Yet another new Janice Lowry book

This spring seems to be a bonanza for new books featuring Janice. Her good friends and frequent Sommerset collaborators Jenny Doh and Jo Packham have just released a new book, Where Women Create Book of Inspiration. It is a beautifully produced full color hardcover book, and it features a six page feature on Janice in her studio. This was one of Janice's last interviews, conducted in her studio last spring. Ironically, this would be one of the last projects Jenny Doh would undertake while still the editor at Sommerset Studios. She has since moved on to launch her own venture, www.crescendoh.com which states on it's home page: "Creative Passion, Authentic Community, Focused Compassion." Be sure and check it out.

So this book represents a time of transition of both Jenny and Janice. I think readers of this blog will really enjoy it.

But wait, there's a book too!

I got to thinking a bit after my last posting about the current show at the Smithsonian. I remembered Liza had told me that she really wanted to do a show AND a book on artist's to-do lists. I wondered...hmm...did Liza mange to create the book she wanted to do in addition to the exhibition? I prowled around the Internet, and lo and behold, there it is! Just published on March 24 (my sister Ruth's birthday and just 6 days before Janice's). Here is a link to it on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Lists-dos-Illustrated-Inventories-Collected/dp/1568988885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272754157&sr=8-1

Just today I received a copy from author Liza Kirwin, who inscribed it "We are honored that Janice chose us as the keepers of her journals." Indeed they are. Every artist in the book includes a full spread of their work, including Janice. Janice is also featured with an additional image as well as description in the introduction. The book is full of amazing people and images, and includes nearly all of Janice's art heroes and mentors, among them Joseph Cornell, Arthur Dove, Pablo Picasso, William de Kooning, Ray Johnson, Grant Wood, and one of my all time heroes, N.C. Wyeth. If Frida Kahlo and Marcel Duchamp were here too it would have been a grand slam home run for Janice.

I know that she would be thrilled and humbled to be here among so many of the artists that she so admired. And I can tell you from my own slightly biased point of view that she stands toe to toe with every one of them.

It's a great book, and I know readers of this blog will all enjoy it.