May 26 2008

A Year in the Life of Andy Warhol

Text by David Dalton

Photographs by Dave McCabe

2003, hardcover

4 cards

This book seemed interesting when I first encountered it a few years ago. In spending more time with it this time around I realized the photographs it contains were orginally commissioned by Andy Warhol. Dave McCabe took these photographs, to document Warhol's life for a year. Warhol never published these photos but, as Dalton deftly explains, these photographs seem to have played an important role in Warhol's formation of his public personality in the 1960s. This is a fascinating book which seems to contain some secrets within it still.

Some excerpts:

7 "By 1964 he was developing his new! improved! Andy."

-"I think he studies these photographs and used them to form the image he wanted the world to see."

14- Andy and the Glass House

18-21- Andy in the guest house with David Whitney- Richard Lippold sculpture

39- Andy and Dali- Andy petrified

49- movies- social climbing

-Soap Opera

63- Andy and Bob Rauschenberg playing Monopoly

101-102

108- Jim Rosenquist's F-111

109- JR: "I think art is about identifying a condition"

138- "To walk down the street with Andy was an exhilarating experience. It was as if you'd just been handed a pair of special glasses that allowed you to see a secret and compelling world..."

-"Reality in the USA was truly hallucinatory."

-"Everything ins the USA was designed to be looked at..."

-"...Andy let you see the world through eyes you'd not used yet."

139-143- diner!

150- "The Supremes were there chaperoned by their mothers."

174- dancing at openings

182- Jonas Mekas

188- Happenings

152- silkscreen never made

206- "The famous were America's royalty."

217- Billy Name- dj- Motown

May 16, 2008

All Tomorrow's Parties Billy Names' Photographs of Andy Warhol's Factory

Hardcover, 1997

3 cards

Billy Name is someone you might not know by name, but it was he who covered Warhol's first factory in silver, and he who took many of the iconic photographs. While his black and white photographs are well known (one of a tattoo was the cover for the Velvet Underground album White Light, White Heat is just one of many) this book presents his color photographs.

Naming the Colours essay by Dave Hickey

10- (Name's black and white photographs)- "instant classics"- "they have subsequently become exactly what Warhol intended them to be: official icons in the public imagination, ravishingly seductive advertisements for the corporate culture of the factory...these photographs get it exactly wrong themselves, as advertisements."

12- (end of 1968)- "the self-conscious sense of living in the midst of history and very near the end of it"

-Max's, speed freaks scribbling in notebooks

13 "Because colour is vision's amphetamine...the attribute of seeing that kills history, abolishes its aura and delivers us into the embodied present."

"Thus, in an image, it can deliver us, insofar as an image can, not into the grisaille tissue of the past, but into the flash and differentiation of an alternative present/"

14- "Because colours gives us more than characters in a setting, it gives us people with spaces between them."

A Talk with Billy Name, Collier Schorr

17- Meeting Andy

18- "It was almost as if the Factory became a big box camera- you'd walk into it, expose yourself and develop yourself."

19- "The Factory was a very functional place- the only qualifications were that you had some specialty, some beauty or some talent."

20- "We never bought anything. The funny thing is, you didn't need money then."

21- "I'm very much interested in portraiture, not only of people but of space, or people in spaces. I was interested in using angles to make the structure evident."

21- listening to Motown music at the Factory

24- "Film began to turn into art and that's what Andy became fascinated with."

26- Velvet Underground cover

February - March 8

My Life as a Red Furry Monster
What Being Elmo has Taught Me about Life, Love and Laughing Out Loud
Kevin Clash
2007, hardcover
7 cards

Elmo came late in my Sesame Street viewing life but I was always interested in his personality and outlook on life. Kevin Clash's love for puppet making and desire to be a Muppeteer comes through clearly in this book. While his insights are not earthshaking his points remind you what you know but sometimes forget in the midst of busy, noisy days.

Card highlights
p. 9- the phenomenon of Elmo is linked to love
"the human desire to love and be loved."
p. 10- "'I love you.' Those are magic words- basic, simple, easy to say, but as adults we often forget their power. We often forget to say them."
p. 34-35- "No matter who you are- a big yellow bird, a grouch in a can, a frog in a trench coat, or a furry red monster- you can love and be loved and find your place in the world."
p. 40- Motown music
p. 44- Elmo's laugh
"You will never see Elmo hold himself back from laughing when he feels joy, though he is always careful never to laugh at someone.
p. 49- fabric store- "whump of the bolt" and sound of the pinking shears
p. 51-52 Jim Henson
p. 52 "For a living legend, Jim was one of the most accessible and silliest men I've ever met....Jim was Kermit the Frog....Jim's main goal in life was to have fun."
p. 53- tux for a puppet
p. 86- drawing one's day
p. 87- (art with children) "It's not what you create, it is simply the fact that you are helping that child celebrate the joy of creativity."
p. 88 "Elmo gives us grown-ups the permission kids never nee to let our creative juices flow and maybe, just maybe, to reenter the world of make-believe and let some of our dreams come true."
p. 115- "Elmo knows how to see a child and not a disease or a condition. What Elmo sees is a potential playmate..."
p. 121- "Knowing when to admit you're in over your head takes courage."
p. 122- "You can't be afraid to fail, because you never know true success unless you have a flop or two (or six)."
p. 133-143 (Elmo and friends) "He looks at each meeting as an opportunity for fun."
p. 135- not being a follower
p. 145- No
p. 148 (friends) "You can keep your friends close, just by thinking of them."
p. 170- "...cooperation means more than simply being in agreement with another person. It means offering encouragement and aid, working together to resolve conflicts, compromising and sharing."
-(life as a performer) "...never been a solo act. No life ever is."
p. 177- creative element to the assignment
p. 178- "When we take the time to be creative in our teaching, chances are that we'll be more successful in engaging a child's mind."
-"Kids love to feel in control and smart."
p. 183- ask questions and admit when you don't know something
p. 188- "Dreams are fragile things, but when they've been bolstered by the support of parents and teachers and reinforced with early success, they can withstand the skeptics and take flight."
"Kids are the architects of their own dreams."
p. 199- corduroy pants
p. 205 "Even if one mind closes, thousands of others are opened up."
-moving forward