COVER STORY
Materials
Kurt Andersen and Paola Antonelli look at how materials shape the way artists and designers work.

Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha is one of the great Pop artists, but he's not a household name. That's probably because his projects look completely unlike one another -- from black and white photographs of the Sunset Strip to luscious drawings of words that he did in the 1960s. Words such as "Squirt" and "Pool" and "Dude," floating in 3d illusion above swirling, cloudy backgrounds. They're drawn in materials like gunpowder, lettuce juice, grass stains, Pepto-Bismol, and blood. Sarah Lilley explains.
Read a bio of Ed Ruscha
Read a review of Ruscha's drawings retrospective
Info on The Chocolate Room
Buy Cotton Puffs, Q-tips(r), Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha
Buy Ed Ruscha and Photography

Artsmith
Thousands of years ago people learned that if they melted a soft red dirt with limestone to draw out its impurities, the cooled metal would be extremely strong. Formed into weapons for millennia, iron became a medium for decorative artists -- a craft known as artsmithing. Chicago artsmith Richard Pozniak demonstrated the craft for Peter Clowney.

1 Tree, 4 Axes
The harmonies of a string quartet come from the score and the players of course, but also from the instruments themselves. Sara Fishko talked to the Miro Quartet, whose members are experimenting with the sounds that can be created from one old maple tree.
Go to the official site of the Miro Quartet
Buy the Miro Quartet's new album Opus 18 Complete

SPECIAL GUEST
Paola Antonelli
Paola Antonelli is a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a noted authority on design. The exhibitions she has developed include "Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design," "Workspheres," and "Safe: Design Takes on Risk," which will open in October 2005.
Go to MoMA's Architecture & Design Department
Buy Books by Paola Antonelli

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Needle Change
Ray Materson was in prison for an armed robbery he committed with a toy gun. He spent the first year of his seven-year term angry at the world and with himself for what he had done. Then he found a kind of redemption in a pair of socks. Produced by Jonathan Mitchell.
Go to a Raw Vision article on Ray Materson
Buy Ray Materson's book Sins and Needles: A Story of Spiritual Mending

Long Song
The nomadic herders of Mongolia's Gobi Desert preserve an oral tradition -- thousands of epic poems and melodies, many never recorded. So the best way to learn the folk songs of the Gobi herders might be to go there and drive around. That’s how an American student took up Long Song. Produced by Allan Coukell.
Find out more about the school to teach Long Song
Liner notes to a recording of Long Song
Buy The Story of the Weeping Camel, a film featuring the music of Long Song

Commentary
HBO Goes Public
The premium cable channel HBO is really an amazing institution.
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