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Roula Khalaf, editor-in-chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Each season brings an explosion of titles taking readers through different activities, from natural dyes to drawing and carpentry. The best don’t just teach, they inspire. In The artist’s sketchbookSenior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Jenny Gaschke draws on her expertise to compile a guide to artists’ sketchbooks from Leonardo da Vinci to the present day. In Winnie the Pooh Using illustrator EH Shepard’s sketches, she highlights how preliminary drawings help perfect the final work, while fashion artist Julie Verhoeven’s collages illustrate how sketchbooks can become valuable repositories for bits of inspiration. One of Gaschke’s wishes in writing the book was, she says, “to encourage everyone to use a sketchbook.”
A new edition of Ursula K Le Guin’s ‘Storyteller’s Handbook’, originally published by the late science fiction writer in 1998 and now available for the first time in the UK, offers a practical guide for those interested more to the art of words. The tasks include writing a paragraph without any punctuation in order to understand its “beautiful and elegant” importance, or repeating the same sentence several times in a paragraph to practice “rhythm”. As Le Guin notes, “craft makes art,” and every writer “learned it by doing it.”
Managing the business by Ursula K Le Guin (Money press£13.99)
Knit by Alice Hoyle (Octopus books£22)
Donald Judd began making his own furniture in a passionate spirit. Dissatisfied with the furniture he found in the Texas wilderness of Marfa after leaving New York in the 1970s, the artist decided to make his own, constructing chairs, tables and beds from scraps of wood rights. Donald Judd Furniturea magenta book celebrating his minimalist and functional forms, is a brilliant introduction to his woodworking philosophy. More than 100 designs are explored through Judd’s original sketches, plans, photographs and specifications, while his essays and interviews contain aphorisms for the budding carpenter: “If a chair or a building is not functional… .), it’s ridiculous. »
Alice Hoyle learned to knit as a child before taking a knitwear design course, working at Wool and the Gang and finally launching her own knitwear platform, Rows (which has now achieved cult status on Instagram). In KnitHoyle shows readers how to create her best-selling styles, from sweater vests to throw pillows. Her colorful, geometric designs use interesting stitches from her grandmother’s stash of magazine clippings and are inspired by “the patterns and colors of everyday life,” whether they’re sidewalk tiles or fabrics. woven. The book is aimed primarily at intermediate knitters, but Hoyle’s detailed tips make it accessible to everyone (although it’s advisable to start with someone more experienced).
Game book by Carsten Höller (Bags£40)
The Mushroom Color Atlasby Julie Beeler (Chronicle books$35)
However, hobbies don’t have to be solitary activities. In Game bookGerman artist Carsten Höller presents his ironic hijinks for single players or groups, with illustrations by Höller and works by names such as Inez & Vinoodh and Nan Goldin. Highlights include “making friends with a fly” (choose a nearby insect and “communicate using your mental powers”) and imitating the contortionist poses of 19th-century Swedish photographer Carl Jacob Malmberg. Gymnastics series.
The more idiosyncratic might find a new interest in The Mushroom Color Atlasa guide to “bringing out” the rainbow hues of mushrooms and turning them into dyes and inks. Artist, educator and “mycophile” Julie Beeler began experimenting with mushrooms in her work over a decade ago, when she was looking for an alternative to the “flat harshness” of synthetic colors. She guides readers through the process of steeping like tea leaves and combining the result with mordants, precipitants, and binders to produce colors ranging from deep red to sky blue to a rich, “melting” orange.
