The Studio Summer Reading

Fiction, poetry, young adult, nonfiction – and a little music

By Collin Kelley

If you’re looking for something to read on your beach trip, or just to curl up by the air conditioner as the humidity increases, there are plenty of new books by Atlanta authors to keep you busy all summer long. And we’ve included a couple of soundtracks to go along with it. Read on!

You and I and Someone Else

By Anna Schachner

Frannie Lewis has a lot of bad history with men, starting with the first one she ever met. She’s watched her aloof father disappear in the summers to work with a traveling carnival, seen her mother grow ever more suspicious and resentful. All her life, Frannie has kept their secrets and told their stories. Now thirty-six, she remains a pawn in their longstanding marital chess game – and at this point, it has devolved into a grudge match. (Mercer University Press)

Disrupt This! MOOCS and the Promises of Technology

By Karen Head

Atlanta poet and Georgia Tech professor Karen Head describes her experience teaching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and the pressure on professors, especially those in the humanities, to embrace new technologies in the STEM era. And yet, as she argues, MOOCs are just the latest example of the near- religious faith that some universities have in the promise of technological advances. (University of New England Press)

The Almost Sisters

By Joshilyn Jackson

Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs’ weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman. It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. At 38, she’s having a baby while her family life implodes around her. (William Morrow)

Orphan Island

By Laurel Snyder

Nine young children live on a utopian island, where the only change is that on one day each year a boat arrives to carry the eldest child away and deliver a new child. The story follows Jinny, the eldest, in the year before the boat arrives to take her away from the only home she’s ever known.

(Walden Pond Press)

Now Hear This

From Tupelo to Memphis

By Kodac Harrison

The Decatur poet and musician’s new compilation of recordings from 1984 to 2004 with his bands Luckie Street and The Blue Groove. Tracks include favorites like “Young Boy Blues,” “I Like It,” “Temporary Thing” and the title track.

A Man’s World: Portraits

By Steve Oney

A Man’s World is a collection of 20 profiles of fascinating men by author and magazine writer Steve Oney written over a 40-year period for publications including Esquire, Premiere, GQ, Time, Los Angeles and The Atlanta JournalConstitution. Subjects include Harrison Ford, Robert Penn Warren, Herschel Walker, Nick Nolte, Harry Dean Stanton and John Portman. (Mercer University Press)

Mountain Mother Poems

By Alice Teeter

In 25 connected poems, Mountain Mother Poems tells the mythical and magical story of a remarkable mother who chases eagles by “flapping her apron,” surrounded by the beautifully realized landscape of a mountain, and leading us toward an understanding of forgiveness.

(Finishing Line Press)

Atlanta Noir

Edited by Tayari Jones

Fourteen writers explore the complexities of Atlanta’s neighborhoods with

Don’t Go Back to Sleep

By Franklin Abbott

This double disc features 44 of Abbott’s poems and 14 songs featuring lyrics derived from the works of Shakespeare, Blake and fellow poets James Broughton, Bob Vance, Ann Le Marquad and Coleman Barks’ translations of Rumi.

contributions by Tananarive Due, Kenji Jasper, Dallas Hudgens, Jim Grimsley, Brandon Massey, Jennifer Harlow, Sheri Joseph, Alesia Parker, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms, John Holman, Daniel Black, David James Poissant and Jones herself. (Akashic Books)

Flight Path: A Search for Roots Beneath the World’s Busiest Airport

By Hannah Palmer

In the months leading up to the birth of her first child, Hannah Palmer discovers that all three of her childhood houses have been wiped out by the expansion of Atlanta’s HartsfieldJackson International Airport. Having uprooted herself from a promising career in publishing in her adopted Brooklyn, Palmer embarks on a quest to determine the fate of her lost homes—and of a community that has been erased by unchecked Southern progress. (Hub City Press)

The Hidden Light of Northern Fires

By Daren Wang

When escaped slave, Joe Bell, collapses in her father’s barn, Mary Willis must ward off Confederate guerillas and spies, Joe’s vengeful owner and even her own brother to help the handsome fugitive cross to freedom. (Thomas Dunne Books)

High Museum’s Andy Warhol exhibit runs through Sept. 3

By Grace Huseth

The High Museum has mounted a staggering retrospective of the pop art of Andy Warhol, with more than 250 prints and ephemera representing all phases of the artist’s storied 40-year career.

The collection, on loan from Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, ranges from early drawings and sketches to iconic images of Marilyn Monroe, Mao, Liza Minnelli, Mick Jagger, Muhammad Ali, Truman Capote, Jackie Kennedy and the Campbell’s Soup can.

According to Schnitzer, the exhibition is curated to tell the story of Warhol, from his obsession with media to postwar American life.

Artists in the early 1950’s were shaking up the art world, creating abstract art like Jackson Pollock or playing on images in the media.

“Pop artists, popular culture artists, were challenging people to keep a sense of identity and self while being manipulated by advertising,” Schnitzer said. “Graphic artists said that art is not just in the museum, but also in the Safeway store, on streets and on billboards. It’s all around us.”

Warhol used Campbell’s soup cans to take an item from everyday life and show it is art. But not everyone was impressed. Out of Warhol’s first 32 soup can prints, only two sold for $100 each. They are now worth millions.

Schnitzer said Warhol reproduced the iconic Marilyn Monroe print in varying colors in a way that extended past visual appeal. As colors evoke different emotions, each print of Marilyn makes viewers notice something different about her while questioning her true colors, or identity.

“This was something he intentionally did, and in the end, it’s one of the most famous images in the world,” he said.

Likewise, Warhol was a celebrity fanatic who wanted to understand the world of the famous. Schnitzer said the prints could imply that Marilyn, or Norma Jeane, was so distorted by the media’s pressures that she soon lost sight of her colors, literally.

Warhol also wasn’t afraid to make a political statement, such as the famous print of communist Chinese leader Chairman Mao.

“What better political figure to use than Mao? The official image of Mao was used in the Book of Mao and every house had to use this image. It was the most publicized image in the world at the time,” Schnitzer said. “Here you have Chairman Mao, the purest Communist leader of the world, depicted by Andy Warhol, this freak, spiky haired gay guy in New York City. Can you image what Mao must have thought when he saw this pop artist do this image of him?”

For details on the Warhol show and events, visit high.org.

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By Isadora Pennington

Every Sunday afternoon, The Shed at Ponce City Market on the Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail transforms into the WonderRoot Artist Market. The event is a valuable resource for local artists and creatives who seek to sell their wares and market themselves to potential new clients.

Occurring regularly since February, the market offers vendors a monthly table at the event for $125 to $150. They also offer scholarship tables for creatives who have economic disadvantages or are new to selling in a market setting.

By engaging with the public in such a popular spot with easy access from the BeltLine, the WonderRoot Artist Market aims to bring together creatives and an eager audience for their work. Programs that have been introduced include the Activist Screen Print Studio, which features prints designed by local artists to highlight specific social issues, Artists Helping Artists workshops, youth programming, and gallery exhibitions.

“Ponce City Market is a community hub and year-round destination point,” said WonderRoot programs manager Amanda Mills. “With a mission to unite artists and community to inspire positive social change, WonderRoot is an arts organization that works to improve the cultural and social landscape of Atlanta through creative initiatives and community partnerships.“

Beyond simply connecting artists to potential investors, WonderRoot also hopes to highlight social justice issues within the local community. “We facilitate the connection between the art and the issues by partnering with organizations that are already doing the important social justice work in our community,” Mills said.

This month’s focus on housing justice and equity has incorporated partnerships with City For All, Living Transit Fund and the Housing Justice League.

“We want to increase the visibility of local artists and creatives in Atlanta in lowbarrier to participation avenues,” explained Mills. “It’s essential that art makers and supporters have opportunities to engage and build relationships with each other, and this face-to-face, organic weekly market provides fertile ground for that. We most of all believe in working at the intersection of arts and social change, and showcase this belief in our organizational practices of the market: making it low to no cost to participate, connecting it with our Activist Screen Print Studio efforts, hosting it every week for sustained exposure and interaction, and further providing information to attendees and artists about how to be involved with WonderRoot’s other programs.”

For more information and to get involved as a vendor, sponsor, contributing artist, or volunteer, visit wonderroot.org.

Folk Art Park in Downtown has a new lease on life thanks to a nearly three-year restoration process.

Located on the bridge that spans the Downtown Connector, the installation at the intersections of Piedmont Avenue at Baker Street and Courtland Street at Ralph McGill Boulevard features the work of Eddie Owens Martin, R.A. Miller, James Harold Jennings, Vollis Simpson, Archie Byron and Howard Finster.

The restoration project of the weathered outdoor art also included interpretive signage about the artwork, pedestrian signage and increased safety and protection features.

The 21-year-old park was the Georgia Department of Transportation’s (GDOT) first public art project, originally created for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Reclaiming several leftover portions of two cement interstate bridges above Interstate 75/85 in Downtown, the park was designed to enhance the large empty concrete bound spaces while leaving the bridges’ structural integrity intact – with the ability to withstand near-constant vibration caused by vehicular traffic atop and below the bridge.

The Atlanta Public Art Legacy fund (APAL) successfully applied for transportation enhancement funds from the GDOT, which provided $300,000 in support of the project to preserve the public art, while the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District (ADID) provided the mandatory local match contribution of $100,000 for the preliminary design and engineering. Design work was originally completed and continued through this project by Robinson Fisher Associates landscape architects. Patricia Kerlin Architect, who managed the original park installation, supported the current project design, and the art assessment and restoration process.

Folk Art Park in Downtown has been fully renovated to showcase work by accliamed artists including Howard Finster.