The Awakening Artist: Madness and Spiritual Awakening in Art is an art theory book that explores the collision of human madness and spiritual awakening in art. It examines a condition of insanity that can be seen in most art movements throughout art history and contrasts that insanity with revelations of beauty, wonder and truth that can also be found in many works of art. The Awakening Artist references concepts of creativity put forward by Joseph Campbell, Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Carl Jung and others. Furthermore, The Awakening Artist discusses many of the world s most important artists who explored the theme of awakening in art including Michaelangelo, Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Marcel Duchamp, Morris Graves and many others. Additionally, using concepts of Eastern philosophy, the book presents the case that human creativity originates from the same creative source that animates all of life, and that the artist naturally aligns with that creative source when he or she is in the act of creating. ,

Engaging students in artmaking, Lily Yeh transforms a derelict Beijing factory into a vibrant beautiful school for migrant workers' children.

A presentation on the Tibetan Buddhist path to enlightenment, through the lens of an artist's eye and experience. The sacred arts play an essential, intrinsic role in Tibetan Buddhist practice. Here, one of the great practitioners and master artists of our time presents a guide to the Tibetan Buddhist path, from preliminary practices through enlightenment, from the artist's perspective. With profound wisdom, he shows how visual representations of the sacred in paintings, sculptures, mandalas, and stupas can be an essential support to practice throughout the path. This work, based on the author's landmark Tibetan text, The Path to Liberation, includes basic Buddhist teachings and practices, clearly pointing out the relevance of these for both the sacred artist and the practitioner, along with an overview of the history and iconography of Buddhist art.

Former NYPD officer and current ghost hunter Jason Medina travels up the Hudson River to a hotbed of paranormal activity. The quiet New York suburb of Yonkers hides a history of hauntings. Now converted into apartments, old Public School 13 is the site of strange apparitions that may be ghosts of former students and teachers who died in a tragic fire. The Boyce Thompson Institute’s lofty goal of solving world hunger was never met, and unfulfilled spirits are said to lurk in its abandoned laboratory. Wealthy colonial landowners still watch over stately historic homes like Philipse Manor Hall. Even the iconic Untermyer Park is a playground for the otherworldly. Local ghost investigator Jason Medina reveals these and other ghosts of Yonkers.

The riveting story of how three years spent in the United States transformed Frida Kahlo into the artist we know today "[An] insightful debut....Featuring meticulous research and elegant turns of phrase, Stahr’s engrossing account provides scholarly though accessible analysis for both feminists and art lovers." —Publisher's Weekly Mexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure. In November, 1930, she was thrilled to realize her dream of traveling to the United States to live in San Francisco, Detroit, and New York. Still, leaving her family and her country for the first time was monumental. Only twenty-three and newly married to the already world-famous forty-three-year-old Diego Rivera, she was at a crossroads in her life and this new place, one filled with magnificent beauty, horrific poverty, racial tension, anti-Semitism, ethnic diversity, bland Midwestern food, and a thriving music scene, pushed Frida in unexpected directions. Shifts in her style of painting began to appear, cracks in her marriage widened, and tragedy struck, twice while she was living in Detroit. Frida in America is the first in-depth biography of these formative years spent in Gringolandia, a place Frida couldn’t always understand. But it’s precisely her feelings of being a stranger in a strange land that fueled her creative passions and an even stronger sense of Mexican identity. With vivid detail, Frida in America recreates the pivotal journey that made Senora Rivera the world famous Frida Kahlo.

In late 19th-century New Orleans, social constraints are strict, especially for a married woman. Edna Pontellier leads a secure life with her husband and two children, but her restlessness grows within the confined societal norms, and the expectations placed upon her – from her husband and the world around her – create increasing pressure. During a trip to Grand Isle, an island off the coast of Louisiana, her life is turned upside down by an intense love affair, and passion forces her to question the foundations of her – and every woman’s – existence. Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening caused a scandal with its outspokenness when it was published in 1899. The novel’s openly sexual themes and disregard for marital and societal conventions led to it not being reprinted for fifty years. It wasn't until the 1950s that Chopin’s work was rediscovered, and The Awakening received significant acclaim. Today, it is not only seen as an early feminist milestone but also as a classic. KATE CHOPIN [1851–1904] was born in St Louis. She had six children during her marriage, and it wasn't until after her husband's death in 1882 that she emerged as a writer. She published short stories in magazines such as Vogue and The Atlantic, gaining appreciation and recognition for her depictions of the American South. However, she was also criticized for her disregard for social traditions and racial barriers.