From anime, to comic strips, to printmaking, and making books, discover how stories are told through art and how you can create stories and books with your own art. This week the library will be featuring Caldecott Award Winning Books and a variety of guides on comics, illustration, and book design techniques. These can be found on the pillar directly to the right of the new books shelf. Come sharpen your pencils and your art skills! Are you the next Caldecott winner?

Creativity Campers, and any other kids who think it's a shame they weren't born in a time of lords and ladies, knights, and castles, can come to the Downtown Library's youth department and find books on the back of the new shelf that will transport them back to the middle-ages!

After finishing your eco-friendly art projects, come find books on the back of the new shelf in the library's youth department that talk about the Earth and ways we can save it!

From Da Vinci to Warhol kids can check out the back of the new materials shelf in the youth department for lots of cool information on master artists and their masterpieces!

Every week the AADL has been creating displays for the Ann Arbor Art Center Creativity Camp's theme of the week on the back of the new books shelf in the Youth Department. These books are for anyone interested in the theme to check out. This week's theme is sculpture. Do you know who created the sculpture on the cover of the book pictured here? It's a favorite of mine. Come find out at the library!

The Shadow Art Fair is being held this Saturday, July 19 from noon to midnight at the Arbor Brewing Company's Corner Brewery, in Ypsilanti. Meant to focus less on the national scope of this week's big Ann Arbor Art Fairs and more on our rich local arts scene, it's always a quirky and rewarding event. The Shadow is refreshingly human-sized, and a great way to find out what's happening with homegrown creativity.

Art Fair Poster

I must admit, I’m one of those people who loves the Art Fairs. I love the crush of people downtown, the car-free streets at nighttime, the fair food, and especially the sale where you get to dig through boxes of cheap clothes at Urban Outfitters. Even art on a stick makes my heart go pitter-patter.

One of the best things about the original Art Fair in recent years has been the addition of the Townie Party. This year’s event, on the evening of Monday, July 14, includes some interesting new features. First off, the event is working hard at being zero-waste in partnership with Recycle Ann Arbor. RAA will also play a part in a new tent at the Townie Party—the Arts Alliance will be hosting a special Creative Connections during which participants will work collaboratively to create a masterpiece out of discarded materials donated by the Reuse Center. They’ll also be providing local artists and arts and cultural organizations with a place to share their activities with the public, all under one (tent) roof. AADL will be among the organizations in the mix, so plan to stop by and say hello!

Art Walk

Now’s the time to join the Ann Arbor Art Walk! More than just an event this year, membership in Art Walk provides artists with a listing in a year-round guide to art and artists in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County as well as complimentary membership in Arts Alliance. Art Walk occurs this October 17 and 18 in locations throughout Ann Arbor and the surrounding area, and provides an opportunity to explore the area’s rich artistic talent. Many artists open their studios to the public for those two days only, and other organizations will hold parties and openings to celebrate the event. If you’re an artist in Washtenaw County, join the fun! There's still time--the membership deadline has been extended to July 8!

Paul Outerbridge

"Art is life seen through man's inner craving for perfection and beauty--his escape from the sordid realities of life into a world of his imagining... To the artist is given the privilege of pointing the way and inspiring towards a better life." --Paul Outerbridge (1896-1958).

Paul Outerbridge: Color Photographs from Mexico and California, the 1950s, the current exhibition at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, is organized around Outerbridge's photographs of small towns along California’s coastline and Mexico’s Baja peninsula, showcasing "his virtuosic use of form, color and atmosphere from vernacular".
An opening lecture "In Praise of Shadows" by Brendan Fay, of Harvard University Art Museums and an alumnus of UM, will situate the work of Paul Outerbridge in the larger context of experiments with color photography at midcentury, on Friday, June 13, 5 p.m., 4448 East Hall, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor. The event is free and open to the public.

Circle of Art

I must confess to cheating a bit in my blog this week—one of these events is not in our community, not even close! But it’s in somebody’s community, and it’s so cool that I wanted to share it with you all.

At the prestigious Brooklyn Museum in NY, the curators are hanging up their hats in favor of an innovative and unusual approach: they’re foisting their curatorial responsibilities on you, the public at large. Their exhibit, Click, has been designed as an experiment exploring the “wisdom of crowds,” columnist James Surowiecki’s notion that a large group of people will make a better decision than a trained expert. Click the link and give it a try!

Closer to home, this Sunday marks the 4th annual Circle of Art Auction at the Saline Picture Frame Company. A benefit for Food Gatherers, Circle of Art features hundreds of small works of art up for auction. The bidding begins online and continues at the event, which runs from 12-5 on Sunday. It’s a fantastic event—a worthy cause, inclusive, anything but elitist—all art is welcome and the bidding starts at $10. Check it out!