This book is what happened as a result of July’s struggling to finish the screenplay for what would become her second movie, The Future. Of the screenplay, she tells us:

Again and again it was respectfully suggested to me that I cut Paw-Paw’s monologue. But I couldn’t kill him twice, and I thought his voice might be the distressing, ridiculous, problematic soul of what I was trying to make. Not that my conviction protected me; it’s always embarrassing to pin a tail onto thin air, nowhere near the donkey It might be wrong, it sure looks like it is — but then again, maybe the donkey’s in the wrong place, or there are two donkeys, and the tail just got there first.

I suspect July is the kind of artist you either really like, or she bugs the shit out of you. Reasons she may bug you: she seems to get away with doing whatever she wants; she does more than one kind of thing (writing, directing, creating art installations); she creates characters who could use a good proverbial smack upside the head at times; she might be considered twee; the Paw-Paw mentioned above is a cat.

I like her. I loved her short story collection No one belongs here more than you. This book, while all about stories, isn’t fiction. July is telling the story of being stuck in one creative pursuit and what emerges are many other stories, often of people being somehow stuck in their lives.

She and her assistant and a photographer go meet people who are selling things in the PennySaver: these are the stories she hears as a result. The PennySaver is the poor internet-less person’s Craigslist. Through her, we meet people selling old blowdryers, photo albums, leather jackets, tadpoles. They are sad, strange, funny, a bit repulsive, heartbreaking. July reveals what she is really looking for, by finding them:

All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life — where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.

I think this is the reason I like Miranda July. I want to know the same thing.

This book is a collection of graphic designer Martin Venezky’s work. He shares what he’s done with some details about his thought and construction process. In the case of his teaching, he includes samples of some student work in response to his assignments. He doesn’t love everything he’s ever done: the book include points of view other than his own, most notably in an interview with Speak magazine publisher Dan Rolleri, who fired him more than once.

What I liked most about the book is that Venezky is unapologetic about his obsessions. They are on full display, and you either have to admire or hate that he managed to work images of his cat into paid work. Venezky isn’t a “point and click designer” — meaning, in part, that he is a more literal cut and paste designer because he uses paper and scissors, he has a pen in his hand.

I’m not sure how I feel about so stridently making this distinction. I tend to think work speaks for itself (or not) and lots of information about the process shouldn’t be necessary or shift my response. Working digitally doesn’t save time in all cases — you can spend ages manipulating and creating digitally — and part of the point here seems to be the time invested in making something. Perhaps to justify that it is work, what he’s doing, though it looks like he’s having fun. Certainly his massive, wall-sized collage creation reflects consist effort and playfulness.

Recommended if you are a fan of collage, prone to obsessive collecting, or are a designer in need of a visual inspiration resource. I found myself wondering where/how I could give over significant wall space to see what collage would emerge if I started assembling the various images I’ve kept… and also what it would look like to create something similar in digital form. I’m not sure if my cats would make the cut, though I do believe my obsessions would be made visible.

Paolo Ventura shoots film.

He shoots film, capturing scenes he has worked hard to create. He uses miniatures and painted backdrops, little models he can arrange just so. The resulting photographs invite storytelling, lingering, puzzling over what is real and what isn’t.

Is that tightrope walker really wearing shoes? Yes. They shouldn’t wear shoes, should they? It’s out of place, the scene with the shoes (like many others in the book), full of uncertainty and tension. You can imagine walking around in this world, imagine it isn’t a set, imagine what people’s motives are. This world is enticing, not less so because of of the sense of danger, the grittiness.

You can see sample images, sadly small in comparison to the luxurious eleven by fourteen inch satiny pages, on Ventura’s website. But if you are truly curious, search out his work in a bookstore. The book as an object is beautiful and well-made with a thick, folded over dust jacket and rich paper.

In addition to the finished series of photographs comprising Winter Stories, there’s an essay by Eugenia Parry as well as pages from Ventura’s sketchbook. The sketchbook has both literal sketches — watercolor smooth lines — and polaroids. It’s a peek into his process, but not one that really reveals the artifice, that ever pulls back far enough to see the scale of the model. The essay is more companion piece than explanation, though more explanation surfaces in the footnotes if you want to dig. I liked this about the essay. It had one great line, that fits the work well: “It’s not perplexing if you believe in magic.”

I follow Marc Johns on twitter. Not because I know him or care to know what he ate for breakfast (he doesn’t generally tweet that kind of thing), but because I find it interesting to take even a little peek into the head of the guy who draws things like six people in a blue octopus, which is the drawing he posted today.

He frequently draws on sticky-notes. He uses pen and watercolor, and tends to work on small scale even when the canvas is bigger than a post-it. He’s got a quirky sense of humor. Underneath a drawing of five detached arms, he’s written “These are doll arms. They are not meant to convey some sort of morbid arty statement. They are just doll arms.” Either you think this is funny, or you don’t.

If you don’t you probably also won’t like the sixteen and eight ounce jars of holy water, the liar with his pants on fire, the multi-limbed, multi-headed, or antlered folk, or the picture of the world with the label “ingredients: mostly idiots.” If I was a nicer person, this might not tempt me to make jokes at your expense or feel a bit sorry for you.

So, yes, I quite enjoyed this book. It was the first thing that arrived from my amazon wish list this birthday/holiday season, but I would like it even if it wasn’t a present.

Though I don’t know Purcell’s work well, I’ve been aware of her for a long time, as her subject matter — cabinet of curiosities kind of stuff, eery and disturbingly beautiful — is something I find compelling. She’s on my mental list of artists I want to learn more about, whose work I want to spend time with. So when I found this early volume on sale in a used bookstore, I snapped it up.

What I find fascinating about these images is that so many of them seem to have multiple layers, they invite long looks and investigation. It’s not how they were made, it’s the end result that holds my attention. While technique can be interesting, knowing how an image was made doesn’t make me interested in a photograph if nothing was sparked when I first looked at it. That said, I find it remarkable that most of these weren’t double exposures, but cleverly created single exposures. (Since this book was published in 1980, they obviously weren’t digital manipulations.)

If this level of creativity and exploration of what is possible is what she created early in her career, I have much to look forward to as I get to know Purcell’s later work.