The book with the ridiculously long title, I Want to Spend... is, go figure, a Damien Hirst book. Granted, I'm not a Damien Hirst fan. JUst puttin' it out there. Buuuut his book is one of those fun playful art books, with foldouts and hidden pockets, stickers, a magnifying glass and pull-tabs. So it was pretty hard to resist. Like his work. You may not want to spend a lot of time looking and examining his work, but you do. You can't resist it.
All of these books share a theme of mixing science with art. I love that.
My boyfriend is a chemist and we love it when our fields meets. Which happens more than one might assume. Whether it's in the solvents I use for painting and printmaking, or the chemical composition to the oil paints I use and the different viscosities of painters mediums to the oxidation process that happens in the kilns, science and art is all over. And that's just in the making of art!
These books put on display artists who make work about, or inspired by, different sciences. In Art + Science Now there are seven sciences represented in the table of contents, including: Molecular Biology, Physicals Sciences, Kinetics & Robotics and Living Systems. Many of the images look surreal, and weird and bizarre combo of the arts and science. You almost don't know which it is. Is it art? Or is it science? But then, there is a sort of art to science. Oooo weee oooo, just Twilight Zone-d you all!
What has also been brought to my attention lately is the 500 books. I bought 501 Great Artists over the summer, just for some perusing fun. Then in the library I took out 500 Self Portraits. Then at my field placement in a ceramics classroom, my mentor teacher showed me her book 500 Cups. Aha! 500! These books are related! That took a while to figure out. I'm assuming my "501 Great Artists book is also one, if not, it's certainly a business venture to gain the popularity the 500 books have attained.
So guys, go check out the library! Lots of awesome lesson plan ideas there!
Inspiring post!
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