Public Domain Image Archive
There are lots of great digital image archives out there, but I recently discovered the Public Domain Image Archive and can't get enough! I am particularly charmed by their Infinite View, which allows you to scroll through their collection of 10,000+ photos, prints, illustrations, and other references that are free to use as you please. You can also sort by resource type, medium, date, and subject -- it's very well curated and endlessly inspiring! There is also a Shuffle View which allows you to serendipitously sort through one image at a time. New images are constantly being added to the collection, so there's always something new to uncover.
Cloud Service, Batia Suter
Cloud Service is a beautiful catalog of the joys of looking and making connections between seemingly disparate images. Suter draws from her own personal image archive and allows the viewer to read her mind as she takes you from one image to another. For me, this book plays on the childlike wonder one feels when looking into the sky and thinking to yourself, that cloud looks like a sheep! It's printed on newsprint in a way that is grainy and beautiful, and is one of my favorite books I own - I return to it often, and each time I find something new.
A favorite flea market find
I purchased this 1976 American Dairy Goat Association (ADGA) Catalog (Volume 22) for maybe $1 at a flea market so that I could reuse the images for collage purposes, but it became clear very quickly that I could never cut this book apart. It is full of pictures of dairy goats, hand-drawn goat-related advertisements from the 70s, and more information about the weights and statistics of prize-winning goats from across the United States than I could ever possibly need. This book looks rather unassuming from the outside, but you know what they say, you can't always judge an ADGA Yearbook by its cover.
Apple, Isamu Noguchi
Filing this under art I wish I owned... I love everything about this apple: the red lacquer lapping at the edge of the core, the imperfections of the seeds, the way it has aged - need I say more? The joy I imagine Noguchi felt whilst making this is almost contagious. I wish so desperately I could hold this in my hand!
