conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a description for a book titled Exhibition about Ten, Avenues, Press with the genre: Arts & Photography, Photography & Video
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Ten Avenues Press announces the author's new photography book, EXHIBITION. The 160-page hardcover is a collection of nudes and portraits of more than 50 different men photographed over the past ten years. From the rooftops of NYC to the beaches of Miami and Malibu, on the moors of Provincetown or in the woods of Upstate NY, or even inside the intimacy of Kevin's studio in the city, this exquisite coffee-table book includes many of the most beautiful images taken by the author. Some of the models featured in EXHIBITION are Todd Sanfield, Calum Winsor, Eric Rutherford, Ryan Young, Justin Clynes, Sebastian Swiatek, Barrett Pall, Taylor Phillips, Colton Ford, Ivan Scannell, Matt Maggiacomo, Rene Grincourt, Stephane Haffner, Eric Turner, Aaron Vanezuela, Daniel Robinson, Tom Berklund and many more. Most images have never been published, but also some of Kevin's favorites are included here. This hardcover book is beautifully printed in Italy with color and rich black and white duotone images on premium paper. Exhibition - hardcover with dust jacket, smyth-sewn binding, 160 pages, color and duotone black and white. Printed in Italy. 12.5 x 9.75 inches. Published by Ten Avenues Press. Ten Avenues Press 2017. ISBN: 978-0-9852403-3-2.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Kevin, Larry, Creeping with the genre: Children's Books, Science Fiction & Fantasy?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Exhibition'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a description for a book titled Exhibition about Michael's, California, Before with the genre: Arts & Photography, Photography & Video. End with the sentence ' They have been featured in several major newspapers and online periodicals around the world.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Raised in Berkeley, California, the author is now a Los Angeles-based photographer. He graduated first in his class and Phi Beta Kappa with a Fine Art degree through the film department at California State University, Long Beach. Before changing his career path to filmmaking, he was a photography major, learning pre-digital photographic techniques and using darkrooms and silver gelatin film. In film school, he wrote and directed a short film, Alien, that screened in film festivals around the world. Michael's first coffee table book, Masculinity (2012), was a glamour-styled, photographic male figure study book that is currently out of print. In the same style as his first, his second book, Bare Strength (2014), is already in its third printing and is available on Amazon. It features a chapter on wounded veterans of war, specifically amputees. From the sales of this book, he has donated $10,000 to the Semper Fi Fund, a charity that benefits veterans of war and their families. Also in 2014, Michael collaborated with the publisher Taschen to produce My Buddy, supplying the publisher with his collection of vintage photos of nude WWII soldiers. Michael's third and fourth books, Exhibition and Always Loyal release November 1, 2015. Exhibition continues the exploration and celebration of the male figure, while Always Loyal is dedicated exclusively to wounded United States veterans. Before the end of 2015, from pre-sales of both books, Michael will donate $20,000 to the Semper Fi Fund. Michael's photos of wounded veterans have been shared around the world and have been featured on television: Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Tonight Show, The View, and The Talk. They have been featured in several major newspapers and online periodicals around the world.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first two paragraphs for this book. Start with the sentence 'Exhibition
  French artist Eugène Delacroix confided in his 1824 diary, "What moves men of genius, or rather, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough'.
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conversations.value: Exhibition
  French artist Eugène Delacroix confided in his 1824 diary, "What moves men of genius, or rather, what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough." Push a favorite idea to extremes. Exaggerate shapes or repeat a familiar element to the point of absurdity. Try a borrowed technique in a dramatically different color scheme or on a different scale than your inspiration artist used. Probe the edges of everything you pilfer to find your own slant on it.
  Three hundred collages?! That's a good start. Thomas Edison observed, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Whether you're developing brilliant inventions that will revolutionize life as we know it, or just a personal visual vocabulary for one, it's going to involve considerable elbow grease. That's not to say that making art is a struggle. Developing your artistic style is an evolution, a process that takes time and many iterations. Patience, Grasshopper.
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conversations.value: five more paragraphs
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conversations.value: As I started painting her face, I was especially pleased with my color choices. By combining Titanium White with small amounts of the other colors, I was able to create beautiful skin tones. The hair was painted with combinations of brown, crimson and Yellow Oxide, both by mixing various shades on my palette and by laying colors next to each other directly on the surface. It was a process that left me delighted but creatively depleted. She was emerging exactly as I had imagined her, mesmerizing with her bold yet vulnerable gaze, but I was stalled. I just couldn't decide how to approach finishing the background, and, honestly, I didn't want to ruin my beautiful girl. So I propped her up on my dresser against the mirror (that's where I put unfinished work I want to think about) and looked at her for a couple of days until the solution revealed itself.
  Moving to the background, I added more color, layer upon layer, sanding between layers. I wanted to include Richard Thompson's song in the painting, so I made a transparency sheet of the lyrics using a very delicate script font. I planned to use the lyrics as a transfer to achieve both texture and meaning, placing them in the central section of the background, but once I got them down, the whole painting looked heavy and busy. It also looked too obvious. I prefer secrets and mystery—deeper meanings that may or may not be discovered. On top of that, the various sections of the background all seemed to be of the same value as the foreground. My painting had gone from a masterpiece to a mess! I felt devastated and very nervous. The deadline was fast approaching, and I wondered if I would be able to come through with something I would be proud to share. Once again my girl was given a time-out on the dresser so I could ponder a solution to my dilemma.
  After my spirits had plummeted, my confidence had dissolved and I had started to plunge into the abyss of self-doubt and fear, I finally mustered up the courage to revisit the painting. As often happens, my inner voice saved me, commanding me to go back and regroup—try something different. So out came the gesso, and in a matter of minutes, the background was gone. Once again, I started painting and sanding and scratching with my trusty razor blade. And that's when the magic happened. Bits of overpainted gesso started flaking off, revealing portions of the transferred text and the original base colors! I continued painting and sanding, watching as shapes emerged. The painting seemed to almost create itself, giving me hints of trees and clouds and hills, so I followed its lead. After a frightening detour, I was back in the zone and working with intuitive synergy.
  I completed the background by stamping in additional texture along the bottom, transferring sheet music as leaves for the trees, drawing flowers with gel pens and stamping bits of white script to lighten the atmosphere. I then returned to the figure, painting a pattern of vines on her clothes with the added surprise of a stalk growing through her fingers, marrying her to the surrounding landscape. The finishing touch was a small bee clinging to the vine on her arm. My girl with her "brown hair zigzag around her face and a look of half surprise, like a fox caught in the headlights" (Thompson) was done, and she was everything I had initially envisioned—and more.
  Many people liken the creation of art to giving birth, but I think the process of painting a challenging piece is more than that; it's like raising a child through an easy birth, a hyperactive childhood, a troubled adolescence, and then experiencing the magical transformation that often occurs in early adulthood. After all I went through with this painting, I wanted to keep her around for a while to enjoy her beauty, her wit, her multifaceted personality, but she had places to go and people to meet. As I packed the painting to send it off to the publisher, I imagined her whispering, "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay, and you wouldn't want me any other way" (Thompson).
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conversations.value: the last paragraph
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conversations.value: THESE BOOKS AND OTHER FINE NORTH LIGHT TITLES ARE AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL CRAFT RETAILER, BOOKSTORE OR ONLINE SUPPLIER, OR VISIT US AT www.mycraftivity.com.