Turning the Feather Around


Book Description

His luminous, small, horizon paintings reflect his return to the "big water." Turning the Feather Around, the title taken from a name given to George in a healing ceremony, is a work of intimate personal disclosure that captures the pulse of the speaking voice and the vision of the artist's eye."--BOOK JACKET.




Modern Spirit


Book Description

The work of Chippewa artist George Morrison (1919–2000) has enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. His paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures have been displayed in numerous public and private exhibitions, and he is one of Minnesota’s most cherished artists. Yet because Morrison’s artwork typically does not include overt references to his Indian heritage, it has stirred debate about what it means to be a Native American artist. This stunning catalogue, featuring 130 color and black-and-white images, showcases Morrison’s work across a spectrum of genres and media, while also exploring the artist’s identity as a modernist within the broader context of twentieth-century American and Native American art. Born and raised near the Grand Portage Indian Reservation in Minnesota, Morrison graduated from the Minnesota School of Art and the Art Students League in New York City. He spent his early career mainly on the East Coast, becoming one of the first Native American artists to exhibit his work extensively in New York. Best known for his landscape paintings and wood collages, he employed a variety of media—paint, wood, ink and metal, paper, and canvas—and developed a unique style that combined elements of cubism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. In her foreword to Modern Spirit, Cherokee artist Kay WalkingStick describes her personal association with Morrison and admiration for his authentic artistic vision. Kristin Makholm, in her introduction to the volume, explores Morrison’s ties to Minnesota and his legacy within the history of Minnesota art and culture. Then, drawing on extensive primary research and Morrison’s own writings, W. Jackson Rushing III offers an in-depth analysis of Morrison’s artistic evolution against the backdrop of evolving definitions of “Indianness.” By expanding our understanding of Morrison’s singular vision, Modern Spirit invites readers to appreciate more deeply the beauty and complexity of his art.




Feather


Book Description

A philosophical picture book from one of China's most celebrated children's authors and 2016 Hans Christian Andersen Award-winner Cao Wenxuan. A feather is blown across the sky, meeting various birds along the way, and asking each one, "Do I belong to you?". Cao Wenxuan tells the story of a single feather who is swept away on a journey of discovery and belonging. Encountering a variety of birds, from a kingfisher to a magpie, Feather is hopeful of meeting the bird she belongs to. Again and again, she is dismissed or ignored. Only when she sees that there is also beauty in being close to the earth does fate offer a reunion... Feather is sure to charm young children with a plot at once compelling, meditative, and quietly moving. Roger Mello’s stunningly beautiful, dynamic illustrations will delight readers of all ages.




Native Modernism


Book Description

Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Allan Houser showcases magnificent paintings, drawings, and sculptures by two highly acclaimed artists. In this groundbreaking, beautifully illustrated book, distinguished Native American writers and scholars add a rich new dimension to previously published accounts of Native American art with a fascinating exploration of Morrison's and Houser's work in the context of contemporary art, Native American art history, and cultural identity. George Morrison (Grand Portage Band of Chippewa, 1919–2000) and Allan Houser (Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache, 1914–1994) shattered expectations for Native art, and paved the way for successive generations to experiment with a wide array of styles and techniques. Born in a small Chippewa community in Minnesota, Morrison traveled and studied in New York City and Europe during an extraordinarily creative period in twentieth-century art. He emerged triumphantly as both a major American artist and an Indian artist. Often described as an abstract expressionist, Morrison developed, in such celebrated series as his Horizon paintings, a non-figurative visual language. Sculptor and painter Allan Houser also forged a unique path that redefined the way art by Native Americans is viewed and understood. The work of this prominent twentieth-century artist has appeared in important exhibitions in the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and his monumental bronze Offering of the Sacred Pipe, installed at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, has become a worldwide symbol of peace.




A Feather on the Breath of God


Book Description

From Sigrid Nunez, the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend, comes A Feather on the Breath of God: a mesmerizing story about the tangled nature of relationships between parents and children, between language and love A young woman looks back to the world of her immigrant parents: a Chinese-Panamanian father and a German mother. Growing up in a housing project in the 1950s and 1960s, she escapes into dreams inspired both by her parents' stories and by her own reading and, for a time, into the otherworldly life of ballet. A yearning, homesick mother, a silent and withdrawn father, the ballet--these are the elements that shape the young woman's imagination and her sexuality.




Turn Around Time


Book Description

Most outdoor enthusiasts understand the phrase "turn around time" as that point in an adventure when one must cease heading out in order to have enough time to safely return to camp or home. In that vein, an award-winning novelist explores midlife through a lyrical journey along a trail.




Feathers


Book Description

A Newbery Honor Book A beautiful and moving novel from a three-time Newbery Honor-winning author “Hope is the thing with feathers” starts the poem Frannie is reading in school. Frannie hasn’t thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more “holy.” There is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy. And although the new boy looks like a white kid, he says he’s not white. Who is he? During a winter full of surprises, good and bad, Frannie starts seeing a lot of things in a new light—her brother Sean’s deafness, her mother’s fear, the class bully’s anger, her best friend’s faith and her own desire for “the thing with feathers.” Jacqueline Woodson once again takes readers on a journey into a young girl’s heart and reveals the pain and the joy of learning to look beneath the surface. "[Frannie] is a wonderful role model for coming of age in a thoughtful way, and the book offers to teach us all about holding on to hope."—Children's Literature "A wonderful and necessary purchase for public and school libraries alike."—VOYA




Hats


Book Description

For such simple garments, hats have had a devastating impact on wildlife throughout their long history. Made of wild-caught mammal furs, decorated with feathers or whole stuffed birds, historically they have driven many species to near extinction. By the turn of the twentieth century, egrets, shot for their exuberant white neck plumes, had been decimated; the wild ostrich, killed for its feathers until the early 1900s, was all but extirpated; and vast numbers of birds of paradise from New Guinea and hummingbirds from the Americas were just some of the other birds killed to decorate ladies’ hats. At its peak, the hat trade was estimated to be killing 200 million birds a year. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was a trade valued at £20 million (over $25 million) a year at the London feather auctions. Weight for weight, exotic feathers were more valuable than gold. Today, while no wild birds are captured for feather decoration, some wild animals are still trapped and killed for hatmaking. A fascinating read, Hats will have you questioning the history of your headwear.




The Feather Thief


Book Description

As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.




Light as a Feather


Book Description

Look out for the original series—starring Peyton List, Brent Rivera, Liana Liberato, Ajiona Alexus, and Dylan Sprayberry—now streaming on Hulu! Riverdale meets Final Destination in this fast-paced and deliciously creepy novel about an innocent game that turns deadly at a high school sleepover. It was supposed to be a game… Junior year is shaping up to be the best of McKenna Brady’s life. After a transformative summer, McKenna is welcomed into the elite group of popular girls at Weeping Willow High, led by the gorgeous Olivia Richmond. For the first time in a long time, things are looking up. But everything changes the night of Olivia’s Sweet Sixteen sleepover. Violet, the mysterious new girl in town, suggests the girls play a game during which Violet makes up elaborate, creepily specific stories about the violent ways the friends will die. Though it unsettles McKenna, it all seems harmless at the time. Until a week later, when Olivia dies…exactly as Violet predicted. As Violet rises to popularity and steps into the life Olivia left unfinished, McKenna becomes convinced Olivia’s death wasn’t just a coincidence, especially when a ghost haunting her bedroom keeps leaving clues that point to Violet. With the help of her cute neighbor, Trey, McKenna pledges to get to the bottom of Violet’s secrets and true intentions before it’s too late. Because it’s only a matter of time before more lives are lost.