The images above are from an art book that's been in my collection since 1997. The title of the book is Facing Eden: 100 Years of Landscape Art in the Bay Area and it's been in my collection since I bought it used at the main bookstore in downtown Santa Cruz (at the time) when I was studying abroad at UCSC . I've poured over this book so many times, always returning to the pages that include these select works as well as several of Diebenkorn's paintings that absolutely take my breath away every single time.
This picture of Diebenkorn's Seawall doesn't do it justice so see it here. This photograph, however, does represent the changing, supple, reactionary-to-the-elements nature of images in an art book. They become your own the more you live with them and return to the pages again and again. The oil of the fingertips turning the page, the residue of dank apartments and the wear of every place you've lived in the last X amount of years, the evidence of paint and of being an active inspiration... all of this adds to the energy of the book, which has now become a voice that is either perfectly present in a "one on one" mental crit or quietly beckoning and ready to offer A HECK OF A LOT at the drop of a hat on the bookshelf, without judgment. My collection of art books are quiet friends, they demand a lot of me, they will tell me without question that I've gone in the wrong direction or if something is not working, but they will never, ever judge.
