The Scientific, the Metaphysical, and the Spiritual: Lisa Jenks’s Book List
By Steve Kroeter May 1, 2012
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| Lisa Jenks |
Jewelry designer Lisa Jenks: Lisa Jenks (New York)
The work of jewelry designer Lisa Jenks is prized for its originality, drama, and tactility. She is known especially for being finely attuned to the materials she works with, particularly sterling silver, in a way that allows physical characteristics to communicate cultural allusions. Her aesthetic influences range from angular forms in urban architecture to glyphs on the Mayan pyramids in Uxmal.
“I love designing jewelry,” she says in her statement for the Council of Fashion Designers of America, of which she is a member. “It can be a timeless component of our culture. Visually the world for me breaks down into patterns, from the towering angular forms of Deco skyscrapers to the local train tracks and telephone lines near my home in New York. I see patterns everywhere I look. Surface decoration and shapes all evolve from my fascination with pattern.”
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| Riptide bracelet, sterling silver, by Lisa Jenks |
While her bookcases are “a bit crowded,” Jenks admits to a not easily restrained interest in collecting art and design books, many of which provide inspiration that feeds into her work. On her book list for Designers & Books is Rediscovered Masterpieces of Mesoamerica—“the first art book I bought when I was in the midst of designing my initial collection. I’ve been hooked ever since.” She also includes volumes on Josef Hoffmann, Cartier, Art Nouveau and Art Deco bookbinding, Russian decorative arts in the teens, twenties, and thirties, and Françoise de Bonneville’s book on Jean Puiforcat (“one of my favorite designers”).
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| Ribbon Memento necklace, sterling silver on vintage ribbon, by Lisa Jenks |
Among other books on Jenks’s list are Muriel Barbery’s gentle and philosophical The Elegance of the Hedgehog, from which Jenks quotes that “art is emotion without desire”; Norman Doidge’s The Brain That Changes Itself (because in it “nothing seems impossible!”), and The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman (“I adore her artwork, but even more, her perspective on the world”).
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| Zigurrat earrings, sterling silver, peacock and gray freshwater pearls, by Lisa Jenks |
On her current reading list are Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird (also on Gail Anderson’s book list), David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries, and Joan Didion’s now classic collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem. “Scientific, metaphysical, or spiritual” is how she describes the books that she is drawn to.
Announcements
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Edited by Michael Merrill
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published: October 2021
The first in-depth study of drawings as primary sources of insight into architect Louis Kahn’s architecture and creative imagination. Based on unprecedented archival research, with over 900 illustrations and written contributions by Michael Benedikt, Michael Cadwell, David Leatherbarrow, Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, Michael J. Lewis, Robert McCarter, Michael Merrill, Marshall Meyers, Jane Murphy, Gina Pollara, Harriet Pattison, Colin Rowe, David Van Zanten, Richard Wesley, and William Whitaker.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Forthcoming: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast Design Matters—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy by John Lobell
Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy
By John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: June 2020
Noted Louis I.Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn’s focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
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