Carol Stangler’s The Craft & Art of Bamboo: 30 Eco-Friendly Projects to Make for Home & Garden is, at heart, a book about persuasion: it asks the reader to see bamboo not as a decorative novelty, but as a living medium with history, utility, and aesthetic dignity. The revised and updated 2009 edition presents itself … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Book Review – The Craft & Art of Bamboo: 30 Eco-Friendly Projects to Make for Home & Garden by Carol Stangler
T.A.E.’s Book Review – Easy Concrete: 43 DIY Projects for Home & Garden by Malena Skote
Malena Skote’s Easy Concrete: 43 DIY Projects for Home & Garden is a surprisingly graceful book for a material so often associated with heaviness. Published in 2010 and circulated in English-language editions under both Lark Books and New Holland, it presents concrete not as brute substance but as a medium for domestic invention. Library and … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Book Review – Easy Concrete: 43 DIY Projects for Home & Garden by Malena Skote
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – 500 Paper Objects: New Directions in Paper Art by Gene McHugh
Gene McHugh’s 500 Paper Objects performs the deceptively ambitious work of making a single, humble material speak with the variety and insistence of a chorus. Arranged as a dense visual catalogue rather than a sustained monograph, the book stages paper not as a passive substrate but as an active agent: folded, torn, cast, burned, layered, … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – 500 Paper Objects: New Directions in Paper Art by Gene McHugh
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Painting and Decorating Furniture by Sheila McGraw
An attentive manual that thinks like a maker and reads like a quiet manifesto Sheila McGraw’s Painting and Decorating Furniture presents itself at first glance as a pragmatic handbook: techniques, materials, step-by-step procedures. Beneath that useful surface, however, the book stages a subtler argument about how objects participate in our lives — about the ways … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Painting and Decorating Furniture by Sheila McGraw
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Good Bones, Great Pieces: The Seven Essential Pieces That Will Carry You Through a Lifetime by Suzanne and Lauren McGrath
At once primer and manifesto, Good Bones, Great Pieces stakes a modest but ambitious claim: a home’s durability—its capacity to endure fashions, life changes and moves—depends less on trend-chasing than on a coherent set of flexible, well-chosen objects. Suzanne and Lauren McGrath, a mother–daughter design team steeped in editorial and television worlds, lay out that … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Good Bones, Great Pieces: The Seven Essential Pieces That Will Carry You Through a Lifetime by Suzanne and Lauren McGrath
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Creative Concrete Ornaments for the Garden: Making Pots, Planters, Birdbaths, Sculpture More by Sherri Warner Hunter
Sherri Warner Hunter’s Creative Concrete Ornaments for the Garden invites readers into a world where the utilitarian meets the poetic, transforming raw cement into vessels of whimsy and wonder. Hunter, a seasoned artisan and educator, structures the book as both a technical manual and a meditation on the sculptural possibilities of a humble medium. At once precise … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Creative Concrete Ornaments for the Garden: Making Pots, Planters, Birdbaths, Sculpture More by Sherri Warner Hunter
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – 500 Cabinets: A Showcase of Design & Craftsmanship, edited Ray Hemachandra
In 500 Cabinets: A Showcase of Design & Craftsmanship, editor Ray Hemachandra orchestrates an exquisite symphony of form, function, and fantasy, offering a sumptuous visual anthology that redefines the cabinet not merely as a utilitarian object but as a philosophical and artistic proposition. Published as part of Lark Books’ renowned “500 Series,” this volume succeeds not … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – 500 Cabinets: A Showcase of Design & Craftsmanship, edited Ray Hemachandra
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – 500 Tables: Inspiring Interpretations of Function and Style edited by Ray Hemachandra
In 500 Tables: Inspiring Interpretations of Function and Style, edited by Ray Hemachandra, the notion of the table—a ubiquitous, often-overlooked element of domestic and civic life—is elevated into a platform for the interrogation of function, form, and metaphor. This volume, part of Lark Books’ lauded "500 Series," is more than a visual catalogue of exquisite craftsmanship; … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – 500 Tables: Inspiring Interpretations of Function and Style edited by Ray Hemachandra
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – 400 Wood Boxes: The Fine Art of Containment & Concealment by Veronika Alice Gunter
Veronika Alice Gunter’s 400 Wood Boxes: The Fine Art of Containment & Concealment is at once an exquisite catalog and a meditation on the humble box as a vessel of meaning. Rather than treating this as a mere coffee-table volume, a literary scholar encounters in its pages a series of “micro-narratives” in wood—each crafted piece offering a … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – 400 Wood Boxes: The Fine Art of Containment & Concealment by Veronika Alice Gunter
Outcasts, Rebels, Hobos and Bards: 57 Songs from the roads taken in my imagination
For decades, I’ve loved cover versions of songs, especially those that deviate from the originals in style and interpretation: jazz versions of hard rock songs, blues versions of alternative or pop songs, and literary works interpreted as lyrics. Along with the sheer laughter brought on by misheard lyrics, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed how we each perceive … Continue reading Outcasts, Rebels, Hobos and Bards: 57 Songs from the roads taken in my imagination
The New Renaissance Mindset 