New Releases by Virginia Wright

Who decides how, when, and where Americans fall in love and get married? Virginia Wexman's acute observations about movie stars and acting techniques show that Hollywood has often had the most powerful voice in demonstrating socially sanctioned ways of becoming a couple. Until now serious film critics have paid little attention to the impact of performance styles on American romance, and have often treated "patriarchy," "sexuality," and the "couple" as monolithic and unproblematic concepts. Wexman, however, shows how these notions have been periodically transformed in close association with the appearance, behavior, and persona of the stars of films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Way Down East, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Sunset Boulevard, On the Waterfront, Nashville, House of Games, and Do the Right Thing. The author focuses first on the way in which traditional marriage norms relate to authorship (the Griffith-Gish collaboration) and genre (John Wayne and the Western). Looking at male and female stardom in terms of the development of "companionate marriage," she discusses the love goddess and the impact of method acting on Hollywood's ideals of maleness. Finally she considers the recent breakdown of the ideal of monogamous marriage in relation to Hollywood's experimentation with self-reflexive acting styles. Creating the Couple is must reading for film scholars and enthusiasts, and it will fascinate everyone interested in the changing relationships of men and women in modern culture.

Today, the director is considered the leading artistic force behind a film. The production of a Hollywood movie requires the labor of many people, from screenwriters and editors to cinematographers and boom operators, but the director as author of the film overshadows them all. How did this concept of the director become so deeply ingrained in our understanding of cinema? In Hollywood’s Artists, Virginia Wright Wexman offers a groundbreaking history of how movie directors became cinematic auteurs that reveals and pinpoints the influence of the Directors Guild of America (DGA). Guided by Frank Capra’s mantra “one man, one film,” the Guild has portrayed its director-members as the creators responsible for turning Hollywood entertainment into cinematic art. Wexman details how the DGA differentiated itself from other industry unions, focusing on issues of status and creative control as opposed to bread-and-butter concerns like wages and working conditions. She also traces the Guild’s struggle for creative and legal power, exploring subjects from the language of on-screen credits to the House Un-American Activities Committee’s investigations of the movie industry. Wexman emphasizes the gendered nature of images of the great director, demonstrating how the DGA promoted the idea of the director as a masculine hero. Drawing on a broad array of archival sources, interviews, and theoretical and sociological insight, Hollywood’s Artists sheds new light on the ways in which the Directors Guild of America has shaped the role and image of directors both within the Hollywood system and in the culture at large.

Mikey loves everything about Christmas except one thing--deciding what gift he wants. As Christmas nears he frantically flips the pages of his mother's department store catalogs, looking for a toy that he wants most. Turning to his best friend Charlie for ideas, he finally finds the answer. But will he get what he wants this year? The Christmas Secret is an inspiring Christmas story written in a tone reminiscent of Christmas past--recommend for children and adults alike!

The Artist's Hand celebrates two complementary and necessary aspects of the art world, the hand of the artist and the role of art institutions, through the Washington Art Consortium's collection of American prints and drawings. The book chronicles the history of the Consortium--founded in 1975 as a group of institutions throughout Washington State who would share a collection of work by contemporary artists. The Artist's Hand illustrates the original collection of ninety-seven works accompanied by biographies of the fifty-two artists--among them Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Jo Baer, Myron S. Stout, Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, and Andy Warhol. Chris Bruce is director of the Museum of Art at Washington State University. Virginia Wright was instrumental in organizing the Washington Art Consortium and its collection.

Honeybees are fascinating insects. As a matter of fact, they are the only insect that provides us with golden, sweet, "healthy for us food," known as honey. Learn the basics about honeybees by reading this very interesting, easy to understand, story with photographs about where and how honeybees live, and what they do...

Walk alongside an award-winning nature artist as she observes, draws, paints, and writes about the majesty of the world's largest temperate rain forest. Richly illustrated, evocative, and highly informative, this careful study is an engaging, first-hand look at an ecological treasure. CBC Not Just for Children Anymore!, 2000 CCBC Choices, 2000 John Burroughs List of Nature Books for Young Readers, 1999 New York Public Library's One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing, 1999 Ohio Reading Circle, 2000 Society of School Librarians International Book Award (Honor Book), 1999-2000

An artist and her daughter explore a North Carolina barrier island and tell of all they observe during the course of a September day.

Heavily revised and with a new-co-author, A History of Film , is a comprehensive international survey of the narrative fiction film from its beginnings to the present. In the book, the contributions of major film-producing countries, significant filmmakers, and their films are highlighted within social, artistic, economic, and technological contexts. This fifth edition constitutes a major revision and update over half the text is new! The new edition updates the book's historical coverage while considerably expanding it to incorporate women and minority filmmakers and audiences, avant-garde and documentary traditions, and the wide array of global filmmaking practices.

At foot of title: Education Victoria Topics include: Governing Australia, Democracy in Australia, Antarctica.

Canada's furniture history includes hitherto unrecognized work of international significance in modern design. In this richly illustrated study, Virginia Wright brings such accomplishments to the fore, employing archival photographs and original documentation to trace the development of professional furniture design, design education, and design advocacy in Canada from 1920 to 1970.Chief among the milestones were the production in Ontario in the mid-1920s of moulded plywood seating for assembly halls, and the world's first moulded plastic furniture produced in prototype by the National Research Council in 1946 - three years before the more famous designs by Charles Eames in the United States. Within a narrative framework, Wright charts the development of modern design from its first appearance in an Eaton's department store, with pieces brought from the Paris Exposition of 1925, through its stealthy entry into Canadian homes, to its establishment as a dominant style. She shows how the introduction of modern industrial materials such as steel tube, rubber, and plywood into the production of commercial and institutional furnishings, and their incorporation into modern decor, reached a wide public through exhibitions and the media. Wright also reveals the relative neglect of this facet of Canada's art history by its museums and galleries, which, after featuring new furniture made in Canada, failed to acquire any for their own permanent exhibitions or study collections. The first account of Canada's innovative furniture design and fabrication of the period, Modern Furniture in Canada, 1920 to 1970 opens the door to a whole new field of study.

The author/artist describes many of the animals and plants and their surroundings that she has sketched in the Sonoran Desert.