This book is one of those rare stories that beautifully links art and culture with personal experience. De Waal asks questions such as how people from the past felt about life and art, and how they felt to hold these beautifully carved netsuke generation after generation, hand-to-hand, a symbol of a family saga that reaches backward to the unknown makers of these figures, and forward to the author's own children. His personal experience as a craftsman and artist make his telling of the story even more poignant. To quote de Waal: "How things are made, how they are handled and what happens to them has been central to my life for over thirty years. ... How objects embody memory--or more particularly, whether objects can hold memories--is a real question for me. This book is my journey to the places in which this collection lived. It is my secret history of touch." To learn more about Edmund de Waal, his writing, and his exquisite minimalist ceramics and installation pieces, go to his website at http://www.edmunddewaal.com/.
thoughts, reviews, and random musings on art, books, movies, music, pets/nature, travel, the occasional television show, plus gay/queer culture, genealogy, libraries, New York City, my photography and writing...and basically whatever else comes into my head
Friday, February 7, 2014
Review: The Hare with Amber Eyes
This book is one of those rare stories that beautifully links art and culture with personal experience. De Waal asks questions such as how people from the past felt about life and art, and how they felt to hold these beautifully carved netsuke generation after generation, hand-to-hand, a symbol of a family saga that reaches backward to the unknown makers of these figures, and forward to the author's own children. His personal experience as a craftsman and artist make his telling of the story even more poignant. To quote de Waal: "How things are made, how they are handled and what happens to them has been central to my life for over thirty years. ... How objects embody memory--or more particularly, whether objects can hold memories--is a real question for me. This book is my journey to the places in which this collection lived. It is my secret history of touch." To learn more about Edmund de Waal, his writing, and his exquisite minimalist ceramics and installation pieces, go to his website at http://www.edmunddewaal.com/.
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