Choosing Craft


Book Description

Choosing Craft explores the history and practice of American craft through the words of influential artists whose lives, work, and ideas have shaped the field. Editors Vicki Halper and Diane Douglas construct an anecdotal narrative that examines the post-World War II development of modern craft, which came of age alongside modernist painting and sculpture and was greatly influenced by them as well as by traditional and industrial practices. The anthology is organized according to four activities that ground a professional life in craft--inspiration, training, economics, and philosophy. Halper and Douglas mined a wide variety of sources for their material, including artists' published writings, letters, journal entries, exhibition statements, lecture notes, and oral histories. The detailed record they amassed reveals craft's dynamic relationships with painting, sculpture, design, industry, folk and ethnic traditions, hobby craft, and political and social movements. Collectively, these reflections form a social history of craft. Choosing Craft ultimately offers artists' writings and recollections as vital and vivid data that deserve widespread study as a primary resource for those interested in the American art form.




The Art and Craft of Wood


Book Description

The Art and Craft of Wood shows you how to mill, stack, dry, and flatten a log into useable lumber and build a variety of household furnishings. Trees are all around us. They provide shade, beautify our neighborhoods, filter our water, and clean our air, but when they die, we often don't know what to do with them. Now you can learn the skills to reclaim those trees as lumber. Perfect for the woodworking hobbyist, The Art and Craft of Wood introduces readers to the basics of wood craft. The Art and Craft of Wood will inspire you to make something of your own through simple, step-by-step photos. As a reader, you will learn valuable skills, including: Where to find wood that you can reclaim for your own use How to mill, stack, dry, and flatten your log into useable lumber Create a variety of useful household furnishings in 7 step-by-step projects ranging in difficulty from novice to more complicated What to do with leftover material, such as making firestarters and animal bedding Authors Silas Kyler and David Hildreth are also the filmmakers behind the documentary Felled, a film about giving new life to urban trees; they have lived the process of refining wood. The Art and Craft of Wood is their guide to you!




Craft We Chose


Book Description

Many books, fiction and nonfiction alike, purport to probe the inner workings of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Many attempt to create spine-tingling suspense or allege that America's civilian spy operation has run amok and been infested with rogues and criminals. Not that The Craft We Chose lacks suspense, harrowing encounters, or its own share of villains, but this book is different; it is a straightforward, honest, surprisingly captivating memoir by one of the CIA's most well-known and honored career officers. For more than three decades, Richard L. Holm worked in the agency's Directorate of Operations now the National Clandestine Service the component directly responsible for collecting human intelligence. His assignments took him to seven countries on three continents, and his travels added many more destinations. At almost every turn Holm encountered his share of dangerous characters and situations, including one that nearly ended his life before he turned 30. The Craft We Chose is more than a chronicle of those episodes. It also reveals Holm's private life, his roots and family, his courtship and marriage, and his four daughters, whom he affectionately calls his platoon.




Craft and Process Studies


Book Description

If you believe that all students should have opportunities to write in genres of their choice but aren't sure how, Matt Glover is here to help. In Craft and Process Studies, Matt makes a compelling case for raising student engagement and writing quality by allowing students to choose the genre they want to write in. Then he shows you how with 17 possible units, divided into craft and process studies, that teach important writing skills while also providing opportunities for choice of genre. Matt uses a predictable structure for each unit that includes suggestions for: - applicable grade ranges - time of year to try - key unit goals and questions - mentor texts - minilesson topics - conferring goals. With key teaching points, ideas for how to fit the units into your existing curriculum, and strategies to overcome common roadblocks, Matt gives you all the specific how-to's for implementing the studies even in school settings where writing units are already set. And with 40 classroom videos, you'll see the power of this work in action.




Choosing Your Words, Crafting Your Life


Book Description

Transform Your Life by Changing What You Tell Yourself—It’s That Easy! Take charge of your own happiness with this nurturing, empowering compilation of positive affirmations and stories. Choosing Your Words and Crafting Your Life will encourage you to first examine your own “self-talk.” Are the conversations you have with yourself—the phrases you use to describe yourself—empowering? Constructive? Or are they negative and demeaning? This book will help you make conscious choices about how you speak to yourself. By creating powerful, positive affirmations, you can decide how you want to live, what you want to change, what you want to improve, and what you want to fully appreciate in your life. Choosing Your Words and Crafting Your Life provides the tools you need to write your own life story, along with examples of affirming statements designed to help you live a life filled with all the joy and blessings you deserve!




Sloppy Craft


Book Description

Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts brings together leading international artists and critics to explore the possibilities and limitations of the idea of 'sloppy craft' – craft that is messy or unfinished looking in its execution or appearance, or both. The contributors address 'sloppiness' in contemporary art and craft practices including painting, weaving, sewing and ceramics, consider the importance of traditional concepts of skill, and the implications of sloppiness for a new 21st century emphasis on inter- and postdisciplinarity, as well as for activist, performance, queer and Aboriginal practices. In addition to critical essays, the book includes a 'conversation' section in which contemporary artists and practitioners discuss challenges and opportunities of 'sloppy craft' in their practice and teaching, and an afterword by Glenn Adamson.




Mindful Crafting


Book Description

Apart from the sheer enjoyment of using our hands to create something new, crafting helps us to connect with who we are. Sarah Samuel casts fresh light on how the basic human need to create is often forgotten as mass-consumerism grows, and how we can all still find our unique path, craft and our own means of individual, joyful self-expression. Through personal anecdote and expert insight, this book unearths the true value of craft, and how we can meet our soul’s yearning to be creative and open ourselves up to infinite possibilities.




Writing Clubs


Book Description

Ask teachers about their biggest challenges in elementary and middle school, and many will say the teaching of writing. It is often difficult for students find the joy, discovery, and satisfaction writing can yield. What Lisa Eickholdt and Patricia Vitale-Reilly have found is that adherence to genre studies can get in the way of student collaboration. Believing writing instruction should be more authentic, they want students to have more choices, develop better collaboration, and sustain a sense of community, all through the implementation of writing clubs.In their book Writing Clubs: Fostering Choice, Collaboration, and Community in the Writing Classroom , you'll discover ways to: Collaborate throughout the process of writing Choose what to write and how to write it Examine mentor texts and study craft techniques across genres Develop speaking and listening skills Celebrate classmates’ accomplishments through publication Collaboration is widely recognized as a vital life skill. Eickholdt and Vitale-Reilly present a plethora of ideas on how gratifying it can be right now, as well as in the future. There’s an old proverb that says, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.’ In Writing Clubs , we discover that there is no limit to how far young writers can go when teachers show them what it means to collaborate.




A Letter To My Daughter


Book Description

Rodney De Almeida




That's a Great Answer!


Book Description

Introduction -- Great objectives -- Great books -- Great instruction -- Great discussions -- Great answers -- Forming a general understanding -- Developing an interpretation -- Connecting and reacting to text --Examining the content and structure of text.




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