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Welcome to Feature Friday! A weekly feature segment where the team here at Plebeian takes a look at the work that you all create and post and gives it a big ol' shout out! Aside from being artists ourselves, we're also huge fans of art and one of the founding principles of the Plebeian Deli was creating an artist's community where everyone has a voice and where we can promote all of those artists, jump starting their careers. The art world is a tough one and frankly we got tired of hearing about those same 6 big time artists because there's hundreds and thousands of talented artists out there creating bad ass work that is having a hard time breaking into the main stream. Feature Friday is all about getting that art into the main stream, showcasing the new generation of artists! So to kick start this segment I wanted to introduce the founders, we are artists after all. We're artists for artists! It's super exciting to get to write this piece because not only are these people my best friends but they're also some of my favorite artists, so this really makes my work fun! I'll keep it short and sweet since this is 4 instead of one but I hope you all enjoy the work and we look forward to seeing and featuring your work in the future! Adele Kaczmarek: @adelekczmrk Adele is a Senior in the Fine Art program at the University of Delaware and over the past few years has developed into a very engaging and intriguing sculptor. Her work is very modern and experimental, she combines a myriad of materials that both compliment and contrast one another and then are thrust into a space, altering and absorbing it, making the space as crucial to the work as the objects themselves. In this piece in particular we really see this contrast in material as these lakes of goo mounted in rubber and fur collide with and damage the space. The breaking of the stark white surface of the space reveals a grayish tone that compliments the individual characters and gives them a sense of safety. Yet, while the objects seem safe, the space is brought to life through large pink drips, almost resembling blood and bringing out the damage that is being done to it. This really ties the display together and draws in the viewer through a contrast in feel; comfort and discomfort. There is comfort in the objects, who act as character elements, breaking the surface to get to a more soft and complimenting space, yet the space is brought to life and put into a sense of extreme discomfort as its surface is broken and "blood" is drawn. Then, adding to this push and pull, the piece expands from the single wall but takes a different effect as it reaches the second. The surface has been broken, like the original, but the color underneath doesn't compliment the characters, and none of them have breached this space almost as if the space is fighting back, not wanting to be broken down. Adele's strength is in engaging these objects that otherwise might feel like nonsense. Creating a safe space for display and giving life to that display, in turn creating narrative. This piece effortlessly guides the viewer in and out of the piece and along this narrative battle between space and object. Creating a dynamic and exciting sculpture is one thing but engaging it with the space and drawing in the viewer, forcing them to interact and decipher is all the more admirable and why I'm such a big fan of Adele's work. Andy DeVito: @damnsoft Working primarily in 2D, Andy's work is very much inspired by the macabre. I've featured two paintings here to break down two different ways Andy engages the viewer but then leaves them with a similar take away, thus defining his style. In the first we simple use of color and shape, things we easily identify with and are drawn to, sitting atop a standard white background. Yet as we look closer there's something slightly off about each element, the squares are a bit wonky with inconsistent lines, the color inside breaches the lines in some spaces but doesn't fill the shapes all the way in others, and the white of the background is ever so slightly off. it's then we're brought to the text, a three point presentation that leads your eye through the piece and its narrative. "No Experience Needed," acts as a draw, mimicking something like a job add, making the piece feel attainable or understandable. This then leads the viewer through the center of the piece, the large pink rectangles, but the phrase, "Nothing to See Here," is alarming and guides the viewer to find a safer focal point. Yet, this then leads to, "Thanks for Watching," a complete dismissal to the viewer. This may seem discouraging to read but it keeps the viewer engaged because they want to find meaning in this narrative that will ultimately just lead them to be dismissed. The second piece is much more bleak, a cloudy blend of black and white that almost feels like static. This static leads the eye to the center, a poem in a bright orange with a melancholy tone. As you read you try to bring yourself back to the void but you're always sucked back to the poem. Melancholy really defines this piece to me, it's dark, seemingly monotone and has no escape. These two styles of engaging the viewer but fracturing their sense of security are pivotal in Andy's style. If I were to give his style a name it would be visual poetry. He uses image to draw the viewer in and create an atmosphere but uses text to create and guide through a narrative. Joseph Gardner: @bootsie_skipper Joe's work is simple in nature, a constant study of object, material and life. The work isn't so wrapped up in meaning or narrative but more focused on the object itself, the material its made of and a reflection of life experiences. One of the biggest draw ins of Joe's work is their relatable nature. He constructs objects we've likely all interacted with and have our own meanings for so he doesn't need to attach a concept to his creation because the viewer will like skip that to form there own. The featured piece is simple, a pair of ceramic pants. We've all seen, been around, (hopefully) worn pants our entire lives, it's an easily recognizable and relatable object. The bright variety of colors make the piece fun and help to avoid a specific type of pants and help to keep the image broad yet engaging. There isn't a lot to write about Joe's work without forcing something on it that it doesn't represent outside of an individual understanding. Joe's work is fun, it's simple and it is what it is. It doesn't need to be tied up in concept or commentary, it's just fun and engaging imagery. But his recreation of simple objects that we've likely all interacted with in some way or another excites the viewer and creates a personal narrative or meaning. Joe's work is really about reflecting on life through an object that the viewer can relate to and reflect on their own lives with and in an art world that sometimes seems hopelessy trapped in concept and trying to do way more than just be art sometimes that's refreshing to me. Forrest Hines: @forresthinesart Hey! That's me! Am I allowed to feature myself? I guess. All the other founders got featured, why can't I! My work is built around a narrative of characters that I've created,The Freaks. A wacky reflection on my life through illustration these guys are my brain children! Born from trash, grown from the dirt and remnants of a shattered human society, each Freak is a personal reflection on live, a subconcious defining of what I'm thinking about in life. Currently since I'm out of school and don't have the space to do the large scale paintings on a slew of different objects, I'm back to the 2D surface. I experiment greatly with color application, usually watering down acrylic and pouring it or spraying it onto a surface and trying to make something of the massive blobs of color I get. From the Freaks created from those blobs I've built an entire lineage and ideology! I don't really know what else to say because I don't want to seem like I'm making myself seem like the greatest ever, so I'll just leave you with the images and I hope you enjoy! All of these artists are constantly creating work while they do all that they do to keep building Plebeian inc. up! I've attached all of their social media so you can go check out and support. One of the easiest ways to find these artists, though, is in our forum here at the Deli! We're all artists just like you and this forum is built to be an ever expanding artist display, conversation, and community. Feature Friday is about showcasing who we think is really killing it, but you're all killing it! So show us your work! Look at everyone else's awesome work! Create, Collab, Conversate! That's what the Deli is all about. See you all next Friday!

Here at Pleb’s, we’re all art school graduates (and one current student) and we think art school was an awesome experience that helped develop us as artists and people. We talk about school a lot, things like our experience, what we liked/disliked, what we could have done better, or things we’re really glad we did. School was a defining chapter in our lives and we want to create a dialogue that helps students figure things out, have a voice on what they love or hate, and to help us narrow down what makes art school great and maybe not so great at times. So welcome to “Why We’re Here Wednesday,” a weekly editorial where we discuss art school with students, grads, professors, and anyone who wants to have their voice heard. Topics can range from general advice, gripes and dislikes of things currently going on, what we expect, it goes on and on, we want to keep it totally open ended. For this first week I wanted to keep things general and fun, so I sat down with Adele, one of my fellow Pleb admins who is currently a senior in the Fine Arts program at the University of Delaware, and we talked about general dos and don’ts in art school. This might sound like a total freshman thing to read, and it some ways it is, but it’s valid to everyone (I promise). Now, this is totally off the cuff and by no means is it meant to be gospel so don’t think these are things you have to do to succeed, but based off of our personal experiences this is what we got! These things are going to come up as we continue this series and the list may expand or contract as we go, but for now we’re at eight. The Dos Talk to Everyone! - When we had our discussion, Adele and I both agreed that in our experiences there was this harsh divide between the classes, the seniors looked down on freshman for not knowing what they’re doing, sculptors didn’t associate with painters, graphics students thought they were better than fine artists, and things like that. Forget all that nonsense though, we’re all artists here! In just a few years all of your classmates are going to be your professional counterparts. The professional art world is no cake walk and you never know who is going to end up where or be a useful connection, so why write anyone off? Talk to everyone, be friendly, pick each others brains, be a part of the awesome artistic community that art school puts you into because when you get into the harsh and unforgiving world of professional art a community can be hard to find. Take advantage of what you have! Don’t Get Wrapped Up in Class Projects- This is a big one! A lot of classes are built around giving you projects that have guidelines and all too often we see people get so stuck to those guidelines that they either create a cookie cutter piece with no identity or a piece that has no passion or personal significance. Project guidelines are a helpful tool when figuring out your process but in the real world you’re never going to be handed a sheet telling you what you need to make. So make everything your own! Your professor won’t be mad if you skipped a guideline or two in order to make a real and solid piece of art! Don’t tie yourself to guidelines, they’re there to help you, not tie you down. Work at a Pace that Works for You/ Find Your Own Process- This is kind of a two parter but the first part is simple, find how much time and work it takes to make your best work without killing yourself and plan around that. Easy as that, there’s a lot of time between crits but the studio looks like a ghost town until 3 days before a lot of the time, don’t be one of those people to just rush and crap out a project that’s lack luster but on time. The second part might not be a popular opinion but find your own process. In your first few years you’re going to run into professors who want you to try their process, a scheduled and easy to monitor one, that’s how they can track what you’re doing. Give it a shot, it might work for you, but just like in the art itself find your own process, what works for you! There’s no perfect blue print or process in art, it’s all variable, so experiment and find YOUR process because that’s what’s going to make the best work and motivate you to work outside of a professors timeline. Try Everything- Easy as that, you’ve got all of the facilities right there, locked and loaded so USE THEM! Once you graduate a lot of that stuff might not be accessible for a long time so try it all while you have the chance. Any medium, material, size, whatever you can, do it. School is about learning and failing so get out of your safe space while the tools to do that are accessible. Show Your Work- Art is almost totally self marketing, at least in a traditional sense, so take your time in school to market yourself and show your work at every chance you get. Enter contests and juried shows, try and organize shows with your school or with facilities you have access to, rent a space, whatever you can do! One of my favorite things that my friends and I did while in school was empty our house of furniture, put our stuff on the walls and open the doors to everyone. It was totally awesome and something that anyone can do. Who cares if you enter a show and don’t get accepted? No one. Failure is a part of what we do! But if you never put your work out there you’re never going to have it seen so do the opposite, make it seen by everyone! Put it out there and build a resume of shows and experience, you won’t regret it. Don’ts Isolate Yourself- I always thought it was silly when someone showed up for class or crit saying, “I’m working on my piece at home.” Why? Everyone else is working on their stuff here, talking about it, getting feedback. One of the best things about art school is that it puts you into a community of artists you may never have had or may never have again. So utilize the minds around you while you can, it will help you be more critical and open your eyes to things you may not have noticed or unintentionally ignored. The studio in school is an awesome place, don’t rob yourself of that community experience. Be Afraid to Fail- This goes back to my try everything point because school is about learning, process, trial and error. Error being one of the most crucial teaching tools! You’ll never learn anything about yourself as an artist if you stay in a bubble and don’t experiment. School is the time to mess stuff up and not worry about it! It will teach you a lot about yourself. Typecast Yourself- Once you get towards to end of your school experience the experimenting will tend to stop as you figure yourself out. But I often see people totally give up on experimenting in the quest to create some totally cohesive professional portfolio and that’s a sound idea but we’ve all only just begun to identify ourselves as artists, never stop experimenting! I say this for two reasons, the first being that if you become “The ______ Person,” at an early stage in your career is that really what you’re going to want to do forever? Are you ok with just being stuck on that? Because both personally and critically it will get tiring and start to fade out and lose meaning. Then if you don’t care about or like the work you’re doing who will? The second reason being there’s a whole lot of life left to live and art to be made after college, but the tools you have to experiment are going to be severely limited for a time period so while you have the tools, go for it. I’ve said it a million times in my life and I’ll never stop, there’s no perfect blueprint to making art or being an artist, it’s one of the most individualistic things on the planet. So don’t stick yourself to one thing or style because in the long run it’s going to hurt you more than it will help you. Once again, these aren't meant to be a blueprint on how to get through school, these are just some tips that we've formulated from our own experiences. This list will be a continued topic in our art school discussions and we hope to get some useful feedback and additions or subtractions from all of you! After all that's why we're here!

Two things struck me today while I was sitting on the floor of one of the hundreds of Philadelphia thrift stores surrounded Michelangelo books and trying to decide which ones to buy. The first was a personal revelation that I have probably ten Michelangelo books sitting on my shelf at home, and that maybe it’s time to read up on someone else. The second realization was that this pile of grungy books sitting on an old shelf in a store that sells anything and everything is a million times more useful and practical than any art book I purchased or glanced at in college. This second realization is what inspired me to write this because it’s striking to think that in art school so many of us have spent thousands of dollars on a class, only to then spend another $100-200 on a book that we either never read or just end up hopelessly skimming so that we can finish a homework assignment or cram for an exam. Basically what I’m aiming to do here is break down my own personal experience with college or art school style art books, explain why they’re bullshit, and guide you to the much more beneficial and fun experience of hunting for reasonably priced books and expanding your knowledge in a way that does more than scratch the surface. Once I’ve done all that I’m going to break down my latest haul too, partly to emphasize my point and partly just because it’s awesome and I’m excited about my new books. I feel like I should start this by saying that in college I was not a reader, it never excited me and when it needed to be done I either found a way to skim through an online article on the same subject or I just took the loss and didn’t do it. It wasn’t like I didn’t like reading or the subject matter didn’t excite me, it was that scholarly books are just so tired and boring. In my own personal experience, and to broaden the spectrum so we’re not here all day, there are two types of art books in school, first is the “How to Art” type book that is supposed to teach you how to paint or draw through step by step instructions or giving you bare bones subjects to work off of in hopes that you’ll progress and the second is art history books. Let’s start with the Art 101 style “How to Art” type book. these things suck, plain and simple. I remember my first semester of college taking Drawing 1 we had to buy this book on drawing techniques and I was a little confused when I first heard this but I was optimistic, excited to start to art school, so I headed down to the bookstore and hunted it down and BAM! $150. Well, that wasn’t fun but this will be useful, I figured. Class number two I had to buy another book that cost an insane amount of money and the same with class three and class four. Now I’m not wealthy in the slightest, between my parents and myself we can barely afford to get me through college and here I am 8 hours into the first day with a $600+ bill on books alone sitting in front of me. It was my first day and I wasn’t an expert but I figured these things better be made of gold or give me the tools to become the next master artist on the planet. Now I think based on the title of this article you can deduce that none of those books hit either of those criteria. What was actually in them was a bunch of tutorials on the perfect way to do certain techniques, step-by-step instructions on how to draw the human anatomy or blend two oils together to get the perfect hue. Useful, right? In a way yes, but were they hundreds of dollars useful? No! Art isn’t an ikea shelf, there’s step by step instructions and you certainly can’t just read a book and be a master drawer or painter or sculptor. I would spend hours reading the 3 chapters on shading assigned to me for drawing class and learn more in the 30 second demo my professor would do on someone’s sketch pad before we started a study drawing. If we refer to the classical painters and how they learned, we see there was a master teaching an apprentice techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation and once the apprentice had a grip they would take that and master their own craft through practice. Now obviously, art has changed immensely since then but it hasn’t, and won’t ever, come to a point where someone can just read a book and be a master artist. If anything, the idea that that is even potentially possible is poisoning the art world. Techniques should be simple because in the end we’re all going to find our own way. I always think of the heads example, when classical painters would draw or paint a body, each figure would be x amount of heads tall, now scale is established and the rest comes down to skill and technique that has been developed through, you guessed it, practice. Technique can only take you so far, telling me that if you draw these 12 circles, then draw a straight line through the first 7 and an arc through the last 5, then connect the corners, draw 3 ovals, put it all together and voila a perfect human figure is a little crazy. Obviously this is a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s how wild some of the tutorials that these books are giving you seem. I’m not saying these books are totally useless, some of them are excellent references and the tools in them can be helpful, but art is all about practice, trying new things, figuring out your own way to make your art work because that’s exactly what it is; Your art. It’s not your professors, or the author of some books, it’s yours. Both of those could be great tools to some people on figuring out their art and for some people they might be totally useless, in the end what links both of those artists together is that help or no help it took pure trial and error to figure out what their style or subject is. The idea that if on Monday I can’t utilize a technique and i get assigned a 98 page reading on how to do that technique, by the time I get to class on Wednesday I’ll have an understanding of it with no or limited practice is asinine. A reference is a great tool, but putting all this weight on a potential reference is not what young artists need, and it’s certainly not what they can afford. Overall, I just don’t think that we need these books and we certainly don’t need the price tags. Schools and professors are telling kids that they need to buy these books and they cost hundreds of dollars, are a thousand pages and collect dust more than they help artists. If a professor wants to reference a book or give a suggestion, awesome! If a kid wants to go read a book to help them understand something on their own time because they believe it will help, even better! But don’t force a kid who’s spending thousands of dollars to be in a classroom to spend even more money on a book full of tired tutorials that drag for page after page when seeing someone do something in that same classroom and then practicing their own version of that skill is infinitely more useful. Moving on, let’s look at art history books. I’ll open with a thought that’s always baffled me about these school style art history textbooks, how can a book feel like it has an infinite amount of pages, virtually never end, but still barely scratch the surface on art or an artist? It’s crazy. Unlike the technique books, these things are supposed to be how we learn, the hub of information for a class and yet they can’t even really give that. I want to preface this by saying that my problem with these books may stem from my issues with the overall structure in college art history in general, so I may be addressing things that go a little past just the book. But these books are even more astronomically priced than the other ones I talked about, they have 6,000,000,000 pages and weigh the equivalent of a loaded barbell as you carry it across campus. Now what are the titles of these classes and these books? “Ancient Art,” “Renaissance to Modern,” “Art from 1890-1940,” etc. Just these awful lump sum approximations that breeze through art history like it’s just a pile of statues and pictures that we like to look at rather than masters of a craft who created pieces that bared massive significance at the time and that significance has carried into today shaping things like culture, religion and just overall life. How many things that we use today or see today feel like they could be so permanent or significant? I’ve read at least 10 books on Michelangelo’s life and works and I wouldn’t say I’m an expert on him or his works or that time period. That’s just one artist in one time period working in just a few of the styles that we know of across human history and I still feel like I have tons to learn about him. 10 books, and I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface on the guy but college art history classes are deducing geniuses and masters of crafts to just their work, and just a few pieces of that work at that, and then they’re mashing the time period that work was done in into just highlights and then trying to span all of these artistic styles and time periods across recorded human history into a book and they’re not even doing it well. Let’s say an average chapter in an art history textbook is 30 pages, are we really expected to learn and understand a time period of art and all the masterful artists who came out of that time period in 30 pages? How could we do that. These books and these classes just feel like schools are trying to deliberately skim over this information for students who just needed to fill a criteria. Even the more advanced classes that do go into certain time periods or areas more extensively are flawed. I took a class in college called “Making American Art,” and I believe the book was the same title (if not it was similar) and I was stoked because I felt like finally, an art history class that was about more than just a timeline of who and when painted this or sculpted that, we’re going to learn about artists as people and how they went about making these pieces that we’re still looking at today. Nope, none of that. It was just another week to week dance across a timeline where in this year this artist painted these paintings and his style was this and then a few years later he painted these and his style became this, then after that guy came this guy and he did this and blah blah blah. I’m boring myself out of my mind just typing it like it needs to stop. Artists are people! Art has shaped and built entire cultures! Why are we deducing it down to just boring time lines and funneling it into people’s heads and telling them they know art history when they can memorize some dates. It’s baffling. Well Forrest, that’s a pretty great rant about why $1,000,000 art books that weigh a ton suck, but how can we find books that teach us about art and artists? That’s a great question, Forrest, I thank you for asking it! That leads me into my final point and that point is that there’s and infinite number of books that have so much more information about artist periods, art styles, artists themselves and you can learn so much more about artwork and artists and actually get in depth information! Must cost a fortune, right? Nope. I’m fortunate enough to live in Philadelphia so I’ve got a lot of options, but wherever you are there’s definitely some sort of thrift store or book exchange and that’s the ultimate art book tool. Go there, just look around, you’ll be amazed at all the treasures you find. I’ve learned more about art and artists that I’m actually passionate about and built a better reference network just wandering the shelves at thrift stores and book exchanges than I ever did in a classroom. Now I’m not knocking art school, if you have the ability to go to art school and are passionate, go! GO! What I’m saying is don’t bury yourself in books that cripple your bank account the whole time. Learn from your professors, learn from your classmates and if you want learn about an artist or an art period, go find one of the stacks of books on those subjects that give you actual in depth information. Just like I referenced before, I’ve read probably ten books on Michelangelo and I learn something new every time, and there’s still plenty of books out there that I haven’t read that have even more information on him. These books aren’t just lists of what he made, when he made it and what he change between that and the next thing he made, those books are a waste of time. Go get information that you’re passionate about, learn about more than just the artist. I’m reading a book on Caravaggio right now and it’s one of the most compelling things I’ve ever picked up, it’s all totally new to me and I’ve probably taken 6 classes that talk about him some capacity or another. Book Haul To really emphasize my points here and show you how much you can get for hardly any money, I’m gonna take you through my newest book haul. Today I went to The Book Trader on 2nd St in Philadelphia and I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, all I knew was that I gave myself a $25 limit and I was gonna hit the art section and see what spoke to me. This store is totally awesome, shelves overflowing with books, barely any space to move around and yet it’s all still fantastically organized. I find myself sifting through a pile of potential purchases to find the real winners every time I go in there because they just have so much awesome stuff. I did talk myself out of buying more Michelangelo books today, don’t worry I’ll be back for them, but I got some awesome stuff and I’m gonna show you what I got, give a brief description of the information in it and value it based on how much I paid versus the value of information in it. My purchases are as follows: Buy One: Bernini by Howard Hibbard Cost: $3.00 Pages: 255 Buy Two: Goya in Perspective by Fred Licht Cost: $4.00 Pages: 180 Buy Three: The Baroque: Principles, Styles, Modes, Themes by Grmain Bazin Cost: $8.00 Pages: 368 Buy Four: The Faith of America illustrated by Norman Rockwell text by Fred Bauer Cost: $6.00 Pages: 160 Buy One: This book is a Pelican Publishing original, though most new copies I’ve found online use the parent company, Penguin Publishing, for their prints, and if you’ve been around art or read about art in some capacity you’ve likely seen something like this book. Pelican Publishing has always been excellent at putting out art books that are equally informative and understandable. Not the most informative on the life of Bernini himself but it creates a much more in depth chronology of his work and what was going on at the time. This book is also loaded with pictures of all his great works, as well as some preliminary sketches and lesser known pieces. That’s one of the best things about getting a book on an artist rather than just getting an excerpt from a textbook; we’ve all seen Bernini’s David and The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and they’re both incredible pieces but Bernini was more than that. In fact most artists are far more than just the two or three pieces that made them famous. All in all, I couldn’t really go wrong spending $3.00 on a book about arguably one of the greatest sculptors and architects of all time, as well as one of my personal favorites. This book is also relatively cheap brand new, so here’s the link to get it on amazon if you’re interested! https://www.amazon.com/Bernini-Penguin-Architecture-Howard-Hibbard/dp/0140135987 Buy Two: This book is from a series, hence the “In Perspective,” and by the looks of what I’ve read so far and some separate online research this book and the others in the series look to be very interesting. Made up of a collection of essays from different scholars, Goya in Perspective looks to be a much more theoretical understanding of Goya as an artist with each writer breaking down a different aspect of the artist’s life or work. Visually it gives you highlights of Goya’s most prominent works with a picture section in the middle, an illustrative style that I’m usually not thrilled with but considering each essay touches a different subject and there’s no defined chronology, I understand it. Mainly I just wish there were more visuals, because I know Goya has a much more extensive body of work. Overall, four bucks, I can’t lose and it was a great find because I had a conversation about Goya the day before and he’s an artist I’ve never really researched so this is a great starting point. Not quite sure why, but on Amazon a new hard copy of this is like $50, but you can get a used copy for like $4… so if you’re interested in this, go used and here’s the link! https://www.amazon.com/Goya-Perspective-Artists-perspective-Licht/dp/0133619648 Buy Three: Now this is more of a textbook I could get behind if I’m going the art history route. A solid, comprehensive book that breaks down one artistic time period in depth with space enough to give a visual timeline that pairs with the text. I have a few books like this that break down different time periods in art and I love them, they’re terrific references, and while I haven’t really jumped into this one fully it looks to be both thoroughly informative in both texts and visuals. I’m a sucker for the Baroque, personally, because things just seemed to get so flowing and vivid while artists became known more as characters not just a name on their works so this book was a must buy for $8.00. Don’t get me wrong, I said this would be a good textbook but I wouldn’t pay crazy textbook prices for it. That being said it looks like you can still find a reasonably priced copy on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Baroque-Principles-Styles-Modes-Themes/dp/0393090558/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Buy Four: I haven’t really gotten into the text aspect of this book yet, but, from what I’ve looked at in my glancings and some online research it appears that Fred Bauer creates a verbal timeline and understanding of Rockwell’s elegant depictions of American life. I must admit, however, I didn’t buy this book for the text. I bought this book because it’s hard to deny the elegance of a Norman Rockwell painting, ideology aside, just a nice sized, well printed collection of his work was a must add to my collection. It appears that I’m missing the paper cover that originally came with this hardback book but it’s elegantly bound in navy blue with bronze lettering and I like that much more. Another “can’t lose” for only $6.00, you really can’t lose when you’re spending under $10 on a book. I’m adding the amazon link on here to stick with my trend (and because why do more research when I already have the book) but it looks like on amazon and I’m sure on plenty of other sites you can find a used copy for far cheaper than the new price. https://www.amazon.com/Norman-Rockwells-Faith-America-Bauer/dp/0896600661

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