{"id":1309,"date":"2008-06-08T00:30:43","date_gmt":"2008-06-08T06:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1309"},"modified":"2008-06-08T07:11:53","modified_gmt":"2008-06-08T13:11:53","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-66-featuring-philip-huber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1309","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #66: Featuring Philip Huber"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jules<\/strong>: Welcome once again to our weekly 7-Kicks list, the meeting ground for listing Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week — whether book-related or not — that happened to you. <\/p>\n

This week we’re featuring illustrator Philip Huber, who is a professor of art at Lock Haven University<\/strong><\/a>, a Fulbright scholar, received his Master’s degree in illustration and a Master of Fine Arts degree in visual communications at Syracuse University, and who illustrated this year’s A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry<\/strong><\/a><\/em> by Marjorie Maddox (also a professor at Lock Haven; Marjorie teaches English and is the director of the Creative Writing program there). <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A Crossing of Zebras<\/em>, published in April by Wordsong, features Philip’s scratchboard (with colored inks) illustrations, depicting—as the sub-title of the book tells you—various animal packs. We thank him for sharing his butterflies and giraffes (below) with us today — from, respectively, the poems entitled “A Charm of Butterflies” and “A Tower of Giraffes.” These are my two favorite illustrations from the book. <\/p>\n

Here’s what Philip had to say about his art work: <\/p>\n

“While an illustrator in graduate school at Syracuse, I became interested in developing a look completely my own. I enjoyed working with the detail of pen and ink and color through dyes but did not want to be one of so many working with those materials. It was then that I began experimenting with scratchboard. Leaving aside traditional and colored scratchboard, I began applying dyes and inks to white (uncoated) scratchboard, which has led to the style seen in this book. It offered extreme detail and almost endless variations in color.”<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Many thanks to Philip (and to Marjorie for helping me get in touch with him!). How about that butterfly image, in particular, everyone? Isn’t that beautiful?<\/p>\n

Okay, kicks time. So, without further ado, here are . . . <\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n

1). I took a break from blogging this week just to get caught up on reading, and I did finish more than one novel. This is good and something I was hoping to accomplish. But the best<\/em> part was that this book which IMMEDIATELY caught my attention had just appeared in my life, and all that curiosity about the book was rewarded greatly when I started reading it. And then it turned out that I couldn’t put it down. It was fortuitous, indeed, that I had taken that blog break. I fell into this book — and fell hard. I aim to do a post about it this week. <\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a>2). I’ll try not to go on too much about this; you all know of my love for Sam Philllips’<\/strong><\/a> music. Her new CD<\/strong><\/a> came out this week, and, no, I actually didn’t time a blog break for this week for that<\/em> reason, though I’m sure no one believes me. The CD is . . . well, I’m almost speechless. I wouldn’t even know where to begin<\/em> to tell you of its greatness. It’s flat-out brilliant is what it is, but I’m not surprised. <\/p>\n

If you are an air-drum player, here’s<\/strong><\/a> a song for you (Jay Bellerose<\/strong><\/a> on drums. He is talented in seven different directions on this instrument). You know you want to hear it. It’s just $.99, my friends. It’ll improve your life exponentially. Whether you actually take my advice now or just end up being blessed by the musical gods and hear it one day later in your life, just remember that you must make. it. LOUD. <\/p>\n

And also: Look at this<\/strong><\/a>. See, the universe knows<\/em> I’m her biggest fan. I beat out 197 other people. And I’ve never even seen that television show, not to mention that OF COURSE I already have the new tunes; I just heard the words “Sam” and “autographed CD” and went and quickly left my name. Mwahahahaha. (Of course, I’m just going to have to share the extra CD I will soon have with some lucky friend — not the autographed one, though. Mine. All mine.)<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

3). Guys Lit Wire<\/strong><\/em><\/a> has taken off. Like a big goober, I timed my blog break during the week it was launched. There are some great posts thus far over there. Guys Lit Wire<\/em>, as the site explains<\/strong><\/a>, “was created after a broad discussion among YA bloggers within the lit blogosphere about the lack of books for teenage boys” (I believe the conversation started way back here with Sara<\/strong><\/a>.) I’m very honored to be involved with all these talented people<\/strong><\/a> over there; I’ll be posting the fourth Tuesday of every month (more if I get inspired) about, essentially, books with good art. Kudos to Sarah<\/strong><\/a> for the kickin’ site design.<\/p>\n

4). I subbed last-minute at a story time at my local public library this week. Ronald McDonald bailed for the summer reading program (McSlacker), so I showed up with some new books, a felt board, probably my favorite story ever<\/strong><\/a>, and a great song about zooming to the moon that Alkelda<\/strong><\/a> taught me. ONE SKERJILLION kids, to be precise, were there. But all went well. And the best kick of all is that Alkelda<\/strong><\/a> and Adrienne<\/strong><\/a> gave me some much-needed advice. Thanks again to both of them. <\/p>\n

5). Look at this fabulous post<\/strong><\/a>, which made Eisha and I feel greatly flattered and quite humbled. It’s from Abbeville Press’ (a NYC-based independent publisher of art and illustrated books) new blog, The Abbeville Manual of Style<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. They called us a website “worthy of {their} discriminating readers\u2019 attention,” and they like our site’s “classy look”; I was giddy after reading that. <\/p>\n

Though Abbeville Press<\/strong><\/a> has been around for thirty years, they’re new to blogging. Their blog covers, in their words, the intersection of the art and publishing worlds. It spotlights Abbeville news, books, publishing and arts events, and “high-quality art and publishing websites” (another reason we’re so flattered they chose to post about us); it also includes podcasts<\/strong><\/a> and videos. And as their wonderful first post<\/strong><\/a> explains, they’re trying to make the world a little more stylish in the process of blogging about art and books, something with which we wholeheartedly agree needs to happen. <\/p>\n

The blog pretty much reeks with a style of its own, and the posts are great reads. <\/p>\n

That’s it. I’m done. This is long enough. Eisha, were you as excited as I was that Abbeville spotted us?<\/p>\n

* * * eisha’s kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n

eisha: <\/strong>I was indeed. Not only does the Abbeville blog reek of style, as you pointed out, but there’s a potent whiff of humor and intelligence about it. Like in this post<\/strong><\/a>. They publish cool art books, and<\/em> they’re smart-asses. How can I not love that? So, I’ll just call this Kick #1.<\/p>\n

2* I bought some much-needed new clothes, including some fabulous bargains: gray wide-legged pants with those buttons going up each side like sailors’ pants for, like, $9, and some adorable brown t-strap flats for about $10. Which made me feel better about finally splurging on a black cardigan (yes, me too!) and pair of linen\/cotton pants that I’d been stalking for weeks but didn’t seem to be getting any closer to going on sale.<\/p>\n

3* My husband was thoughtful enough to get the window air conditioner installed before he went out of town again this weekend, so at least one room of the apartment is bearable in this 98-degree weather.<\/p>\n

4* I’ve been hired by another academic department to organize their book collection.<\/p>\n

Miles and Oliver, chillin\u2019 in da hoopty.<\/p>\n

5* Thanks to my generous mom and sister giving me an early birthday present, I’m going to be flying home to TN in a few weeks. I get to see my nephew! (My sis-in-law sent recent pics. Just look at that. ARGH! He is SO CUTE it’s like a superpower. Able to stop a speeding locomotive with a mere bat of the eyelashes.)<\/p>\n

6* This also means I’ll get to visit Jules! Yee-haw!<\/p>\n

7* Like Jules, I discovered a couple of fabulous books this week. One of them, a book of essays about the Narnia Chronicles by YA authors, has sparked lots of interesting discussions with co-workers who spotted me reading it on my lunch breaks.<\/p>\n

8* I’m diggin’ this week’s art. Scratchboard is a great medium for depicting animals – I want to pet those giraffes.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

How about the rest of y’all? Any good stuff to report? If you aren’t too busy with MotherReader’s 48-Hour Reading Challenge<\/strong><\/a>, kindly tell us about ’em in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jules: Welcome once again to our weekly 7-Kicks list, the meeting ground for listing Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week — whether book-related or not — that happened to you. This week we’re featuring illustrator Philip Huber, who is a professor of art at Lock Haven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}