San Antonio Zine Fest at Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Oct. 7th!!

Come Create with Us at Maker Day Tomorrow Sept. 11th!

Come join us for Alkek Library’s Maker Day! We will have project stations set up with supplies provided for painting, collaging, bookmaking, sewing, beading, as well as technology kits for circuit making and electronics, and more.

There will be scheduled drop-in workshops throughout the day on topics including Painting, 3D Printing, Bookmaking, T-shirt Crafts, Photo Editing, and Computer Programming. You can also learn about the library’s 3D printing services. We hope to see you there!

SEPTEMBER 11, 9AM - 4:30PM  ALKEK ROOM 105/106

Codices, Facsimiles, and Manuscripts in the Alkek Collections Exhibit on 1st Floor

The Codices, Facsimiles, and Manuscripts in the Alkek Collections Exhibit is on the 1st floor of the Alkek Library from now until September 30th.

While books aren’t the only things you find in libraries today, they still define us.  Much goes into the production of a book, from the author’s hand written, drawn, or typed manuscript to the printed book itself.  Come see examples of codices, manuscripts and facsimiles of earliest to more contemporary books in the Alkek Library collections.  

We have put examples of our large collection of Mesoamerican codices on one side, along with traditional Mesoamerican textiles.  Most are  facsimile volumes of the glyphs and art and a volume explaining what is being said.  In one case we have an exact facsimile of the Codex Murúa, reproduced on velum.   On another side we have a true facsimile of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, now called the Codex Leicester.  Included in the exhibit are two real and rare 17 ^th and 18^th century printed books, part of a larger collection of theological work gifted to the Alkek Library.

Join us for MAKER DAY May 9th!

 

Photographs in Juried Exhibition in Los Angeles

Two of my photographs were selected for the

1650 Gallery Windows & Doors Juried Photography Exhibition

Texas Laundry by Tara Spies Smith

Sad Windows by Tara Spies Smith

The Discovery of a Mermicat or Purrmaid Image

Siamese Purrmaid by Cate Anevski

There is a sticker on the parking garage gate that has a black and white illustration of a mythical creature that I had never imagined or seen a drawing of before. It is a mermaid cat. I liked the illustration so much that I wanted to find out who had created it. I thought it might be a local artist but I wasn't sure so I decided to research it on the friendly internet. I searched for mermaid cats and it did come up in the google image search, in color. I followed the "Visit Page" link which took me to someone's Pinterest board named "Cat Mermaids". The pinner calls the Mermaid Cat a "Mermicat", which I thought was a great name for the newly discovered to me, mermaid cat creature. The pin of the image came from a  blog titled, A Lovely Little Life, where the author had posted the mermaid cat image. Luckily, she had attributed the work to its original artist so I could go look for the artist's web site and social media sites.

I then proceeded to peruse the artist, Cate Anevski's sites to find her image of her work. I discovered that she calls it a Purrmaid and has it for sale in many different formats, prints, stickers, pins, textiles, greeting cards, and more. She has a great blog too with lots of creative ideas.

I am very glad that Cate Anevski's Purrmaid image was attributed to her so I could find her original image and pay tribute to it by promoting her work and by talking about it here.

The Wittliff Collections Acquires Edward S. Curtis’ The North American Indian

Edward S. Curtis: Treasures from The North American Indian exhibit at The Wittliff Collections is a breathtaking anthropological collection of photographs documenting Native American culture from about 1907 to 1930. Also, see the press release about this important acquisition.