Monthly Archives: August 2016

September 2016 News, Reviews, and Events

News

Congratulations to Sylvanna M. Falcón, winner of the National Women’s Studies Association 2016 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize for Power Interrupted, selected “for its clear writing, as well as its adept integration of intersectional and transnational analyses to assess the grassroots feminist work that employs international frameworks when addressing gender and racial issues through the global stage that the UN provides.”

Reviews and Interviews

David Takami reviews Judy Bentley’s Walking Washington’s History in the Seattle Times: “Coming soon to a city near you: clusters of visitors gazing intently at a handheld object as a way to engage with their surroundings. . . . The commendable new book by Judy Bentley. . . . is an immensely appealing approach to writing history. . . . Bentley demonstrates that history is not abstruse and remote from our current experience; it is ever present—and just around the next corner.“

Christian Martin reviews the book on the Chattermarks blog from North Cascades Institute: “Bentley provides brief but engaging historical overviews. . . . There are stories in the ground beneath our feet, dashed dreams lingering in the air, as well as legacies of benevolent forethought from a not-so-distant past all around us.”

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Exhibitions on View: ‘Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera’

Acme Photo
Diego and Frida in NYC 1933
gelatin silver print
22.9 x 17.8 cm
Courtesy of Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc

We are delighted to distribute the catalog to accompany the exhibition, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: From the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, for the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The exhibition is now on view at AGNSW and has been extended until October 23, 2016 due to popular demand.

After the exhibition closes in Sydney, it will travel to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona from April 9 – August 20, 2017.

Leading twentieth-century Mexican artists Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Diego Rivera (1886-1957) were internationally acclaimed in their lifetime, and their art and lives have continued to provoke and captivate audiences.

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Birds of the Pacific Northwest: Photo Essay

Birds of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Guide is the all-in-one regional field guide for birding enthusiasts of all levels. Bird experts Tom Aversa, Richard Cannings, and Hal Opperman illuminate key identification traits, vocalizations, seasonal status and distribution, habitat preferences, and other behaviors for the species that call the Pacific Northwest home.

There are more than four hundred bird species in Birds of the Pacific Northwest, but here are a few of our favorites:

2_Wood Duck - Juanita Bay-2-7-13-02937_p#A9EA

Wood Duck (Aix sponsa), Male, WA (King County). Photo by Gregg Thompson.

Wood duck (Aix sponsa): A unique, short-tailed duck with a long, broad tail. The males are spectacularly multicolored. The population was depressed a century ago, but is now recovering thanks to managed harvest, nest boxes, and forest regrowth. Continue reading →

Behind the Covers: Make Books, Not War!

BehindCover-Weiss-Meyer-Header

“If you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t really there.”

So say many people who were in fact there and must have had a pretty interesting time. Fortunately, actual evidence exists in the form of archived book covers published by the University of Washington Press throughout that era. The decade saw an enormous output of lushly artistic and unabashedly hand-made designs that have not been documented before.

By the end of the 1950s, the press had begun defining itself as a modern publisher with a range beyond purely academic monographs. Forays into regional and trade books were made, and the need for visually striking covers converged with a burgeoning creativity and new production methods that facilitated expression. Reliable budgets and an atmosphere of growth contributed to a fertile environment for these explorations. The prolific work of Dianne Weiss and Audrey Meyer exemplify this, though contributions by Veronica Seyd, Roz Pape, Diana Bower, and uncredited others also enriched the output of the era.

The documentary Graphic Means explores graphic design production of the 1950s through the 1990s:

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Walking Bellingham

Inspired by Judy Bentley’s Walking Washington’s History: Ten Cities, our staff is going on a series of history walks of featured Washington State cities (see a similar series at Northwest Public Radio). In this guest post, 2016-2017 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellow Niccole Leilanionapae’aina Coggins explores Bellingham.

Learn more about Washington’s urban history and celebrate the publication of Walking Washington’s History at these author events:

Thursday, August 4 at 6:30 p.m., REI Olympia, Olympia, WA

Tuesday, August 23 at 7 p.m., REI Seattle

Thursday, August 25 at 7 p.m., KCLS-Renton Library, Renton, WA

Wednesday, September 7 at 7 p.m., Leschi Community Council, Central Area Senior Center

Thursday, September 8 at 6:30 p.m., REI Issaquah, Issaquah, WA

In keeping with the summer plan to try out the various walks featured in Judy Bentley’s book, I volunteered for the next outing. Since I’m new to Washington State and have a car, my colleagues suggested Bellingham. Bentley wrote that Bellingham is a combination of four villages, Whatcom-Sehome-Bellingham-Fairhaven, that “grew along the waterfront of Bellingham Bay and rode every boom and bust that swept the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s and early 1900s.” The villages eventually merged together and took the name of the bay as their own. The cornerstone markers along the route, like the one between Whatcom and Fairhaven, highlight the historical boundaries of where one town ended and the other began.

The Bellingham Loop is seven miles roundtrip (may be done in parts) and the Extended Walk: South Hill and Western Washington University is three miles one-way, with elevation gain. As luck would have it, this walk is the longest one in the book. Along with two family friends, I opted for the middle part of the loop.

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