Alfred A.Knopf in 1935

b.1892 – d.1984

.

.

Back in the 70′s when I was a Creative Director at Ballantine Books — the paperback division of Random House — I had the privilege to meet some of the most extraordinary men and women in the book pubishing world: Donald Klopher, Robert Bernstein, Ronald Bush, Robert Gottleib, Ian Ballantine, and Alfred Knopf, to name a few. Read Knopf’s bio for the history of publishing in the 20th Century. He was brave, strong, powerful, opinionated, creative, a risk taker and one of the few publishers willing to publish poetry in the so-called mainstream.

After receiving his B.A. in 1912, Knopf worked as a clerk at Doubleday (1912–1913), then as an editorial assistant to Michael Kennerly (1914). He founded his own publishing house in 1915. The company initially emphasized European, especially Russian, literature, hence the choice of the borzoi as a colophon. At that time European literature was largely neglected by American publishers; Knopf published authors such as Joseph Conrad, W. Somerset Maugham, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, André Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, and Franz Kafka.

Knopf also published many American authors, including H.L. Mencken, Theodore Dreiser, Vachel Lindsay, James M. Cain, Conrad Aiken, Dashiell Hammett, James Baldwin, John Updike, Shirley Ann Grau, and Knopf’s own favorite, Willa Cather. He often developed a personal friendship with his authors. Knopf’s personal interest in the fields of history, sociology, and science led to close friendships in the academic community with such noted historians as Richard Hofstadter, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Samuel Eliot Morison.

For more bio info

Honoring Knopf’s passion for publishing poetry, Knopf (a division of Random House) offers a Poem-A-Day each April. Go to Knopf and sign-up for a free daily poem, which often includes recordings of readings, broadsides, biographies, comments, background material, and food for the soul.

How may you use poetry as a point-of-departure? Post your artwork and comments here.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

share this

.

.

If you don’t know Todd Selby’s work, you should.

Visit Selby at his website.

Comment. Let us know what you think.

.

.

.

.

.

About the book

The Selby Is in Your Place was conceived when fashion and interiors photographer Todd Selby began taking portraits of dynamic and creative people—authors, musicians, artists, and designers—in their home environments and posting them on his web site. Nosy by nature, he wanted to see how personal style was reflected in private spaces. Lucky for us, he found his answer in the color-rich and eclectic quarters of a diverse group of subjects, including Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler, Faris Rotter, Andre Walker, and Olivier Zahm, in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney, and London. Each profile is accompanied by Selby’s watercolor portraits of the subjects and objects from their homes, and illustrated questionnaires, which Selby asks each sitter to fill out. This book consists of over thirty profiles, many of which have never-before-seen, selected exclusively for the book. The result is a collection of unique spaces bursting with energy and personality that together create a colorful hodgepodge of inspirational interiors.

About the author
Todd Selby is an interiors, fashion, and portrait photographer and painter. His photographs can be regularly seen in British Vogue, Vogue Hommes International, Dazed and Confused, Another Magazine, Nylon, New York Magazine, and the London Sunday Times.

Lesley Arfin is the New York-based author of Dear Diary and the former editor of Missbehave magazine.

(from Abrams website)

.

.

share this

I have been sitting in front of my computer reflecting on how difficult it is to break old patterns of behavior such as checking my e-mail every five minutes rather than walking into the studio section of my loft and pushing paint, making telephone calls,or preparing a new workshop to be delivered in Boston on May 9th and 10th.

Most readers of this newsletter are part of a creative industry that seems fixed on perpetuating the status quo. Now there is a dichotomy: maintaining the status quo and creating. It is not possible to bring something new into being while focusing on standing still. Nothing ever remains the way it was. Certainly not the advertising industry and the relationships that photographers and other creative contributors have with it.

Most readers of this newsletter are part of a creative industry that seems fixed upon perpetuating the status quo. Now there is a dichotomy: maintaining the status quo and creating. It is not possible to bring something new into being while focusing on standing still. Nothing ever remains the same as it always was. Certainly not the advertising industry and the relationships that photograhers and other creative contributors have with it.

.

…How easily we allow our old habits and patterns to dominate us. Even though, as Nyoshul Kempa’s poem tell us, they bring us suffering, we accept them with almost fatalistic resignation for, we are so used to giving in to them. We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved.

Still reflection can slowly bring us wisdom. We can come to see we are falling again and again into fixed repetitive patterns and begin to long to get out of them. We may, of course, fall back into them again and again, but slowly we can emerge from them and change. The following poem speaks to us all…

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Sogyal Rinpoche

.

..

Autobiography in Five Chapters
Nyoshul Khenpo

1
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost . . .I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in…it’s a habit.
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault
I get out immediately.

4
I walk down the same street.
There’s a hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5
I walk down another street.

,

,

,

,…

What are the habits that need to be broken to grow your career? When will you have the courage to walk down another street?

The system in which photographers, illustrators, designers, copywriters, art directors, and other significant players in the communications business is broken. Yet so many are holding onto the old paradigm and expecting the same results. But the paradigm is changing and demands that we become leaders in this change.

.

Old Habits

.

The industry is enslaved by old habits, methods, resistance, fear, and paralysis. The serenity prayer comes to mind.

.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

.

We need to ask ourselves what cannot be changed. Are you willing to accept that business models that worked just a few years ago no longer work? Are you willing to look at the opportunities these changes present. The old systems for buying and selling commercial art are being replaced.As a creative person you have the ability to become part of the solution.

You must be the change you want to see in the world, as Mahatma Gandhi so eloquently said. In other words, change has to start within ourselves; we cannot expect the world to change if we do not. Instead of focusing on the problems, we can start to live the solutions.

Take a look at some new ways to make a living as a photographer.

Steve Uzzel discovered he had learned so much about creative problem solving that he wanted to share it with the corporate world and help them prepare for change.

My Think Tank Team Teleconference participants are identifying and developing alternative markets for excellent fine art photography.

Chase Jarvis and others are developing apps that appeal to wide audiences of professional and serious amateur photographers. The Best Camera app invites people to come back to post their photo adventures this expanding his sphere of influence.

.

Manifest love,
Ian

..

..

.

I can help you grow your business. Call today.
I will tell you about individual coaching and group teleconferences.
The first coaching session is free.

There are no obligations.

Tel 610-438-5707
Cel 610-393-6816

The Heartstorming Philosophy

Ian Summers
145 South Eleventh Street
Loft #4
Easton PA 18042

iansummers@heartstorming.com

www.heartstorming.com
www.iansummersartwork.com

7 Heartstorming Webinars
are Available for Free at liveBooks’ Website

Copyright © 2010 Ian Summers

.

.

.

share this