Friday, May 31, 2013

oh comely

oh comely magazine
Purchased: 05.27.13.
At: Chapters/Indigo
Notes: Looking for more magazines, and there were actually quite a few I wanted to get this time, but that my budget wouldn't allow. I flipped through it and saw that there were several pages that featured knit sweaters (along the same sort as the cover), which was what got me in the end. Overall, a very nice and simple, clean aesthetic that I quite enjoyed.
69 stations of Kisokaido
I also purchased this Hiroshige/Eisen Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido, which was on sale for $20! It's a sizeable hardcover book featuring their prints, which I fully intend on studying before I get back to my own printmaking in the coming months. At the moment it's still shrink-wrapped, but a flip through a sample in store revealed descriptions for each print, which were each a page in size, full colour. It's probably going to come in handy sometime during my academic career, and even if it doesn't... all those beautiful prints! (Albeit not actual prints, but it's still quite worth it).

Sunday, May 26, 2013

frieze & philosophy

Frieze magazine and The Story of Philosophy


Frieze
Purchased: 05.24.13.
At: Chapters/Indigo
Notes: I went looking for knitting magazines, which I did get, as well as hoping to browse through the art magazines, since I want to try to expand my knowledge of people and what they're doing where. Maybe try to connect a bit more and go to galleries more often, and not just the bigger ones or when I have somewhere in particular to go. But I don't usually purchase magazines, so I had no idea which publications were going to be to my liking. So, as I'm sure many before me have, I looked through the stand and judged all the magazines I saw by their cover. I was looking for something that wasn't too image-heavy (I mean, I love images, but I also tend to gravitate towards text) and that had articles in-depth enough to actually give me enough information to get me interested enough that I'd do my own research later on. I flipped through a number, and found a lot had either Q&As or very short introductions of artists followed by pages of pictures, and not too many that were of the sort I was looking for.

one of the listing pages
So I settled for Frieze, but I'm quite happy I did! I haven't made my way through all of it, but I really appreciate all the shows and exhibitions that it lists for several countries! Especially since I want to go visit more galleries, it's very helpful to see where I can start, and I'm quite excited about it!






It was on sale.
As for the other item, The Story of Philosophy, it was on sale. I'm pretty into philosophy as a whole, and seek it out whenever I go to book sales and the like. I thought this might set a good foundation for whenever I read newer works that build upon the classics.


frankie & smith

Frankie & Smith

Smith Journal
Purchased: 04.14.13
At: Chapters/Indigo
Notes: I guess I expected a lot from Frankie magazine (since I kept seeing people posting about it, especially the issue with the cross-stitched cover), so I was a little disappointed. There weren't as many articles as I expected, but in their defense, some of the articles did catch my interest. That being said, I feel like they weren't quite as in-depth or "serious" as I wanted them to be. It's great for a quick flip-through, when I maybe don't have too much energy to focus on longer articles, but my high expectations set me up for disappointment (which is probably of my own doing).
Smith on the other hand did impress me! They're both sold on the same site (from what I know, though I haven't really looked into it) and the description said that Smith was aimed at males, and I'm assuming Frankie at females, which makes me wonder what the implications are concerning their contents. That is, I found the articles in Smith much more engaging, both in the style of writing (even the length of them) and the contents, and it felt like I got a lot more for my investment than I did for Frankie. (Perhaps due to my expectations.) This was the sort of content I was looking for when I sought out Frankie, and I would probably go back to reread Smith at some later point in time.
Both of them are meant for different audiences (or different mindsets from a similar audience), and I'm sure both fulfill their goals in filling their respective markets, but I'd be more likely to purchase Smith again than Frankie, personally.