Published by the Frye Art Museum with recycled covers from past Marquand Books projects, each Buster Simpson catalog looks different. Mine was once a Chihuly book.
The Frye's Buster Simpson book is out! It's $50, hardcover, 134 pages, with 282 illustrations, and it's the only comprehensive book about this prototypical environmental artist's life's work. I found its timelines, photographs, maps, interview, and writings by Charles Mudede, Carol Yinhua Lu, and curator Scott Lawrimore indispensable in creating a history of the artist for HistoryLink.
Every one of the books has a different cover, given by Marquand Books, the local/international art book publisher that had a whole slew of old cover prototypes sitting around and waiting for reanimation—the decision fits the artist perfectly, of course. My copy was once a Chihuly book, Chihuly being not only the ghost hovering over all art in these parts in some ways, but also the reason Buster Simpson landed in Seattle in the first place.
In other Chihuly news, Chihuly and his team will be blowing in the hot shop at the Museum of Glass this weekend.
The event accompanies an exhibition of Chihuly's little-known early Irish pieces, only publicly exhibited twice previously. He started working on them on St. Patrick's Day in 1975 at the Rhode Island School of Design, completing the total set of 44 over Thanksgiving weekend. They're categorized into three types: St. Patrick's Day-related, generally Irish, and inspired by James Joyce's book Ulysses. Shortly after this, Chihuly went and Seaver Leslie went on a trip to Ireland and Great Britain. The car crash that took Chihuly's left eyesight happened on that trip, in England.
Leslie and old Chihuly friend and collaborator, artist Flora C. Mace, will also work with Chihuly this weekend at the museum. Who knows what they might make?
George R. Stroemple Collection
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