Some time in late summer I checked out these two books from the library. I read one of them twice and did not finish the other but they both sent me in a spiral to seek all sorts of information and both resulted in some serious work in my life.
The first book is: "The Shabbat" by Abraham Joshua Heschel with an unexpected number of amazing and very appropriate illustrations by Ilya Schor. TThe art of Illya Schor was the very first thing that surprised me and that I went after. After an initial google search of his other works, I found his daughter - a contemporary artist Mira Schor - who has a tag with his works on her blog (https://ayearofpositivethinking.com/tag/ilya-schor/). The idea of having a space in time, a pause, a cathedral that is built throughout one's life - every week is an image I left with after reading this book. And every week one begins building a new cathedral and treats this cycle as a holy practice. That is what I am thinking about and working on.
The second book is "The Whole Picture: The colonial story of the art in our museums and why we need to talk about it" byAlice Procter. I was surprised because this book had no images of art inside it. It was very interesting to see how I went from complete surprise to confusion to researching if I got a defective book (I really thought so!) Then I went to find podcasts by the author (The Exhibitionist and Historical Friction). And then I got to collecting artworks mentioned in the book and I got eventually tired and overwhelmed and had to take a break from the book. The book talks about important subjects by looking at the art spaces as four concepts: The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial, and The Playground. Each of these is illustrated by the history of particular artworks.
These are both books I will go back to.
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