Rodin's promoters include a dynamic cast of characters, each of whom played a crucial role in cementing his status. The book traces this story through approximately 50 sculptures and 20 drawings that cover Rodin's most iconic subjects and themes. They demonstrate his dexterity across media-his virtuosity in plaster, terracotta, bronze, and marble-as well as his expressive, colorful drawings, some of them relatively unknown, sparking new appreciation for his work and delight for readers. Distributed for the Clark Art Institute Exhibition Schedule: Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (June 18-September 18, 2022) High Museum of Art, Atlanta (October 21, 2022-January 15, 2023)

In 2018 the National Portrait Gallery, the National Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts will host major exhibitions of the work of Tacita Dean. Each will provide a different encounter with her art. This book brings together new and existing works from all three exhibitions - LANDSCAPE, PORTRAIT, STILL LIFE - with texts offering a unique insight into Dean's work by leading writers including Alexandra Harris, Alan Hollinghurst and Ali Smith. Published at a particularly prolific period for Dean, this book provides a new and authoritative view of a hugely influential artist who has been at the forefront of British art for over twenty years. The volume is published with three different covers.

This illuminating and original book opens up a neglected corner of eighteenth-century art - the funeral monument. In the last forty years, studies of the satires of early and mid-eighteenth-century England have multiplied, whereas its funerary monuments have been neglected by all but a small group of enthusiasts. This book redresses the balance and demonstrates that tombs and inscriptions are of manifest worth to the student of eighteenth-century English value systems, providing as they do an archaeology of ideal types. Across the genres of art, there is, perhaps, no better register of shifting notions of correct behaviour, in life and in death. Matthew Craske looks closely for the first time at tomb sculptures in their social context. He discusses a large number of monuments by many different sculptors, all with a knowledge of the person commemorated and the circumstances behind the commission, resulting in a work of great scholarly density and originality that probes the motives behind the imagery and the epitaph. He begins by analysing the relationship of tomb designs to the changing and diverse culture of death in the eighteenth century, and then explains conditions of production and the shifting dynamics of the market, concluding with a masterly analysis of the motivations of those who commissioned monuments, including women and ranging from aristocrats to merchants and professional people. This handsomely illustrated book presents a unique history of death, fame, example and attitudes to loss, as well as a remarkable art history.

This is the definitive guide on creating encaustic art, an ancient medium that is increasingly popular with contemporary fine artists. It features step-by-step techniques with easy-to-understand instructions and detailed illustrations. It includes tips and techniques gleaned from more than 60 professional artists working with the medium internationally. This is the definitive guide on creating encaustic art, an ancient medium that is increasingly popular with contemporary fine artists. "Encaustic Art" serves as the complete resource for artists working with encaustic wax. The book includes techniques for incorporating drawing, transfer, collage, assemblage, photography media with encaustic, as well as techniques for creating wax sculptures, encaustic prints and monotypes and installation art. It features step-by-step techniques with easy-to-understand instructions and detailed illustrations, gorgeous examples of encaustic works of art, plus tips and techniques gleaned from interviews and studio visits with more than 60 professional artists working with the medium internationally.