Crushed Ivory Design Challenge - Call for Entries - U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

The U.S Fish & Wildlife Service is hosting the Crushed Ivory Design Challenge. Please read more about it, see examples, and read application instructions and deadlines on their site. This is an amazing design challenge with opportunities to bring your creative vision and proposal to fruition while also bringing more attention to the plight of elephants.

The Challenge:
We’re asking for your help to transform this crushed ivory to memorialize the elephants that have died, educate the world about the dangers of buying ivory, and crush illegal ivory trade. Through this pro-bono design challenge, you have the opportunity to create a compelling, thought provoking, informative and impactful display to increase awareness about our fight against illegal wildlife trade.

San Antonio-based Artist and Photographer Mark Menjivar - Visiting Artist Lecture

Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 5pm in the Gallery Flex Space in JCM, the Art & Design Building at Texas State University.

Mark's work explores diverse subjects through photography, stories, and found objects while emphasizing dialogue and collaboration. Mark recently received his MFA in Art & Social Practice from Portland State University. His work has been shown at venues across the country including The Houston Center for Photography, The San Antonio Museum of Art, The Wignall Museum of Art, The University of Wisconsin-­Milwaukee, Baylor University, The Southwest School of Art and Central Michigan University. Mark's work has also been featured by TED, NPR, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Gastronomica, Orion Magazine, GUP Magazine and dozens more. In addition, his series, You Are What You Eat, won Director's Choice from CENTER and was a Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 project in 2009. In 2011 Mark received an artist grant from The Breckenridge Foundation. More information about Mark's work can be found at http://www.markmenjivar.com/.

Finding Images Workshop 9/26/14 @ 2PM

The Merry Family, Jan Havicksz. Steen, 1668, oil on canvas, h 110.5cm × w 141cm. From the Rijksmuseum.

Need to find good quality images for your presentations or papers? Come to the Finding Images workshop to learn how use the library’s image databases, books, and public domain/open access image websites to find high quality images in all different subject areas including art, advertising, journalism, popular culture and more. Presentation tips, copyright, and tech tools will be also briefly be covered. 9/26/14 @ 2PM in Alkek 101. Register here.

Read A Banned Comic!! Exhibit and Watchmen Movie Screening

Come see the Read a Banned Comic!! exhibit on the 2nd floor of the library. It is to your right on the way to the elevators. There are goodies for the taking as long as I have some to give. They go fast!

We will be showing the Watchmen movie on Monday, September 22nd @ 6PM in the Alkek Teaching Theater (Alkek 250). It is across the breezeway from the library's main entrance.

Alkek Book Covers Exhibit - last day Sept 12th!

Designs and styles from the Texas State University Library collections. Now on display on the 1st floor of Alkek Library until September 12th. 

"Over the years, we have heard complaints about the age of the Alkek Library book collection.   We have grown from a teaching college to an emerging research institution.  To that end, we are working on making sure there is and will always be room for the most current and relevant information available in all disciplines, in print or online.  However, without maintaining some of these older parts of the collection, the history of the collection and of the institution would be lost.  We have original examples of artistic book cover styles and designs because we have retained some these unique titles. 

Interestingly, some of the best examples we have of these classic book cover designs come from the American and German Literature sections of the Alkek collection.  That would not be surprising, considering the area of Texas we are in.  We suspect that from our very beginnings, faculty and perhaps some of the local community, contributed their love, knowledge, and even some of the books themselves, to our collections.  These books date from the 1890s to the 1920s." - Selene Hinojosa, Head Collection Development Librarian at Alkek Library, curated this show and wrote this description.

The exhibit is beautiful! Go check it out!

Mark Snyder's Fiji Island Mermaid Press = Friday Art Fun!

Triceratops on Stage, Marc Snyder

I wanted to share this great site that I stumbled upon, Fiji Island Mermaid Press. Linocuts, artists' books, drawing, collage, and more by Marc Snyder. He has info on how to make small books from one sheet of paper, free artists' books for download by himself and other artists, and how to make a linocut.

Snyder has a Book of the Month Club that you can subscribe to and get a little handmade book with copies of his linocuts and other mixed media mailed to you once a month. I am requesting a subscription for Alkek Library!

Check out Snyder's wonderful Blog, Flickr, and Tumblr sites too!

3rd Annual Alkek Library Staff Art Show now on Display!

The 3rd Annual Alkek Library Staff Art Show is now on display from June 2nd to July 31st in the 1st floor exhibit cases in the Alkek Library Building. It includes work from Alkek Library staff as well as other IT department staff in the building.

The show includes paintings, photographs, textiles, prints, ceramics, and more. It is curated by Alkek staff Katie Salzmann, Tara Spies Smith, and Hithia Davis.

Please come enjoy our talents!

New!! Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels Database

We now have access to the Alexander Street Press database Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels: Volume I

This is the first ever scholarly, primary-source database focused on comic books and graphic novels. Works of artists both celebrated and overlooked, alongside interviews, criticism, and journal articles that document the continual growth and evolution of this artform. The aim of this collection is to provide a comprehensive view of alternative comics from the 1960s to today, particularly those from North America.


You can make playlists of different themes and save, share, or present them for classes.

Includes online access to The Comics Journal from 1976-2004, which we also have a print subscription to.

This database was funded by an Alkek Library One-Time Online Resource Grant. I am very excited to announce it to you all! Learn more about One-Time Online Resource Grants available for faculty and librarians to apply for.

Questions? Please ask me, Tara Spies Smith, YOUR Art & Design Librarian, ts20@txstate.edu

Graphic Novelist T Edward Bak Presents New Book and Comics Workshop at Texas State, 4/14

Graphic Novel Reading/Q&A/Book Signing
April 14, 2014, Monday
Reception & Refreshments - 2:45 pm, Reading - 3:00pm
The Wittliff Collections
Alkek Library, 7th floor
Contact: Tara Spies Smith 512-245-1636

Comics Workshop
April 14, 2014, Monday
5:30pm School of Art & Design, Joan Cole Mitte Building, Room 1124
Contact: Matt Rebholz 512-638-1632



ISLAND OF MEMORY, T Edward Bak’s first volume of WILD MAN—The Natural History of Georg Wilhelm Steller, examines the human condition within the natural order at the extremes of the unknown. Part natural history, part adventure yarn and part experimental narrative, this 72-page full-color fever dream is the artistic realization of Bak’s inquiry into the socio-ecological consequences of empire.

T Edward Bak's presentation will include a discussion of the natural history and works which inspire and inform the narrative of his graphic novel. Read more from the publisher, Floating World Comics

An informal Q&A and book signing with Bak will follow the reading. Books will be available for purchase courtesy of the University Bookstore.

T Edward Bak teaches and lectures on comics in the Pacific Northwest, where he studies Environmental Studies. He was the 2007 Center for Cartoon Studies Fellow and is the cartoonist of Service Industry, and WILD MAN: The Natural History of Georg Wilhelm Steller. His stories appear in The Graphic Canon, The Best American Comics, MOME, and Drawn & Quarterly Showcase. A native of Colorado, Bak resides primarily in Portland, Oregon, but often migrates throughout North America.

List of Meta Messages in Comics by Brain Cronin!

Brian Cronin on the Comic Book Resources Comics Should Be Good Blog, has compiled a list of meta messages. These are messages where comics writers' characters reference the work of another comic artist's work or character. See Cronin's list on his Comics Should Be Good Blog original post!

To the left is a panel from # 17 on Cronin's list, "The Question Thinks Rorschach Sucks" where The Question is referencing Rorschach from the Watchmen. More on the #17 link above!

BLAMMO! Graphic Novel Course and Book Exhibit at Alkek Library, 1/2/14 - 2/6/14!

BLAMMO! is an exhibit on the 1st floor of Alkek Library featuring a selection of student work from the Graphic Novel Course, ARTS 43080, and books from the Alkek Library Graphic Novel Collection.

The exhibit is curated in collaboration by Matt Rebholz, Lecturer in the School of Art & Design and Tara Spies Smith, Reference & Instruction Librarian and Art & Design Librarian at Alkek Library.

The exhibit is on display now until February 6th 2014!


Please let us know what you think about this collaborative exhibit!

Thanks!

Will Eisner Graphic Novel Grants for Libraries - Deadline Feb. 7, 2014.

The American Library Association (ALA) and the Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation have open applications for two grants - "the Will Eisner Graphic Novel Innovation Grant will provide support to a library that would like to expand its existing graphic novel services and programs; the Will Eisner Graphic Novel Growth Grant will provide support to a library for the initiation of a graphic novel service or program. Each recipient will receive a $4,000 program grant plus a collection of Will Eisner’s work and biographies as well as the graphic novels nominated for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards at Comic-Con International.  The grant award includes a travel stipend for a library representative to travel to the ALA Annual Conference to receive the grant from the Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation" (From the ALA News article, "Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation and ALA open applications for new graphic novel grant", 12/06/2013).

The deadline for applications is February 7, 2014.

More information about the grants and a link to grant and application process information can be found on the original ALA News article.